Pros
Generally speaking, pay is fair, but if you enter a low salary it will never be brought up except by transferring to another division in order to receive a good increase. Benefits are better than the average company, or were when I was there. Work/life balance was very good. Occasionally you'd need to put in a lot of extra hours, but that was the exception and not the rule.
Cons
Performance review system is an absolute joke, as a manager of a department I hated the process and complete inability to rewards high performers. I was forced to penalize "good" people in order to rewards those that were "superior". And worse if you are paid more than others in your department for example, an engineer in a department of draftsmen, if you deserve a higher raise, the rest of the department has to suffer disproportionately in order for you to get the raise you deserve. It is an awful situation for a manager. The stress of continuous layoffs and rehiring is constant. You can never relax and feel your job is sucure, because it never is. HR is an extension of management, not a representative for the employees. There is no balance of the two at all. There are exceptional HR reps, but they are few and in my experience they leave the company quickly. Restructuring is constant. Senior management is a good ole boy network. You either get in with the right connections or you have no hope of management advancement.
