Avantages
Great people, great communication from management, great benefits, great products. Emphasis on doing the right thing from a cultural, ethical, and environmental standpoint. Culture is great 90% of the time. Compensation is good but not super, though high-performing sales reps seem to make the big bucks when they have a good year. Execs are good at recognizing when a strategic change of direction is needed, but executing that change sometimes takes too long.
Inconvénients
Not the best at integrating acquisitions. Sometimes too much "Not Invented Here" attitude. Different business units don't closely coordinate strategy or planning, though recently this has improved somehwat. Many products or features are innovative and best-in-class but several products have been neglected, making them less competitive. Company was designed for ultra-high growth then dialed back to fast growth after dot-com crash, but now has to adjust in era of slow-to-moderate growth, which has required some difficult decisions. Work-life balance and flexibility depends on your manager, though most including mine seem reasonable. Engineering gets reorganized more often than needed. Sometimes the wrong Director/VP/SVP gets hired and introduces excess politics or nepotism for a few years before the top execs notice and replace him/her.