Pros
Discounts and prodeals! Working for a corporation that does good.
Cons
Man, do I have a bittersweet relationship with REI now... Frankly, I had always wanted to work here. They sell, sell, sell you on the opportunity. Once you're in the door, it's a bit depressing. Cubicles galore (yes, that's changing when the new HQ is complete) and managers sit alongside the window like it's corporate America in 2007. It's clique-y and information is on a need-to-know basis, no matter how much they try to pretend they're transparent. If you're an "IC" (individual contributor) you are most definitely treated differently than people managers. It's laughable, really. There are a couple of good people on the HR team. A couple of the best ones retired, leaving pretty big shoes to fill. Otherwise there was a lot of schmoozing at the manager/leadership/business level but not really any time spending getting to know the staff, besides maybe 30-45 minutes when you first join. In my role, I felt like a cog. Doing one think over and over again, reporting on it weekly because somebody somewhere was looking at numbers that didn't really matter anyway because they're the wrong metrics. There are some cool teams at REI and some departments doing state of the art stuff; don't get me wrong. But there is a weird, dichotomous culture and you're not included if you're not one of the cool kids.