Pros
- interesting projects (in some departments) - a fair amount of resources for R&D work - the better departments have good links both to academic research and operations - a history of actually applying R&D ideas to operations successfully - good starting salary after school - great work/life balance
Cons
- poor project management leading to extremely long project times or useless work. Can be extremely demotivating - slightly insular atmosphere (people get hired right out of school, few outside hires) which can lead to being behind in industry best practices - pay is not motivating at all - slow and small pay increases - no competitive pressure on the company, little intelligent management pressure which leads to complacency and poor execution