Pros: Pay, good work environment, and teammates.

Cons: Scale, competition, learning curve, ethical considerations.

Pros: Three excellent gourmet meals a day (free), and the best food out of all the Google offices I've been to (including fresh-baked cookies during ice cream hour!). Tremendous opportunities for professional and personal growth with several tech talks and classes every week. Every aspect of the organization is cooperatively engineered, peer-reviewed, and open to feedback and iterative improvement. A high level of respect is maintained between peers and managers alike. Consistently high annual bonus. Aggressive 401k and donation matching programs. Salaries are substantially higher since November 2010 when the scale was significantly adjusted upward.

Cons: They spoil us. I'm glad I worked elsewhere between college and Google; otherwise, I might not realize how great a place this is to work. I'm on-call for several services for about 48 hours each month, though the pager is relatively calm. Google admittedly makes mistakes in hiring, often turning away good candidates if there's any doubt. As a result, many smart people are bitter about Google because they get turned down, but I encourage them to try again in a year or so. And if you wear Google-branded apparel in public, sometimes weirdos stop you and ask lots of bizarre questions about what it's like to work there.

Pros: The opportunity to work on projects that are interesting and cutting-edge.

Cons: The scope of the non-salary benefits means that salary can be less than optimal.