Pros
When I thought about joining MasterCard, I had reservations. It appeared to be a good place to go if you had decided you wanted to coast along, and do a minimal amount of work. But my interview, and my subsequent job experience proved otherwise. MasterCard is full of bright people, who are energetic and know the industry. With rare exception, I was impressed by the people I met, their backgrounds and the competency they brought to the tasks at hand. For people who are interested in the payments space, it's a great place to work.
Cons
On the other hand, I would say that MasterCard is unnecessarily bureaucratic for an organization of its size. Because of the incentive system and other factors, there's a lot of turf battles, less than needed coordination, and inefficiencies. However, there is a concerted effort (and there has been for many years) to change that. The IPO appeared to also change how the business was run--more risk adversion, more of a short term focus, more attention to boosting the daily stock price.
