Pros
I had the opportunity to work for the Northrop Grumman Technical Services as a designer and art director. Although I had over fifteen years of experience when hired, it was my first experience working for a corporation of that size. Needless to say I had high expectations. To this day I am baffled by the mixture of positives and negatives of my experience there. First, the positive. Almost everyone I worked with was very friendly from the first day. Professional, courteous, accommodating etc. I was hired part-time on-call yet they gave me 40 hours per week for the entire duration I was there. I was given the software I needed and one of the managers in particular was very helpful in that regard. Most importantly, they also had me working on a very compelling project, the details of which I am unable to discuss here, that enabled me to use my skills in a broad manner. For these things I was grateful.
Cons
This company apparently has terrible management. One manager (not my direct manager) directly asked me to work for free. He asked me to work on something on my own time since he did not have the budget for it. Being part-time on-call, I felt compelled to oblige him in the hopes that it would lead to permanent employment. My immediate manager appropriated a budget that I was awarded for a project I had conceptualized. This individual took every dime of that budget, such that I could not even pay myself to manage the project. The funding was granted by those in authority high above us, yet there was nothing I could do. I expressed my concern three times to this manager. He actually said, "I don't mean to cannibalize your budget, but ..." Yet that is exactly what he was doing. After assuring me that that funding would be based on my needs, he sent me an email, at home, mind you, with a list of everything he had procured, and it consumed the entire budget. The creative director, while always friendly to me, had two large dogs following her around wherever she went. Yes, just like the show The Office, but these were giant poodles. Being part-time on-call, I did not have my own office. I began in a large community cubicle space, and I was then moved into a two-person cube. Problems with noise led me to ask for permission to move into a vacant office nearby. I figured that, given my experience and the fact that I was leading a project, I should have my own office. There was just one problem, however. The office was actually used by the creative director's dogs. Unfortunately for me, I was less important than the poodles. This is actually the point at which I left the company. Perhaps revealing my own naivety, I never imagined such things happening at a company like Northrop Grumman. I considered sticking around, in the hopes of advancing or opening other doors, but in our weekly meetings, on more than one occasion, management made it clear that there was no room for advancement at this particular location. In summary, great people, poor management. I have no evidence that this reality is systemic. The feeling I got was that, in a hiring market, they can choose anyone they want to work there and they will have no problem finding individuals who will tolerate a reality such as I described. If you are ambitious and have self-respect then make sure you ask appropriate questions when interviewing.