Pros: MathWorks creates some of the best (and in some cases, only) scientific computing tools in the industry and is very well recognized. There is an impressive base of engineering grads (an MS is basically required for entry-level positions). In the large majority of cases, people work well together, and there is a cooperative atmosphere. Honesty is placed in very high esteem, and people try hard to conform to that standard. Benefits are very good (401k match percentage is almost unheard of in the industry). EDG/ASE does provide a good opportunity to try out different departments before making a transfer. If you do a good job and are well-liked, you will move up in the ranks fairly quickly.

Cons: In EDG, if you are given the wrong manager (basically assigned by luck), then your career is doomed. Too many mandatory meetings and micromanagement. In some cases, I was asked to write a "plan" for a project that took as long as the actual project itself. There is a strict culture of doing things "the MathWorks way," even if there are better ways out there. Because of this, it takes forever for new features, and even bug fixes, to make their way into the customer's hands. Transferring between jobs inside the company is way more difficult than at other companies that I've worked at. The CS grads tend not to be as talented as engineering grads, yet they are courted more aggressively due to a lack of these types of people. Top-notch engineering grads will come here, whereas top-notch CS grads tend to turn down offers here because they would rather work for Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. Base salary is very mediocre. My starting salary at my new job was 25% higher.

Pros: 1. Some part of the outside world thinks you are working on a well-known product. 2. If you are interested specifically in using MATLAB/Simulink to solve MATH/Engineering problems, you might enjoy the job. 3. Good work-life balance. You are working based on a fixed schedule; there is no flexibility, but also no overtime. 4. There are many smart and nice people working here. 5. Part of the benefits is good, e.g., 401K match, unlimited sick days, and there are some nice small perks.

Cons: The cons part is only for EDG, and more specifically it is for the experience of computer science people in EDG. 1. MathWorks’ pay to ASE role might not be that bad compared to many mid to small-size companies, but it is still much lower than most large software companies. 2. If your career goal is to do software development, don’t have very high expectations for the EDG program, because it is mainly a technical support role. EDG is part of the technical support department, and your technical support job always has higher priority than all of your other tasks in EDG. Most managers will purposely avoid this fact when they talk to you before you join. 3. MathWorks is an extremely procedural company, so for anything you do, there will be some step-by-step documentation, which is good for many people. However, for some reason, they never make the procedure of transferring out of EDG to a development role clear. The time you spend at EDG actually depends on the number of opening positions in other parts of the company, and they do over-hire sometimes. When this happens, again, your manager will avoid the fact and tell you to not focus on whether there are any open positions, but to focus on improving yourself so an opportunity will come to you. 4. The performance review process is very unclear and inconsistent. The performance rating is from 1 to 6 points, and I have seen someone get praised by his manager and promised a raise, while someone from the same team with a rating just 0.5 lower got warned by the same manager that his career is at risk. 5. Most managers are not from the appropriate technical background, so do not expect them to help you much from the technical perspective. The management is highly technical support oriented, and if you say you have a computer science degree and are very good at software development, your skills will not be much appreciated here. 6. The expected amount of bonus for new hires listed on the hiring material that HR gave to me was way higher than the bonus I actually received, and since all new hires get the same amount of bonus regardless of performance, the information from HR was just not true. 7. Some actions from management are questionable in terms of work ethics. Managers use the threat of not filing working visa applications to push engineers.

Pros: Good salary and benefits. Everyone I met was great to work with. The work feels important. The CEO is great, and it feels like the company really tries to do things "the right way". There's a cafeteria right inside the building (for Lakeside and Apple Hill campuses).

Cons: If you want to be a developer, note that ASEs do development work only about half of the time with a team of their choosing, more or less. You do technical support during the other half (taking phone calls with customers, answering emails, and troubleshooting issues). However, there is an expectation that you will transfer to another team within about a year, whether that's a development team, sales, application engineering, education/training, or whatnot. Transferring out can take longer if you don't mesh well with the teams you work with or if the team you want to work with has few/no open positions. A whole bunch of ASEs were let go all around the same time as I was. We all had a similar experience; we were given a "performance improvement plan" and if we did not meet the improvement goals after 2 weeks, we could either try one more time for another 2 weeks or take a severance package. I heard that nobody passed the performance improvement plan. In retrospect, it seems that it was really a layoff, but they just didn't want to call it a layoff for some reason. I wish they were more upfront about it. I consider this the one black mark in an otherwise great experience I had at the company.