Pros
There are some smart and decent people to work with and learn from
Kontras
Software engineering role is very much an order taking role, with little opportunity to provide business or design inputs, in spite of the role being advertised otherwise. There is always lip service around eliciting others' inputs but in the end, only those that conform to the leaders' beliefs are accepted. Hard work and effort is poorly rewarded. In fact, those who practised the dark arts at work have ascended. eg taking credit for other coworkers' work, claiming undue credit for a contribution on the finishing line, stepping on people's toes, antagonising the team under the guise of seeking better outcomes, power play during meetings. As mentioned above, leaders with questionable level of ethics, instead of empowering their "subordinates", prefer to engage in hierarchical power plays and build themselves up more and more. Workplace is very stressful because engineers are constantly micromanaged and monitored. There is little trust in engineers' ability to think and execute. So most of the work is reduced to estimation and churning code. Communication channels are conveniently selective and half truths are very much acceptable as a means to demonstrate superiority in knowledge.