Pros
The people here are great (at least for the most part). There's a sense of camaraderie among your engineering peers. The pay is at least on par with the nuclear power engineering consulting industry, which tends to be higher than regular industry. The Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) is actually a really good deal compared to your typical 401k matching, as long as you plan to stick around enough to vest completely (6 yrs). Gainshare bonuses are somewhat nice to see, but shouldn't be expected to make a big impact on your overall compensation. As far as the work itself, projects typically are long-term, which adds stability to your schedule, but they never seem long enough to squeeze the required amount of work into it. The company itself, though it hit a bump last year, has done exceedingly well year over year, and is reflected in the company's valuation (and stock price).
Cons
Yearly pay increases are fairly stingy, and you might feel like you're falling behind compared to new hires at your level (advice: negotiate a great starting salary). Holidays and vacations aren't as abundant as I had been used to. Only 10 holidays a year are given, and all vacation and sick days are lumped together as part of your PTO allotment. No 401k matching, but the ESOP makes up for that quite well so long as the company continues to grow. The industry requires lots of paperwork and processes due to the nature of the work, but they seem to continue to pile onto each other forcing most of your time spent on paperwork and compliance as opposed to productive engineering tasks. Management focuses too heavily on completing daily timesheets and hours must be requested from the PM which is manually entered prior to beginning the work . This is very frustrating, and takes time away from the task at hand. Advancement opportunities can be hard to come by, especially if you are forced to volunteer for an on-site assignment and are away from the main office for a year or more.
