Pros
* Good benefits like healthcare and 401k options * Some people are extremely intelligent and dedicated to the work / excellent mentors * Somewhat decent work/life balance depending on the time of year * Enormous budget to always have nicest things to work with * Easy to access location next to retail and eateries * Generally nice people to work with * Challenging work * "guise" of doing a greater good for the people of the United States
Cons
* Top heavy management structure. * Completely disconnected from reality C-levels (talk way too candidly about their time playing golf, spending weeks at their vacation homes,or private jets), those things are nice, but be honest that most people working for you don't have the millions you do. * Projects drag on for years, often with very little input from management for direction. * It's clear some employees carry the burdens of many others. Helpdesk and customer service teams constantly given more and more to do while other teams and managers sit and put together Lego sets or play video games. Cross training is always talked about but never seems to happen. * Little way in terms of advancement, lateral moves are most of what I've personally seen, the only time promotions occurred is if someone left the company for a term, and then came back and applied for a higher position. * People Managers are aloof, or not even qualified to be in their positions, and not in tune with the needs of the people doing the work. A certain degree of nepotism exists and some people are merely kept on because they have tribal knowledge of a product that has never been written down and they are the only ones that know how to solve specific issues with tech debt that they themselves created. * Employee review system is aweful, most people spend the first 6 mos of any year either resting from the previous year's sprint, or slacking off, then mid term reviews come in and everyone seems to push to meet their goals in a compressed schedule. When you have to work cross functionally between departments, this can cause extreme levels of burnout. * Multiple solutions are purchased, and often the worst one or two options are used, which incur a lot of needless stress to manage the applications. * In the same tune, management sugar-coats problems to their middle managers, and middle managers sugar coat to VP's, by the time it reaches the C-Suite, everything is "awesome" * At the end of the day you eventually realize you are working for a monopoly (but must never utter that word in the office) which only exists to benefit large pharma companies and lobbies to derail a real single payer system in the US and keep the private insurance status quo. * If the going gets rough, they will cut you loose with no remorse, IE. when products discontinued, personal issues, using up your FMLA, etc. They will lay you off or dismiss you without a second thought.