Here are the cons:
1) Growth: I see pay as a major issue in most threads, but for me growth has been a major issue. Barring 1-2 teams that work on cutting edge tech, most of the teams are slow paced or work on legacy tech. You can be stuck with MATLAB or Perl which makes your skills non-transferable. Some teams are pretty good, but most arent. This wont be apparent initially, but after two years you will start noticing that you dont have many transferable skills which you can use to switch
2) WLB: With the recent decision to go 3 days hybrid, this becomes a con. There is absolutely minimal need to come 3 days into the office when your team interacts mostly with Natick. If your team is local, it makes sense. But cross-location collaboration is common for many teams. So that extra third day is just to make you stay seated at your desk.
3) WLB again: This may be specific to some roles (including mine), but of late I see much more people with evening meets in Bangalore. I haven't really seen much of a difference compared to bad WLB in industry. If your team is in Natick, the meets are 'optional', but all design decisions are driven from there which means you need to attend meets. This has been made worse with the 3 day in office rule.
4) Pay: This is a Pro if you are a new hire. There is competitive pay at the start, but it stagnates as you progress forward. The Stakeholder bonuses are not really that great which makes the overall pay just about average. In fact you will lag behind new hires after a couple of years.
5) There isn't much to look forward to: Now this is a vague con, but MW doesnt have clear promotion scales that you can target for. There is a lack of transparency when it comes to promotions, roles and pay scales. This means that you have nothing much to look forward to other than churning features. Until recently, the US trip was an incentive, but even that's done with now.
6) The job can make you complacent. With a decent-ish pay, good stability, any job at MW can make you feel complacent. But the outside market is competitive, and for someone who wants to upskill at a faster pace, you will need to hustle to get things done.
