Pros
A lot of the woes that I see from sales employees are not as prevalent in the tech department. The pay is pretty good once you've gotten out of your first year or so (though not so great until you become senior). Stock options do become valuable in the end, you just have to be patient. You will learn enterprise level technology skills that are valuable wherever you go. You will be pushed to learn thoroughly, increasing value. Unless you have a meeting, there is generally no hard "you MUST be in the office by this time" kind of mentality. Yeah, you want to be a team player, but there is some flexibility on schedule as long as you meet what is required of you. I've seen some developers get away with rolling into the office well after 10 AM, which I think is GREAT being a night owl myself. The building is very good, and located outside the beltway rather than in the true depths of traffic hell that is downtown. Tech employees are given a lot of autonomy and time to work alone, which is great for introverts. Generally, if you get your job done, you are treated with respect. You aren't glued to your desk. PTO is low, but it DOES increase over time. Again, you need to be patient and have a little faith. There are some really good parties and events at the company. Our department does fun gatherings as much as we can. The culture is extremely diverse in tech. While other departments are predominantly white, technology has an incredibly diverse culture with people from all over the world. The 'high school' culture sales review speak of is nonexistent in technology.
Cons
You're expected to work 9 hours per day, rather than the traditional 8. This is very lame. But I at least eat my lunch during those 9 hours even though I'm probably not supposed to. Again you aren't glued to your desk. Pay was pretty low for the first year. After my first promotion, they didn't even give me a raise with the promotion. But then I got a huge raise about 6 months after and ever since them I'm much happier with my pay. No 401k does kind of suck. But at least they do have the stock options. These will add up over the years if you're loyal. Some people are a little over zealous and take themselves too seriously. These are the kind of people who have no problem working more than 9 hours per day and it bothers me a bit that they're helping propagate a poorer work/life balance. It should go without saying that during major releases and moments when an urgent bug fix is needed, you will need to work late. But you can often compensate for this by working a bit less time the next day. Though not inside the beltway, traffic in Tyson's Corner is enough to drive anyone to the brink of insanity. Honestly I'd say besides the 9 hour work days, the traffic around here is the single worst thing about this job. HOWEVER, that would be the case with ANY job in the area. Once the traffic and 9 hour work day are combined, you start to run out of free time very quickly. You gotta have your free time at the end of the day.