Vantaggi
Some of the best, most talented developers and data analysts that I've had the pleasure to work with. The sort of people who inspire you to do better. Pay is quite good. Other benefits are negligible.
Svantaggi
Let's start with upper management, who, with a few exceptions, were the magical trifecta of inept, ignorant and arrogant. Avaricious salespeople promoted far beyond their competency level who are unwilling and unable to comprehend what their technical staff would actually do. The technology itself had promise. Some very talented people poured a huge amount of time and effort into it. Unfortunately, this went unrecognised within the company. Half finished solutions were rushed out of the door to make a quick buck. Developers would spend the majority of their time firefighting. Fixing bugs that should've never made it into production, providing low level tech support to the telesales team, and expend huge amounts of effort simply keeping the system running. What was meant to be a laissez faire environment went totally unchecked by lower management and team leaders. Cliques were common, tears were common, and valid concerns were dismissed as "banter" and "just the motor trade". Finally, for a company with a business model that is essentially eliminating inefficiency, they were staggeringly inefficient. Salespeople would swoop over new opportunities like vultures. Not communicating with each other about what was sold to who. More times than I can count I'd be told to work on a new feature, only to be told the following day to stop work and start on something else. A week later....back to the original feature, followed by inevitable "Why isn't it done yet?! You said it'd only take a day" conversation.
