Pros
My colleagues are friendly and easy to work with. There are some talented people left at Dow. The pay and benefits are overall still pretty good, especially if you have an advanced degree (PhD, MBA). The work-life balance is good.
Kontras
Unfortunately Dow is in a pretty advanced state of decline. We are losing money every quarter and this is reflected in the stock price. There have been multiple layoffs as well as the closure of some plants. If you decide to start working here now, know that the possibility of more layoffs and even bankruptcy is real. We are in this position because of very poor capital allocation by senior leaders. And as others have noted, they are never made to take ownership and responsibility for these decisions. Despite the company’s extremely poor performance there have been no meaningful changes in leadership. As far as R&D goes, there are a few interesting projects but our technology and manufacturing assets are old and change very slowly. Most of the projects I’ve worked on have had no impact to the company’s bottom line if I’m being honest. Dow is more of a commodity chemical company at this point so you’ll need to disabuse yourself of the notion that you’ll be doing anything like cutting-edge research. The pay and benefits are getting worse each year. Promotions are coming slower and the annual pay raises are shrinking. You can forget about your bonus or long term incentives (stock) - the company’s performance is too far below target for those to pay out.