Once a great place to work and grow; now overworked, low morale, high turnover rate
Pros
The people are great. Direct managers treat their team and neighboring teams very well and most will fight for their reports. Everyone under infrastructure work together extremely well. Fairly open environment that allows learning on the job (within reason). (Most) leadership are open to feedback. (Only some) Infrastructure managers will provide feedback to you and other reports that will benefit your career, including communication skills. You are given a chance to move into different roles such as management or go across different teams (you can also promote within, but it is difficult and time consuming). Some engineers have great documentation that help immensely when trying to solve issues or build new architectures and features to benefit the enterprise.
Cons
Infrastructure department is treated terribly by all other departments and upper department heads. Teams outside of the infrastructure department are treated better and are given priority over infrastructure teams. Open office plan caused reduction in work and morale - infrastructure department sits where the call center used to be. Too much noise. Too many meetings. Despite the advancement of technology, work from home is still seen as an "unnecessary evil" by some leadership. Unless you are in the pockets of department/senior leadership and have "management/corporate speak" by drinking the corp. koolaid, prepare to have your professional opinion ignored (even with documentation to back your case up and great communication skills). In some cases, even consultants that are hired to tell leadership the same things that you (or the engineers) have been concerned or have complained about are treated much, much better. Evidence and documentation is ignored by non-infrastructure departments and leadership. Lack of communication between departments - infrastructure is always the last to be queried for opinions or thoughts, if ever. Work-life balance is only "good" when you are not in infrastructure; leadership says they don't "expect you" to work over 40 hours a week, but because you keep being pulled away, you will have to. See next point. Time management is an afterthought by some leadership (note, not all) - Be prepared to be ostracized for being unable to complete a deadline even when leadership keeps pulling you away for other day-to-day tasks or to meetings that could've been a simple email. It is near impossible to cross-train your team because of the lack of overall time management. Single points of failures are common. Tasks and procedures that can be performed by or handed off to the service desk or the NOC were brought back to infrastructure, increasing load on affected teams. Infrastructure department is completely overworked. Information Security is unwilling to assist in basic enterprise needs, such as role based access or proactive security demands that meet today's standards. Training is provided, but only if it fits within a very small budget that maybe pays for one person - You can "train" on online academies, if you're lucky and have time. Otherwise you have to do it after hours, but this defeats the purpose of "work-life balance" - Even with "dedicated days/times", day-to-day tasks and interruptions take precedence. Employees are quick to burn out. HR does not attempt to be competitive in pay; subpar compensation - it is often difficult to transition to other positions or roles; you have to "apply" for a promotion for example, which is wholly unnecessary. Only a few HR associates are friendly and helpful. High turn over rate overall.
