Pros
Reasonable benefits (they used to be much better). Pay is okay, not great. If you land a job as a director or above, you'll be fine. Those people rarely face consequences for their bad decision-making. None of those jobs will be sent overseas to third world hell holes either. So, if you're not upper management material and looking for something to get your feet wet and move on in 2-4 years, LF is a great place to work!
Cons
Resources are overly tight. You will be overworked and micromanaged. You will be given ambiguous goals and forced to guess what they want. Other people will take credit for your work. You will always be called on the carpet for everything that goes wrong, even when it's well-known that it was out of your control. Defending yourself from attack will just bring more attacks. They're stingy with praise when things go well. This used to be a design and engineering driven company. Now it's run by salesmen who don't know anything about the products. They just want to sell the cheapest product, not the best product. Explaining to customers why they should pay more money for something that's better is HARD WORK. How will you do that if you can't understand the products anyway? It's so much easier to just sell something cheap. Oh, and don't buy into the company's "values" and policies. You can't trust these people. The management doesn't live by their own values. Whatever you do, don't call them out on it. Retaliation is something they excel at (even though it's against their "values"). Why did the entire HR staff leave within 12 or 16 months? They probably got tired of having to lie to their friends and seeing good people get screwed over. They got tired of telling you that your crappier and crappier benefits were actually good for you. I quit after more than 10 years with this company. The company I joined was fast-paced, energetic, dynamic, and fun...and you felt like you belonged to something and you were happy to work hard because you felt they appreciated it. Things change. Eventually, the only jobs at this company in the US and Europe will be executives. Engineering, accounting, customer service, test labs, prototyping, human resources, etc will all be done in low-cost countries. If the company has a bad quarter or if the stock price dips, you'd better get your resume polished up. Anyway, no need to worry, you're probably more valuable than LF gave you credit for anyway. You can find something making 10 to 15% more in a few weeks. While LF is in a self-imposed recession, other employers are hiring and they want and need your skills and experience.
