Pay is far less than it could be. If you end up on the wrong project you can be micromanaged and/or doing work far below your skillset and abilities causing lack of interest, boredom, and a stall in your skills/career. Far too much pressure to bill to client. If you don't have enough work to fill your time you can end up knocking on doors or sending "cold call" emails essentially begging for work or you'll end up using your PTO to cover your time, or worse having to drop down to part-time status until you can find more project work. And when you do find something to do, it's basically the work no one else wanted and 99% of the time tedious and again below your skills and abilities. They continue to hire BS level statisticians to be competitive in price to win contracts leaving MS level statisticians scrambling to find work because they're now considered too expensive. So you end up getting your 2-2.5% increase, which if you stay long enough will get your salary to a comfortable place but then you'll be performing at a below BS level, zapping your confidence and hindering your chances at a promotion or job change. I've come across way too many MS level statisticians with 10-15 years of service at RTI who still don't feel like confident statisticians and feel stuck.
