Pros

Working at the NRL has been excellent in many respects, especially as an intern. The breadth and depth of the work I am able to do is incredible, and I have a wide pool of extremely knowledgeable engineers to get help from when needed. The resources available to us are insane, as we operate on a military budget, and the work we're doing is exciting. I get a great deal of independence, occasionally taking on entire projects myself, but I typically work on smaller projects designed to improve the work efficiency for the more experienced (and therefore expensive) engineers. The work life balance is excellent. 40 hours a week, absolutely 0 expectation of extra work outside this. Extremely kind with vacation/sick days, not as cutthroat as private defense work.

Cons

While the work I do is often exciting and I usually have a great support network, that is not always the case. Being government work, things sometimes move incredibly slowly. I spent way too long struggling to get through red tape my first year there. Similarly, I spend a substantial amount of time trying to navigate the security systems and trainings required as a result of classified work. Finally, sometimes the independence granted to me as an intern is too much, and my requests for help are occasionally met with "just read a textbook." On one hand it is great to be paid to read/learn, but it also would be nice if I could get a bit more support on things when I'm thrown into the deep end as a student with little experience. Finally, the pay leaves much to be desired. This may not be the case for everyone, but I have received no substantial pay increases outside of inflation raises since I began working multiple years ago, despite frequent praise from my supervisors. Having friends that are students in similar positions making more than double my hourly pay is disheartening.