Pros
- Most coworkers are pretty nice folks. - More culturally diverse group than expected (below the senior management line, that is). - Job security? You betcha. - Senior management and above seem to be on top of their stuff, for the most part. - Great entry level positions. Lots of early learning opportunities for those willing to roll up their sleeves and take initiative. Expeditors is a good company with good people. It manages to maintain an environment nearly devoid of back-stabbing Microsoft-esque competition. Unfortunately, expectations of individual contributors might in fact be too low, and are at the very least way (way) too fuzzy. It's quite nice to not be micromanaged, but be careful not to become so hands-off that you don't know what's really going on and fail to realize the time and effort people are investing in order to produce those high-quality systems. Pay closer attention at the supervisor/front-line management level, and set clearer expectations so that folks actually know how to meet (and exceed) them.
Cons
- Communication is incredibly poor in areas. - Benefits & total compensation are not the most competitive. - Safe and stable (read: outdated) technology. - Changes that would obviously be beneficial are still rather hard to come by (Some would say that this is especially so if the idea originated with an IC and not a manager. Whether or not this is true, it's not likely true of all or even most managers; obviously, manager performance varies throughout a company of this size). Still, as a general rule, the changes that do actually come about happen...very...slowly. - "Don't rock the boat" is the clear message from some managers. - Yearly reviews can be hit or miss. May or may not accurately reflect all of your contributions/growth/progress over the full previous year. See note above also about setting clear expectations. Depending on your supervisor and/or managers, information inbreeding and the perils it provokes might be a risk; an individual contributor's exposure to, exploration and presentation of new ideas might or might not be encouraged. Sometimes it felt like the plan was to "shelter" the lower ranks from the outside world and let the "good" ideas just trickle down from above whenever they got around to realizing them. At times I felt pressured to get with this sort of program--to stay in my designated place (inside a box), color only within the lines and to only speak if in agreement.