Pros
As with any consulting firm, your career growth at SMS is directly affected by your skill and initiative. You, the consultant, are the product so it is critical that you actively look for ways to improve your marketability. Do not rely on others to do that for you. There are a lot of talented, senior individuals that comprise a wealth of focused teams. The people I worked with are great and always made time to listen to my opinions and feedback. When a new career opportunity presented itself that was closer to home, I struggled with whether I should stay or move on. In the end, I decided to transition to that new opportunity to reduce my commute time.
Cons
Perhaps the biggest challenge is to provide a higher level of compensation when the majority of work is comprised of government work - the rates are simply too low in that maker segment. Worse, government work is always fluctuating and makes job security difficult to offer staff. I am also not a huge fan of working in secure environment that cut off employees from the rest of the company. I would suggest trying to augment with more commercial work that affords a better work environment for staff.
