Pros
The employees that I interacted with outside of my team were some of the most friendly, pleasant, empathetic, and thoughtful people I've met. Very relaxed company culture especially in the summer which include company sponsored social gatherings on Thursdays and half day Fridays.
Cons
The group is run like a graduate program, where it's said openly and repeatedly that team-building, leadership development coursework, and professional development in sectors outside of direct role are unnecessary. Direct manager also avoids managerial training and gloats about it to direct reports. Toxic environment where management talks down about other groups' and individuals' competencies to direct reports, while simultaneously using condescending tones and showing disrespect towards direct reports. Huge pay disparity among coworkers (up to 150% difference) while all having the same responsibilities, day-to-day tasks, and deliverables. When brought up, there was no effort to mitigate this gap. Little importance is placed on individuals' annual performance goals, and regular check-ins are disregarded. Despite the team being the most upstream organization as far as product creation and ideation, practically zero effort is put into creating thoughtful products with the consumer need in mind. Management seems to decide on "gut feeling" and relies on marginal improvements of existing technologies. Understandably, individual businesses downstream take innovating into their own hands. This creates a system where innovators are not incentivized to put forth meaningful innovation.