Pros
Pay and Benefits In order to attract talent, the pay both initially and in a few years tends to be on par or better than similar organizations. The focus is on short-term and instant gratification.
Cons
Dated Technology Very dated technology which has no value in the outside market. The Company has a strong affinity to hiring new grads from tech schools with high GPAs. Once they're on board, its a "fire-hose" approach to learning on the job and building skills and expertise in a technology platform that's decades old. Unfortunately, when you're at a point where you're looking for career advancement options outside, you realize that the skills you picked up over the last few years worth of fire-drills are basically worthless. Very few outside of PowerPlan care for PowerBuilder and other dated technology. Over-Inflated Titles This is an organization where people are rewarded with inflated titles that don't truly reflect the job description. Consequently, what you have is a clear leadership void in terms of technology vision. Leaders are good at existing product knowledge and support - which they have picked up over the years, but by and large they're not at all versed in the larger IT landscape like Mobile Architecture, or Methodologies like scrum or Agile. Regulated, static Industry focus The biggest issue and challenge is the fact that this is a Software Product and Services Company with the industry focus on Utilities. This is a highly regulated sector with very little innovation and the lowest IT spend among all industries. So for someone to start their career here is a huge risk - the technical skills offered are really dated, and the industry/domain knowledge gained doesn't offer enough prospects for someone with IT focus.