Pros
There are a lot of fun people in the company. The lab having meme wars on the windows between departments. The dress code is super casual as long as you're lab safe (closed-toe shoes, thick pants). Jeans and a T-Shirt are perfectly fine every day. People walk around with visible tattoos, piercings and/or unnatural hair colors and it doesn't seem to be an issue. Even though it's a STEM field, there are plenty of women working at the company so there's no "bro culture." If you work Sample Receiving, you'll never need to pay for a gym membership because you'll be in great shape.
Cons
My department was an absolute disaster. It was completely normalized for people to have breakdowns and cry in the bathroom. The reaction was more like "oh, don't worry! I've done that too!" rather than questioning why that's acceptable. There are people in this department pulling 10-12 hours a day everyday like it's normal. The hours are long and all the project managers are salaried so workaholism is completely normalized. Unpaid Saturdays required for PMs. They have Project Coordinators to assist the department who are supposed to be training to become Project Managers but then they turn around and don't hire those people for that role. Instead they dump more unpaid labor onto those Project Coordinators and play favorites. The pay is also an absolute joke. I had a mental breakdown over financially struggling more than once. The pay was always low but inflation has made it a thousand times worse. I addressed this issue with management and then they asked me how I feel about my job and I said "fine." Fine wasn't good enough. My manager wanted me to be "thrilled" about my job. This department/job also has no room for assertive women as I was told I come across as "aggressive" by my supervisor when my other coworkers tell me I am the textbook definition of assertive. The company itself keeps buying out other labs instead of paying its own people more. Turnover is horrendous across all labs.
