Pros
Applied research can be interesting, both your own and that of others. If you are successful, you can be here forever. Many employees have been here for 20+ years. Also, there is good health insurance. Low cost chair massages on Thursdays.
Cons
Lots of pressure to write winning proposals to keep yourself (and your managers) billable. Staff without Ph.D.'s are generally not going to be promoted and must either stay as technical support forever or leave. There is no coordination between divisions, people cross compete with clients. Management would rather let the client decide that a proposal is worthless than tell an investigator to not write it. Many proposals and reports are written on your own time to get around billable hours limits.