Pros
- Good place to start a career and get your feet wet. - Manhattan hires hard working people with good attitudes, making it a pretty nice place to work from a culture standpoint. - For the first 3-4 years, there is opportunity for growth in terms of new acquiring new skills and career advancement (this is very true in PSO and CSO, less true in R&D) - If you are in PSO, you will get to work with LOTS of challenging (difficult) clients and learn how to handle tough situations. - Benefits and 401k are better than the industry average. - Paid Time Off is above average and is excellent after your third year. - There are a lot of good directors at the company. If you wind up with one of them, you will probably be pretty happy. - If you are a workaholic, PSO is the department for you.
Cons
- After 3-4 years, there typically are fewer opportunities for advancement (unless you are an overachiever or superstar workaholic). - The pay still lags the industry average. - From a technology standpoint, they stick with "tried and true" rather than cutting edge. If you are technical and want to work on the cutting edge, this isn't the place for you. - Work-life balance is a problem in PSO (and CSO to a lesser extent). They have been trying to improve this the last couple years, but it is still the #1 reason people leave. - It can sometimes be tough to take vacations when you want it, even with reasonable notice, due to project work. - Sales, account management, and upper management have a habit of over promising to win contracts... - ...and in an effort to keep clients happy, management doesn't do a good job of adjusting expectations which results in folks in PSO having to put in long hours, travel more than they would like, and occasionally work on weekends. This is the exception rather than the rule, but still happens more often than it should. - There are a handful of directors and managers that shouldn't be managing people. MA needs to do a better job identifying these people and either coaching them up, putting them in another role, or letting them go. - The work environment has become more corporate over the years. It is more structured, but less dynamic than it used to be.