Pros
For the upper valley NH/VT they are one of the leading employers. As a leader in their industry, the business is stable, margins are great, brand is strong and cash is available to reinvest in the technology. As an engineer, having Hypertherm on your resume wont hurt. One of the nice opportunities is that they provide 2 paid days a years to go out and volunteer in the community.
Cons
As one of the leading employers in the upper valley, they have a captive audience and leverage that position strongly with a "where else would they go... what else would they do" approach to the employee relations. The family that started the business means well but have all but removed themselves from the daily activities and spend their time on philanthropic endeavors. As an engineer, having Hypertherm on your resume wont hurt, but you will have to pay the price of limited opportunity and voice in what you do as the management team has a monarchy type approach in defining the direction. If you do not agree with management, by all means keep you mouth closed as even though they claim to be open to all opinions, the management team is absolutely unequivocally not. Upward growth opportunities are non existent unless of course you are a Dartmouth graduate, so like the job you take because you will be in it for the duration. The daily politics, backstabbing and drama across all departments gets to be painful and draining in quick order. Do not look to HR for help in any of this, as they are not only the weakest human resources department any of us have ever experienced, they also simply do not care, as regularly demonstrated by the blind eye to the level of misconduct by many to include numerous ongoing examples of inappropriate relationships between coworkers at all levels in all departments. Examples of this behavior and relationships have been ongoing for years all the way up to the senior management team level. Compensation is positioned as competitive (footnote; "competitive for the upper valley" of NH and VT where landscaping and snow plowing are alternatives), although check your numbers carefully as most positions are at the low end of most pay scales (but where else are they going to go, what else are they going to do?) even with the ESOP plan that will take at least another 20 years to play out and even after you leave they will hold on to your money for 5 years before pay out.