Vantaggi
A surprisingly large number of very intelligent engineers, some very interesting technologies, and a fair amount of freedom and flexibility. Palo Alto campus is very pleasant, with open spaces, decent cafeterias, a nice little garden... there is a fitness center, but it's a bit inadequate.
Svantaggi
Restructuring is a biannual event, or worse. Political coups and hijacking of projects are common occurrences. Products are created by engineering, then sold as something else by a perpetually disconnected sales and marketing army, and suddenly a solidly engineered technology needs to be hacked into whatever it got positioned as for customers. HR in the US has been completely outsourced to offshore call centers, and things like compensation for paid leave, reimbursement for expenses, and help with problems with the health insurance provider can take months to resolve.