Vantaggi
Leads and new engineers generally very enthusiastic and high quality. Good at large, complex and high value projects. High focus on safety of staff and construction staff. Most of the staff engineers are good people to work with, but politics seems to kick at the management level.
Svantaggi
No career progression - if you are good as a project lead engineer your manager is likely to block movement to Project Manager. Little stability in workflow - in peaks 50+hr weeks are common, in troughs initially contrcactors then staff are chopped briskly (so the people left are still working 40-50 hrs/wk). Leads are likely to be thrown second tier contractor staff to populate a project team, and epected to make it work. Very poor on work life balance although accomodating to staff with young families. Management pressure to offshore design work to India will dry up promotion and experience paths for new engineers.