Pros
Great Culture - if this is your first job out of school, you will be spolied. Many employees get to go to VMWorld, Beer bashes on Fridays, awesome campus and great culture of continued growth Great Senior Developer - people who not only wrote the book on this stuff but also taught the classes the book was based on and we're part of the teams that did the original work which is covered. Smart people across the board - this can be a shock for many and in some ways it's like being a pro football player - most of these people were the smartest kids in their high school, then went on to be one of the smartest people in a top five school, and when they get to VMWare, they are considered average (or maybe slightly above average) because EVERYONE is so smart. Sexy products and huge brand name - looks awesome on your resume
Cons
Founders were forced out and much of their original team (who still had awesome ideas) has cashed out and left. "Must have a 4.0 GPA from a top 5 School" mentality - Many groups want to limit themselves to people like themselves and even in Management there is a lot of bias against some school. Too Much Politics - I was personally threatened by a SVP for providing review feedback on a Development Manager which was unflattering (she had zero compassion for the QA team and wanted them to work 60 hr weeks for more then a month keep the original unrealistic date that she had given). Who is friend is outside of work >= what you do