Pros
If you can obtain a permanent position, the pay and benefit are among the best in USA for the same level of education and experience. How many other companies give you $50K+ starting salary as a fresh college grad, plus full health insurance, matching 401K, annual bonus and 3 weeks of paid vacation? As you progress higher, the benefit actually gets better. At my level Bayer basically gives double the salary of my previous local employer! Other pros: - The work hours are reasonably flexible if you have a good boss, and fortunately mine is. Certain locations even have summer hours. - While in most other companies "people are our most valuable asset" is an empty slogan, Bayer puts it into policy and action. There is a corporate-wide compensation committee that determines the appropriate level of pay for each new position, and their philosophy is to offer a competitive package in order to get the best person for the job and minimize his propensity to jump elsewhere. - As a health care company personnel health and wellness receive special attention. One of your tasks as a new hire is to make sure your work environment is ergonomically optimal.
Cons
In many ways it is still a traditional company with a lot of bureaucracy and silos. Your ability to accomplish most tasks would be limited by your system authorization, which means you have to ask for help from people in other roles or departments. Other cons: - There is a lot of top-down counterproductive decision making. Somebody in Germany would arbitrarily decide on a standard, then strongly resist any attempt to change it even when faced with a clear customer requirement against it. - Older employees who don't wish to or incapable of learning new methods and technologies are kept, then distributed around many departments. It is great for them, but not great for others who want to continuously improve the company when faced with real market / costumer challenge.