Pros
Health insurance is almost entirely paid for Allows some telecommuting past a few years experience and there may be some work building flexibility
Cons
Pay starts low, so you get a lot of cross discipline hires who will work for less or new college grads who have no idea how much their time is worth. Even raises are slow, not merit based, and are not given any room for discussion. This is justified by them as consequence from being a conservative and safe career for the lifers. Only promote from within so management will largely be those who have no management or interpersonal skills. Depending on the group, you might take twice as long to get promoted to any lead positions, and switching groups is very difficult if you're the one that wishes the change. If they need you switched somewhere, they will not ask your opinion and will tell you within days of it occurring. It is VERY difficult for anyone to be fired short of doing something illegal. Employees will be kept on for years getting equal salaries while multiple complaints are filed against them for this. I have seen this happen numerous times and those people are still working there today.