Be cautious and ask the right questions if you're going to the ARL Bronze Contract
Pros
The only pro that I recall from my time with this organization is the monetary incentive. They offered a great number to start out and I was excited about the overall project because it seemed relatively interesting and then it just went down-hill.
Cons
Poorly organized, at various times I was doing work that wasn't even part of my actual job description which I just interpreted as ... they are paying me a good amount of money so I guess I can do side tasks. Last minute travel that you have to pay for and then get reimbursed for that was never explained to me from the get go which I didn't quite mind because I would get points on my personal credit card but I would have liked to have known to joining. I had a corporate card with my previous employer and didn't see the complication. No documentation, numerous times I found my self at different sites with no support, dealing with technical issues no one was familiar with and I couldn't really call to ask any one question. Think about being able to contact development or engineering "good luck!?" ... I found myself reading some outdated manual trying to figure out an issue on a product that wasn't even fully explained to me, in which I assisted with technical writing another role that wasn't my job but I was happy to help out other people in the field that didn't have an administration or systems engineering background who were also in that role that didn't have the proper certifications or technical background. Found myself on google for trouble-shooting, if you're in a technical field and there are no KB's or wiki articles you'll know how absurd it is to operate without these to identify known bugs or issues. Pretty typical, contract where the primary role is to bill the government as much as possible and don't ask questions. I left training an individual whom was barely out of college whom they were putting into a role that was meant for a mid to senior level technical Linux admin to engineer that didn't understand the OSI layer 1 model.
