Pros
The people you work with are very friendly, and the open floorplan allows for a lot of interaction. Coworkers are very helpful when you need something explained. They do attempt to keep morale up through monthly nights out with your team and semi-annual parties. Good work gets commented on in a special recognition section of the internal website.
Cons
There were a couple of things that I found difficult to understand or accept during my time at CSN. First, the pay is very low, and in the CS department it is based on numbers that are not always accurate, both because they can be gamed by other employees and because the system used to track them is very glitchy. This is a little disconcerting because your pay is based on these numbers. Also, during my time there, the scheduling system was changed with virtually no advanced warning. Suddenly, you were working a different schedule each month, which was especially frustrating because you are required to book vacation time before knowing what your schedule would be, which made it very difficult to plan. The biggest issue I had working at CSN, though, was the manner in which promotions are handled. For all the talk of meritocracy (and there is a lot), my experience, and that of many of my coworkers, was the opposite of that. At one point, I interviewed for an internal opening in a job that I had gone to college for and had previously worked in, successfully, for over five years. Several weeks after my interview, I was contacted by the head of the department, who told me that I was "definitely" the most qualified of the applicants. However, I was informed that there was another employee who had been with the company longer and had applied for this position several times before. For this reason, that employee was given the job. At that point, I began looking for a new job. I ultimately wound up working in the same field that I was passed over for at CSN, and making about twice as much as I would have been. I suppose all's well that ends well, but that incident definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. I know that similar things have happened to several other employees at CSN, and I know that people tend to be promoted based on how much out-of-work time they spend with their bosses more than the quality of the work they do while at the office.
