Pros
Almost all the people I have worked with at Exponent are truly fantastic. They are brilliant, personable, and willing to pitch in to help the team succeed. This makes the cons of working at Exponent even worse, because to do your job well, you often have to exploit those relationships and over-work those around you to meet client expectations and deadlines. The real pro of working at Exponent is the resume building for your next job opportunity. It serves as sort of an "industry postdoc" allowing you to apply your academic knowledge and skills outside of academia. You will be able to work on a volume of projects that will make you competitive for when (not if) you decide to move on.
Cons
First, your working conditions will be largely determined by your supervisor. If your supervisor values personal/family time then you will be somewhat shielded from the work/revenue expectations that come down from the C-suite. If your supervisor has drunk the Kool-Aid and you are not shielded, your experience will be like mine, and the majority of junior associates in my practice: Clients come first. Clients come before your mental health, your physical health, the laws of physics, limitations of time, and your promise to your spouse that you wouldn’t work on a vacation. When a client asks for something, you have to do it. I’ve heard stories of people being on leave to attend a funeral, but being asked to work because a client needed something. Clients will often ask for things last minute and will not be willing to pay for them. You have to do those things anyway, within the timeframe the client needs. If you are sick and a client needs something, you tough it out. If you are struggling mentally with the hours and the expectations (both internal and external) at Exponent, and a client needs something, you tough it out. Exponent is very numbers-driven. Your productivity and value to the company are measured in “UT”; utilization time, or the percentage of your working time that can be billed to the client. If your UT is below ~70-85%, you are encouraged to work overtime because you’re not making the company enough money. You’re also incentivized to do non-billable work “off the clock” and not take vacation, because vacation time counts against your UT. This is particularly not the norm at other consulting companies where employees are not penalized for taking vacation. Management is consistently unresponsive to requests for better working conditions. They send out an annual “anonymous”* survey regarding employee satisfaction, and then present the cherry-picked, twisted “results” of that survey to the company with the overall message that the majority of people are happy. The results of this survey presentation never represent the true sentiments of employees who dare to suggest reform or express concern for working conditions and expectations. And with fresh crops of newly-minted PhDs graduating every year, looking for a way to fit in “industry,” junior associates are always replaceable. If you are a recent PhD grad looking for a way to transfer to industry and out of academia, Exponent may hire you. They will tell you that they’re grooming you to be the next principal in their practice and tell you that you can get there with enough sweat, blood, tears, and long hours. You’ll gladly take this sales pitch! You just finished a PhD, so you’re basically an expert in giving sweat, blood, tears, and long hours. And now you can do it for a living wage! You can't wait to sign. Your new goal is to make it to principal, and you will put. in. the. hours. Exponent will take every one of those hours, and then ask for more. “Everything will balance out in the end,” they’ll tell you. “Your hard work will be rewarded in RRS this year.” Except there are always extenuating circumstances for why they can't fully compensate you. *The survey alternates every other year by requiring you to disclose either your practice, or your office and tenure with the company. As such, any honest answer could be easily traced back to the person who wrote it.