Pros
Opportunity to work on some fascinating leading-edge technology; excellent as a first job and stepping stone to a better-paying job elsewhere for new graduates; good benefits, but you will pay for many of them; 401K and pension plan; fair starting salary but nothing stellar; chance for annual bonus; nice annual event for employees and their families; public recognition for length of service; 9-hour workday with alternate Fridays off; some very technically talented people to work with; as a privately-owned company, GA can take the long view without shareholder interference; San Diego
Cons
Excessively bureaucratic; highly compartmentalized with little cross-team interaction; little opportunity for advancement or growth; plan to stay in the same job, doing the same thing, at the same job classification and inflation-pegged raises, for years and years; manager can block intra-company transfer even if it would be for a better job; little autonomy, multiple levels of approval are needed to do anything new, different, or even to get the tools needed for your job; plan to get thrown under the bus at least once during your time at GA so your manager can move up; increased responsibility rarely results in increased pay; training focuses mostly on learning internal administrative policies and procedures; little instruction on the tools needed to comply with internal policies and procedures; virtually no technical training or direction, you're on your own to maintain your skill set; administrative demands, even trivial, always seem to take precedence over customer work and deliverables; no recognition for your work accomplishments; just won a multi-million dollar contract after years of work?, that's nice, now get back to work; no way to report any extra hours you work (bad for project planning and personal credit); no comp time for evenings or weekends worked; no special amenities, like free coffee or meals if they tell you to work late or on weekends; annual performance reviews focus on the past, rarely the future; no career path planning from management; get it out now then firefight the problems later
