Pros
The work/life flexibility is great. The technical work is exactly what I enjoy doing. I like the people I work directly with. The offices are nice. The benefits are okay.
Cons
It takes guts and grit to join Ryan as an experienced hire in the upper management level. The base salary of $80,000 is laughable since it is less than half of comparable positions and just slightly more than the lower level staffs' base salary. Maybe this level of compensation is adequate in Dallas, Texas where the cost of living is relatively low and the managers are young, but it is not adequate in higher cost of living areas or for people who have earned significantly higher base salaries at other jobs. The bonus structure offers extreme up and down sides: You can be a millionaire or not able to pay your house mortgage in any given year. Most people have money market accounts to hoard their bonuses for years when the bonus is not sufficient to pay their bills. Aside from obtaining refunds for clients, there is very little you can do to influence the amount of bonus you receive. Of the total Ryan fee received from clients, the production team gets 18% to be divided between them. The marketer gets 10% (which in my opinion is too high compared to the amount of work performed and value generated by the production team). If you do not obtain refunds for the client, Ryan does not earn a fee and you do not receive a bonus. Quite often it is not in your control whether the client receives a refund because the client might have a tax liability rather than a refund opportunity, or the government might deny the refund claim. Even if there is refund opportunity, it has to be significant to make the bonus meaningful. For example, a $10,000 tax refund for the client results in a fee to the Firm of $3,333. Of this, the production team (including the Principal) split the resulting 18% bonus of $600. The bonus you receive is subjectively diluted based upon how many people worked on the project. You can be spending a lot of energy, be doing great work, and clients love you, but you still might not earn much bonus. As others have said, your bonus primarily is dependent on whether you receive good project assignments. As you can imagine, there is a lot of internal politics related to project assignment. I frequently witness undesirable behavior at the upper managment levels created by this kill or be killed compensation model. For example, the best people with technical knowledge may not be utilized on a client's project because their participation would dilute someone else's bonus. While the Firm prides itself on client service, not getting the best people involved on a client's issue due to internal compensation issues is a glaring flaw in providing the best client service possible. If you have the killer instinct, good technical knowledge, and an extreme entrepreneurial spirit, you might do well financially at Ryan; or not. I really enjoy working at Ryan but have been interviewing with other firms and have secured several open offers with substantially higher base salaries just in case I don't earn enough bonus and can't afford to continue to work for Ryan.