Pros
Can rack up lots of air miles.
Cons
Early in my time at Slalom, I referred an Indian women to work on my team- she had with relevant skills and experience and impressive academic credentials. He refused to give her so much as a tech screen and then proceeded to hire a man with no relevant education/experience outside of a bootcamp, when I asked why, he referenced referred candidates race/gender and implied I was argumentative because I'm Jewish. This ended up going to HR and was the start of several years of retaliation. I was kept on the bench longer than my male peers, though I was an experienced hire, and put in situations where I said manager hoped I'd fail so that he could justify keeping me on the bench. After passing a difficult client interview and finally making it off the bench, I was heavily monitored/babysat compared to my male peers. My female direct report was also kept on the bench longer, given lower titles/pay despite my attempts to advocate for my team. The petty retaliation impacted my mental health: I had a ridiculously high rate of travel compared to others, department lead would do things like organize department the off-site (about 12 people) for when I was already on vacation... I could go on. I asked HR for an ADA accommodation and they refused to negotiate accomodations. I have a history of anxiety and offered documentation. There was definitely a shift from petty retaliation to actively trying to fire me after ADA request, and I ultimately had so many panic attacks I took FMLA and left. I would have left much sooner except this was the tough part of the pandemic and I didn't feel like I had a choice. Many higher level leaders were aware- please don't believe their PR hype about DEI. Leadership, especially in the ML space is incompetent. They were often so desperate to sell anything that they would make crazy promises and drastically under estimate work. This often meant long hours for consultants to pick up the pieces or lots of travel.