The cons were that SPP didn't invest in me. They didn't send me to working groups, IEEE conferences, training, or other meetings. SPP didn't push me to grow or offer me any opportunities. I felt like I had no where to go. Going to admit that being self motivated should be on you and maybe I didn't knock on the door loud enough. But I didn't get any mentorship from leadership either. They looked past me like I wasn't there. I remember one time I tried to cross train with another department and I felt like the guy who would have been training me just ignored me and I gave up. Someone was eventually hired and he trained that guy though.
While I was at SPP I completely reinvented and automated my job. I changed every process. I wrote procedures and worked with IT (such a rigid department!). Nothing was the same. Invented modeling scripts to solve tons of issues and increase performance. They are still used today. I even documented my job. Never heard a positive word about any of that for ANY manager I had. Higher leadership probably has no idea. Practically got a swift kick out the door when I gave my notice. Any performance review I got from SPP could have been a rubber stamp from someone that knew me for 5 minutes. There was no push from leadership to get me promote to help envision the future for me. I used the dismissiveness to encourage myself to move somewhere else where I could grow. Working at other places showed me all the crazy things an engineer could do. Much of it isn't behind a desk!
I can't say if this is still true because its been some years since I left but I was very under compensated by SPP out of the gate. Towards the end it got much better but it was still not great. That and ZERO remote work is actually one of the biggest reasons I left. There is a huge market for staff augmentation if you have familiarity with Alstom/GE products.
