Vantaggi
The most valuable thing that this position offered me was a chance to build my skills. They were happy to give me a chance to learn anything and everything I wanted to, and allow me to try new approaches that helped me grow as a professional. My boss and the other statisticians that I worked with were great also. It had a fairly flat organizational structure, and was fairly informal, which I appreciated. I appreciated the chance to regularly publish scholarly research that I had done as part of the job. I think the company itself is in good shape compared to a lot of other insurers when it comes to its ability to adapt to the Affordable Care Act. I expect it to do pretty well in the future.
Svantaggi
After I had been working there for about a year and a half, it dawned on me that I was chronically underpaid. Salary info obtained online seemed to agree that Master's level statisticians in the twin cities typically fetched a higher salary. Yet the way my position was funded, they really couldn't afford the market value. The job started off really fun, but gradually ate more and more of my life. By the time that I left for another company, I was working about 65-hour weeks on average, which I felt was too much. The thing that really killed it for me though was that my role was basically a billable hours position, which was bad enough, but every suggestion that I gave to improve how my time was accounted for was basically ignored. It seems like the problems plaguing the niche I occupied were never worth consideration for the people that could do anything about them. It became clear to me that I was giving a lot more than I was getting, and there was no evidence at all of any concrete plan on their part to do anything about that.