Vantaggi
Caterpillar compensates very well while expecting no more than a 40 hour work week. That's not saying there aren't any work/life balance issues, but we can flex our time accordingly. Caterpillar will provide (2009) a more flexible health insurance plan that will allow employees to choose more preferred hospitals. Typical new-hires will see promotions within 1.5 - 2 years, with probably a total of 3 promotions in a 6-8 year span. Employees will have more lateral job moves thereafter (i.e., different job with no extra pay), so climbing the corporate ladder is easy the first couple rungs, but gets very difficult later.
Svantaggi
From an IT perspective, there are fewer jobs above management unless you decide to become a 6 Sigma Black Belt or Project Manager. Really brilliant IT people aren't rewarded/recognized very well. The farthest an IT guy can go while still being a "techie" is Senior IT Analyst, maybe an IT Specialist. However, when most IT people at Caterpillar hit that glass ceiling, they end up changing careers and become some supervisor or a project manager. Thereafter, we lose a technical person who could really rock if allowed to do so. What I'm trying to say is, Caterpillar is stuck in the Stone Age when it comes to developing software.