Pros
-Good work-life balance. -Santa Monica location is very nice. Great place to live. -Austin office is beautiful with nice amenities. -Products are best-in-class. These are the investments you'd want your grandma in. -Good reputation in the industry so you can leverage DFA experience to get interviews at other shops.
Cons
-Below market pay. This has driven higher turnover recently. Was a major factor for me. -Difficult to get recognition if you don't sit in Austin. If you don't work in Austin, you need to make twice the contribution to get promoted a year later than someone in Austin. -Not allowed to work from home. It's fine that DFA does not want that to be a regular practice, but 90% of the job can be done remotely and if you have a slow week or two without any project work or meetings it would be better if you could work from home. That might almost make the below market pay bearable. -Hit or miss with managers. Most managers were promoted for being good at their PM job and now the company has grown to the point that it is necessary to have them managing people. The ability to manage people was not a criteria in selecting these managers in the first place so there are many managers who aren't very good at actually managing people. Some managers are good with people, but that's just luck, it was not by design. -Too much micromanagement. If you don't trust me to do my job, why did you hire me? This micromanagement extends to all aspects of the job. PM, client meetings, etc.