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: 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.

Pros: Good environment and life-work balance. Great working environment. Everyone has an office. People respect and invest in the success of the company and each other. MathWorks is financially very strong. Cons: Overall, the main markets are R&D and education institutes for MATLAB and control design automation for Simulink.

Cons: I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company. I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company.