Pros: Good work-life balance. Can grow really fast if you are working in the right team.

Cons: Paygrade is very low compared to other software firms.

Pros: For someone without a background in CS, this is an OK deal, at least in principle, to pick up skills that will help you transfer to other teams within the company or find opportunities outside the company. The price one pays is, of course, spending the bulk of your time in doing technical support and salvaging the rest to pick up the skills you really need. The following stood out to me during my time in EDG: * Smart colleagues * Great office space and campus * Celebrations for important events, grand company outings, and other perks * Well-structured trainings and equipment * Strong culture of feedback and self-improvement, and generally doing the right thing.

Cons: EDG is a place one can stagnate very fast without knowing it. The department preaches a culture very different from elsewhere in the company. There is overemphasis on soft skills, and you are treated like a juvenile. The managers themselves have a history of a mediocre career in technology, and they're the ones deciding your fate. Your transfer out of the program is contingent on a myriad of factors working for you. No peers competing for the same position, open requisitions in your area of interest, and your manager's blessings are some of the key ones. You might have come on board with the perfect background for a certain product area, but if the company is expanding in a direction that is different from your target team, you might find yourself very frustrated with the lack of opportunities. Unfortunately, this is not communicated in the career fairs. A year and a half in, without transferring, you can find yourself sucked into the tech support spiral. Having lost your domain expertise from school and focusing most of your time on MATLAB and Simulink, which have very niche markets (try searching for MATLAB jobs versus other core languages on any job search engine), you become obsolete in the market very fast. Did I mention the increasing pressure from management to work on technical support initiatives or be booted out? They project themselves as a program with a high transfer rate, great marketing – they left out the folks they forced out. My advice: Join the program. If you don't make it to another team in a year, find yourself another opportunity before it's too late. If you do, congratulations; MW is a great place to work. Otherwise...

Pros: The Engineering Development Group is a special team at MathWorks with the following job role: There are two aspects to the job role: 1. Provide Technical Support to Customers 2. Work on internal projects **Technical Support:** You will be working on challenging technical issues with customers. The queries from customers will not be trivial, as they would have googled and read documentation thoroughly before contacting Technical Support. This role demands you to be proficient in multiple domains. For example, to understand a problem in "machine learning," one needs to understand the theory and also how the customer is coding it. I have worked at other companies previously, and it is very rare that an engineer will interact with customers directly. In most other companies, one will be shielded within a development team, without knowing where or how one's code is being used. This role provides an opportunity to improve your technical skills, communication skills, and leadership qualities. **Work on internal projects:** Application Support Engineers can choose to work in any of the following areas: * Software development team * Application Engineering * User Experience Engineering * Quality Engineering Depending on your interest, you can switch teams after completing projects. This offers high flexibility in exploring areas you desire. These two roles will be on two-week shifts. **After EDG:** Once the ASEs become experts in a certain area, they will be transferred to that product team as a developer, QE, or Application Engineer, depending on the ASEs' interest. **About learning:** MathWorks encourages its employees to engage in constant learning. There is dedicated time allotted to read books and discuss concepts with the team. There will be ample training available to ramp up on products and technology. Engineers will travel to the US headquarters after joining to learn about the company's culture and processes. **About the office environment:** There is a good cafeteria with free beverages, tea, coffee, and fruits. Enjoy free breakfast on Wednesday mornings and free snacks on Friday evenings.

Cons: Nothing major. Work from home is not encouraged, as the work demands a collaborative environment.