Vantaggi
1. Awesome people. Seriously. There are some crazy smart people working here. 2. Cultural History. There is an extensive and well earned culture built around provided the best support in tech. 3. Options/Stock grants appears to be getting better than they were 2 or 3 years ago. Mostly, though, it's the people. I loved the teams that I worked with.
Svantaggi
1. Compensation. The grapevine is full of verifiable stories of techs (regardless of discipline) leaving the company and receiving 50-100% raises, large options/stock grants, large relocation packages, etc. 2. Ineffective middle management. Everyone has their stories. 3. Training is barely there to non-existent. What training that does exist isn't effectively managed. 4. Silos. There are a LOT of silos. Cloud, for example, is often seen as a 'black box' - and feels like a separate company. Each of the support organizations feels as if they are in direct competition with each other. 5. Less pride/ownership/whatever you want to call it in the work the support teams are doing, leading to mediocre solutions and rework as 'patchy' solutions fail later on. 6. Work-life balance can be horrifyingly out of whack. 7. Emphasis on "friends and family" can result in employees' real families feeling neglected.