Pros
My team has some of the smartest people I've ever worked with; they are also some of the friendliest, kindest, and funniest people I've ever worked with, too. It's a very collaborative environment and people take the time to help each other out however they can. Our recruiting team does an amazing job of maintaining this culture while we grow. The work is interesting and is highly impactful for our customers. The code you write makes a difference and there is almost always a customer on the other end waiting excitedly for it. There are also many opportunities to get involved and participate in projects/events if you are interested in doing so. If you have an idea, you generally have the freedom to run with it. Events like our annual Hackathon as well as our monthly tech talks and business talks are fun and great opportunities to learn and collaborate with people you might not otherwise work with regularly. Work/life balance is quite good in R&D. I work remotely periodically without issue and managers are very accommodating for things like appointments during the day. The flexible vacation policy is genuine and well-implemented.
Cons
There's a significant learning curve when starting out, especially in R&D. Supply chain is a very deep area that most people in R&D would not have encountered with a typical software engineering/computer science background. My team is always working to improve our on-boarding and training, but the complexity of the domain is mostly inescapable. On the other hand, if it were not deep, it probably wouldn't be very interesting. Most of the people on my team enjoy the challenge, but it may not be for everyone.
