Pros
Amazing place to work. Center leadership is fantastic Aeronautics directorate has great supervisors Our projects are some of the coolest things you can work on Advancement is always encouraged and pushed, but requires following OMB standards (can't get massive promotions for doing well, but you WILL be promoted in time if you do well) Community is fantastic, welcoming, inclusive, and engaged Supportive of continuing education Pension So many more things
Cons
Our pay is based on the general schedule. For the bay area, frankly it's embarrassing. We're NASA, we have one of the highest values in prestige of any US agency, let alone government agency in the world, but we cannot even pay our early career employees a viable wage. I got in early enough that it hasn't been an issue for me, but it's extremely unsettling how our early career employees likely will never have a path to middle class living near work. We're NASA. We don't set our pay, OMB does, but as an agency our leadership at HQ either don't communicate what they are doing to help the situation, or they're not doing anything. Considering the value NASA brings to not only the US but the world from a technological perspective, it's an embarrassment and reflects so poorly on us as an agency, OMB, and congress, that what they call their "best and brightest" aka, NASA civil servants, can't be compensated at levels that are reasonable for the area. Civil servants don't expect Google, Apple, or Microsoft wages, but we sure as heck don't want our entry level employees making 1/2 of the private sector, and senior employees making 1/4th.
