Your initial hiring conditions will determine your long-term happiness. 3%-ish raises for top-performers in the best year limit growth over a decade. Often high security interferes with best practices or getting the job done, comes with the types of projects, but large enough and inflexible that your effectiveness may be limited by IT. Also work is contract-related rather than in-house, so external customer decisions will impact, including funding for your team. Can be frustrating at times.