Pros
* work/LIFE balance * Good benefits (health/retirement/PTO, etc) * competitve starting salary
Cons
* many seemingly interesting projects actually turn out to be a powerpoint engineering job; workload doesn't exist at MITRE since the money is from government. That's why you can have work/life balance and good pay+benefits. * at caasd only two kinds of skills are needed: air traffic management (ATM) related and JAVA, while at c3i, cyberspace security is the core topic. (still, it requires computer skills) As for analytical skills, as long as you have the degree and graduate from a prestigious school, that's sufficient. * MITRE is more like an IT company than a real engineering & research company. * direction is not clear even at higher managements. It takes time (weeks or months) for them to make collective agreement.