Pros
Something I must give CIL credit for is the amount of responsibility new joiners receive upon completing induction (which is mostly useless, see Cons). We are expected to bear our weight early and often, which I appreciate, and grow upon during each project.
They do seem to hire good individuals and hard workers for the most part, and I genuinely enjoy working alongside (some) of my coworkers.
While both of these aspects are top-notch, that is unfortunately where the positives end.
Cons
There are so many of them that it'll be hard to list them all, but I will do my best.
Post Project Reviews: After every project, team members are provided with a Post Project Assessment (PPA). You are graded against a certain set of criteria, such as quant skills, adherence to core values, and "critical thinking". If these terms sound subjective, it's because they are. One manager may grade you as "exceeding expectations" while another may be critical of you for the same quality and level of work. They seem to be based on favoritism rather than actual merit, which means you are at the mercy of whatever upper management you work with on a given project. Not to mention, there are no standards as which to measure against in the first place, which is probably part of the problem.
Work-Life Balance & Office Culture: Many of us were completely lied to in the interview process about this aspect of the job, and the reality is far starker than what we were promised by CEO Jon Whiteman during our induction (which in no way, shape, or form prepared us for the realities and responsibilities of the job). "One sprint a year" couldn't be further from the truth (we do seemingly 2 a month as an office). There is no such thing as an enjoyable project when everyone is frequently working 60 hours per week on even the lightest workload. The partners and directors, when asked to work on tighter timelines, happily agree, without any regard for the welfare of the team members, and this is considering the level of work they agreed to in a certain timeframe is quite ridiculous anyway.
Upper Management: Speaking of the partners and directors, most of them are rigid, micromanaging, and have 0 emotional IQ. As others have said, the organization is completely political and taxing. HR is completely incompetent, and as mentioned in the Pros, the training is mostly irrelevant for what we actually do on the job, save for setting up our tech equipment).
TOIL policy: Despite what it may seem, TOIL is only granted at the discretion of upper management, which is extremely unfortunate, given it is a great policy on paper. The problem is these days are rarely granted given the attributes of upper management I listed above. I had maybe 1 in a calendar year.
Overall, for our efforts, we are undercompensated and overworked compared to similar firms. Asking MBB level work of us on T2 prices and timeline is outrageous.