Vantaggi
Good teamwork within a contract. Still feels like a growing company. Benefits are pretty good. Work environment is comfortable. Better than being unemployed.
Svantaggi
Working for the gov't involves lots(!) of red tape and more documentation than I thought possible. Don't get me wrong, I understand the importance of documentation but what they require is just over the top. For such a large company they are extremely cheap about spending money on IT. Funding for basic IT needs gets charged to contracts rather than overhead which leads to a tenuous situation when the contract ends regarding the disposition of hardware/software. Pay is a little on the low side. The level of IT knowledge seems to be on the lower side. I don't consider myself a guru on anything but I had to explain simple things like VLANs to my office several times (and I'm still not sure they 'get it').