-Compensation is very poor for workload (you will work many extra unpaid hours)
-Work/life balance is awful.
-An extensive amount of travel (be prepared to drive a lot)
-Some managers are awful and have no technical knowledge
-Work hard play hard culture
I''ll divest into these a little more.
1 - compensation is the same for each level in the company (so all system 1 engineers get paid the same) regardless of location. When you live in an area with a high cost of living, the compensation provided is simply not nearly good enough. Also, be expected to work 50+ hours a week, pretty much every week. There will be the occasional week where 60+ hours is expected, along with on-call support work depending on the project contract.
2- You most likely will spend hours in your car each day. Obviously this depends on the project you are staffed on, which can change in an hour's notice. A great example is mine, where I moved to be closer to the office but then spent nearly a year driving 2 hours in each direction because the management was not transparent on my role.
3- Some managers are only good at selling a sales pitch. They do not know any technical knowledge, nevermind how to be a manager. A very common occurrence is for a manager to be less like a leader, working long hours aside you, and more of someone who enjoys golfing on nice days and sitting on their boat.
4- Lastly, the culture is work hard play hard. You will nearly always work a 50+ hour week. Most of the time you will be in the field, on a project, working 12+ hours a day along with weekend/3rd shift work. You will never be compensated financially for any of this, but they will offer to buy you alcohol every month or so to make up for the 100+ hours extra you put in. If you have kids or want to settle down, this is a very hard company to be at. The atmosphere is dominated by college tendencies, mainly since the majority of people working there are right out of college (they have an extremely hard time keeping employees once they realize things).
