Great place to work, but not quite a think tank - Research Staff Member Institute for Defense Analyses Employee Review

Loved it, learned a lot and helped me grow.

Pay and lack of advancement

Very smart people across a range of STEM disciplines Freedom on what you get to work on Relative lack of office politics Interesting exciting projects available

Hard to think of a con. Every place has its own flavour and IDA CCS Bowie like anywhere else, isn't for anyone. I'm not positive either way about IDA's budget/hiring situation these days, with all the stuff going on in this general space. It also can be easy to find yourself getting lost when it comes to finding a good project if you are not careful. But even that is a bit of a reach.