Pros
Flexibility, location, parking, salary, PTO
Cons
Sparks, MD: Cliques exist everywhere in R&D and racial minority folks are excluded. Petty politics and a toxic work environment are accepted as common behavior. In R&D, many incompetent associates are in mid-management. R&D managers pretend to be experts at everything. Fight for control over projects and "keeping people out' is the favorite political game by R&D managers and directors. Top heavy R&D organization with too many R&D managers, associate directors, directors, senior directors, VPs. Powerless R&D leadership allows R&D associates to pick up all the slack from operations and process engineering teams to support production related sustaining projects. The R & D team does little to nothing on innovation and spends more time on projects discarded by process engineering teams. R&D management operates on favoritism allowing immense power to their deputies who facilitate bad behavior. R&D folks who rock the boat on these issues are warned or laid off eventually. Career advancement opportunities and leadership roles are mostly offered to certain types of "people" who meet the preferred racial and gender requirements of HR. Current programs of inclusion-race, career blueprint, and ARG's are ineffective. The mindset of most team members is to engage with people who look like them and ignore the racial minority. Many R&D groups barely have any racial minority representation. Long term R&D associates bully and drive away new hires especially racial minorities. Advanced degrees, certifications, professional experience, and contributions from racial minority groups are frequently overlooked. Stakeholder feedback system is used as a tool to complain and hinder the advancement of racial minorities. Layoffs at least twice a year and low morale.