Vantaggi
Paid well, very minimal supervision, office in beautiful downtown Pasadena. Lots of opportunities for advancement. Never a boss or manager breathing down your neck, you basically get to work at your own pace. And if you were a hard worker, it was easy to earn recognition for your performance.
Svantaggi
Not having a manager or supervisor sometimes leaves you out in no-man's land, where you aren't sure what you're supposed to be doing. Some employees would go days without knowing who to report to or what to work on. Those kinds of employees generally didn't last long. There was very high turnover. The self-starters could turn this negative into a positive, however. When I left, the company was beginning to outsource every position to India. No clue if this is still going on.