Vantaggi
There are a lot of amazing, hardworking, and dedicated employees. The work can be super interesting, the travel great, and you will get loads of experience. DAI has a solid reputation in this field and at USAID, so it's always a good place to work for a time. You will also meet colleagues with a ton of dedication and passion about their work. They can be great to learn from.
Svantaggi
I spent more than 10 years at DAI. I was pretty dedicated to the mission and goals of the company. I saw a lot of great stuff, but some really frustrating things too. It's very hard to grow - particularly is you are young, and this is your first job out of college or grad school. There are not many opportunities for promotion, but what is more upsetting is that there is very little loyalty towards employees. I've been through two different layoffs at DAI and in both cases excellent staff with great skills and stellar reputations were let go for shortsighted reasons. This led to an exodus by other experts, and really brought down moral. I feel like leadership at DAI is often out of touch with the staff, and decisions are not usually very transparent. There is also a culture of valuing older, senior (male) colleagues over younger, talented diverse staff. As the development market is getting tighter, especially in the US, DAI has definitely transformed. It pains me to say this, but it has become more like a beltway bandit than it would like people to believe.