Pros
Decent pay for an entry level position but salary depends on career framework (being hired as a research/development job vs. technician). There can be interesting research. People are generally nice, but again the lab is large and attitudes vary by management.
Cons
I work in an applied engineering division where they say “we don’t care about credentials if you can do the work” but that has not been my experience despite them saying that. Highly dependent on management/division for employees without PhD. Little opportunity for independence and project choice since most funding requires having a PhD to submit proposals. Entry level employees WITHOUT a PhD are rare for research here, and you are generally given uninteresting tasks that people don’t want to do, and excluded from presenting, writing, and treated a bit differently. Despite being hired for an entry level role, there is not much investment in proper training or consideration for advancing new employees unless they are post docs. I guess it is not surprising considering most managers did a PhD and never had much experience supervising or doing administration tasks. It may cause your self esteem to take a hit because I personally was given more belief and independence doing undergraduate research in college, and during internships.