Vantaggi
Many outstanding technologists and project managers, some very enjoyable clients (EPA in particular), interesting large projects.
Svantaggi
Not many downsides when I started about 10 years ago, but even before the economic downturn, senior management began centralizing control in the hands of a very few managers. Now a supervisor can't approve a $100 purchase for required equipment without getting high-level approval. Furthermore, with the growth of the past 10 years, the bureaucracies in Health & Safety, HR, and IT have gotten out of control, to the point where they forget that their job is to support our primary mission of engineering, construction, and planning. Finally, the contradictory messages ranging from "last year was our best ever, thanks!" to "we absolutely need to reduce overhead costs, so raises are small again and you need to be 100% billable" (resulting in limited training and management budgets) are getting absurd.
