Pros
1) Great pay right out of college, yearly raises based on performance 2) Fully paid health insurance premiums 3) Relocation bonus and fully paid moving costs 4) Cost of living adjustment for high cost areas (Boston, NYC, DC) 5) Fun, smart, enjoyable coworkers who you actually want to hangout with after work 6) Annual conference to a resort area with free food, events, and alcohol 7) FSRA (bonus) paid out yearly in December 8) Being able to see different parts of the country that you would not have seen otherwise. 9) Paid overtime over 40 hours per week which is unheard of in this sector. 10) Working on public software, your work has a large impact on the community around you and definitely gives me a sense of accomplishment in what I do. 11) Opportunities to go recruiting, to conferences and other cool travel events. I've been able to work deskside support, on a demo, recruiting, and at a conference even though I have only been here for 3 years. 12) A paid 1 month sabbatical every 4 years were you have time to go do just about anything.
Cons
1) Skill stagnation - You do not gain a lot of tech industry skills that would allow you to easily transfer to another tech company. The problem solving and soft skills are great to have and develop but the fact of the matter is we do not use a tech stack that is transferable to other firms. Most people who leave will leave early to go back to school or entry level somewhere else. This would be less of a problem if it wasn't for the next point. 2) Moving - Having to move every 2-3 years or even more over your entire career is not a sustainable career for the vast majority of people. It has been tough to retain people over the years because of this. This makes people want to jump ship early to avoid having to move somewhere where there are fewer job prospects or be stuck in the "golden handcuffs" by having to move constantly to keep their high salary. It also causes a great loss in knowledge investment on Fast's side by investing time and resources into people only to see them leave in 1-2 years. 3) Profit Sharing - Small profit share instead of a 401k match like most employers. Not the biggest issue, but the vast majority of people in the company would prefer a higher 401k match to reward people actively saving for retirement. If Fast sent a survey out for this they would see this. 4) Senior employees - From what I have witnessed and from talking to other fasties, the longer you have been here the more you can get away with at work. There are some senior fasties who feel entitled to not doing as much or that their work is superior to others solely because they have been there longer. I have seen them do things in the past that would have gotten a newer fastie reprimanded at the very least but nothing happened. This needs to be addressed seriously by management or in the case that a PM is the one doing this, by a director or partner. 5) Unreasonable overtime - Some projects will have roll-outs were individuals have to work 30-50+ hours of OT in a pay period. I think this is OK to happen around roll-outs because you really need all hands on deck to get the job done but if it continues on for much longer than that people start to break down and want to leave. If you have required overtime for more than 3 months, that is a project management/resource failure not a developer failure. 6) Some career stagnation - It can be hard in a "flat" organizational structure to feel like you are getting recognized for your time at FAST and your work when there are limited title changes available and there are many people above you who have been with the company for awhile who don't want to step down from the manager roles. I don't think this is much of an issue though since responsibilities are pretty spread out regardless of title and most fasties are pretty down to earth about this sort of thing.