Vantaggi
I was really lucky and had the oportunity from the very begining to create the role into what I wanted it to be. My role was so varied from really focussed customer delivery, visits to new, exisiting and potential clients all the through to supporting my thirst to learn more from a technical perspective.
Svantaggi
With the greatest of respect, some really technical people aren't necessarily great people people (and this remains true even in my job with a different company). Many of the senior colleagues in the business were there (both internal promotions and externally bought in) for technical expertise rather than leadership which was sometimes a miss. The approach at that time to HR issues were a little more generous than other employers. The MD I had when I left was pretty awesome guy though - completely about people.