Vantaggi
Fast pace Pretty much unlimited resources Budget isnt really an issue Passionate, intelligent team members Awesome projects, full ownership and you are sometimes able to see a project all the way through design to environmental test. Depending on the team, social culture is great. The company is very casual. The food options in Hawthorne are YUM. Great, amazing people, really great place to learn. Stock options are very appealing The way to survive here is by hard-enforcing your own work life balance and keeping yourself at a distance from personal work friendships
Svantaggi
Bro culture (while not everywhere) is certainly bred within the company, which can be very toxic. HR really has no power over employees especially if you're an intern or have not been employed as a full timer for years. As a female, I would sometimes get unprofessional attention from male techs which was generally uncomfortable. Some managers are great, but some just aren't a good fit for the role, and if you get stuck with the latter, you're screwed as an intern. Some managing/mentoring individuals can either be the most amazing people you've ever met, OR very type A or can be rude which can really erode an association with the team especially amongst interns (unfortunately HR cares to do nothing about this common issue) The company has also on numerous occasions punished people for speaking out as whistleblowers, which this past summer got multiple people fired and the issues they wrote about in the open letter were never addressed to employees. There is also a huge burn out culture here. This reminds you that you are expendable. Hundreds of very smart engineers could easily take over your role once the life is sucked out of you after working 12-14 hour days for months on end to meet ridiculously tight ("spicy") deadlines that with better upper management might potentially be slightly mitigated.