Vantaggi
Pariveda has a very clear career development plan given from day one. It is clear where you need to grow in order to move up in your career. A formal mentor increases your accountability and thinking about your career at a time. Consulting can give you a wide breadth of knowledge, and if you get staffed on a good project, you can learn a lot of great skills to grow your career. As a consultant, you get way more "client-facing" experience than you would at a standard engineering role. Could be a pro/con... The company is very transparent. Everyone is paid equally based on job level, and all salaries are known as a result. Weekly / Quarterly metrics are shared to the entire company. Free cell phone / service.
Svantaggi
In consulting, some of the company culture is based on your current client as you will be spending a majority of the time at the client's office. Pay is low for SF, especially at the lower levels. It levels out around the "Manager" title, but before that, most top talent engineers can find a significantly higher paying job elsewhere. In San Francisco, some client projects I've been on have not been interesting or have had lots of legacy cruft. Frequent weekend / night deployments, botched deployment processes, etc. Some company training, but in my opinion there is a gap in learning good management skills as a young manager. The insurance is Texas-based -- I had a hard time finding doctors in California.