Pros
Propeller gives you a lot of opportunity and resource to grow as a professional. It is a small company, so there is opportunity to take the initiative to help develop the company (such as business development, industry practices, functional practices, sustainability, etc.), and you have a generous budget to pursue certifications and continuing ed. You have a lot of autonomy with your time, as long as you complete your deliverables and protect relationships with clients.
Cons
The nature of the billable structure means that consultants use a utilization model. Instead of a set budget of vacation days off, you have only billable hours worked. You use a tool to determine that you are working enough hours to take time off and still take time off. In general, if you work 43 hours a week, you will have at least 3 weeks off. Until you reach 5 years tenure, you cannot take more than a total 3 paid weeks off in one quarter. If you take more time than that, anything over 3 weeks will be unpaid. This model gives you autonomy, but it also makes time off feel scarce. Propeller is also dedicated to a local model. This means that they have a preference to assign consultants to clients who are in the same area as their home office (example Portland client gets a Portland consultant). This is to ensure consultants can adhere to client policies about in-office work, but I suspect it also has to do with the kind of culture and focus Propeller wants to have. What this means for the consultant is you must live within one of the geos. It is plausible, and happens frequently, that a consultant gets assigned to a client in a different geo, and as such works remotely for the duration of that assignment, but you are not free to live wherever you want, and your next assignment may require you to go into work.
