Pros: Great colleagues. Most I met were great to work with. If you're looking to move from a non-CS background to software engineering, it can provide you with a good transition, as they actively hire non-CS grads.

Cons: There are a lot of reasons why I would highly advise against joining EDG, and I have highlighted the main ones. * There is a high probability that you will not get the position you want once you transfer out of EDG. You can end up waiting years for a position to open up in your preferred team. Most people choose to transfer to whatever position is available rather than wait for their preferred position because the technical support (in theory 50% of the work, but often higher) aspect of the work ends up being so unbearable after around 9-12 months. * The department is constantly understaffed, and we are put under a lot of pressure to satisfy the department KPIs of resolving support tickets. This in practice meant pulling a lot of extra work to deal with the workload, and for a long time, even being asked to work on cases during weeks allocated to projects. * The managers are clueless and have limited experience with technical support. They do not seem to understand the challenges of technical support or the fact that most of our challenges stem from being understaffed. If it wasn't for our full-time Technical Support Engineer colleagues with their high-value experience and knowledge, we would be screwed. The managers just blame us for being overwhelmed with cases on "team efficiency." They would constantly come up with terrible ideas that don't work and create an atmosphere where short-term fixes and taking shortcuts (e.g., spending less time per case to resolve it) were encouraged implicitly. When these shortcuts would inevitably backfire and engineers receive low customer satisfaction surveys, the manager would act all surprised that it happened and chastise them. * Work-life balance can be a hit or miss. I had no issues and managed to get work done without working overtime, but I know a lot of people who had to work many extra hours. The main culprit of this was getting new responsibilities without adequate training or support to take on that responsibility. A common situation was when EDGers would be given the rotational team lead role and would work extra hours due to the high volume of tech support cases and the high pressure put on them to deal with it. * A lot of useless/outdated training and processes (which you often need to do during your project weeks). What ends up happening is that, in frustration, answers get copied from more senior staff who have already completed them. * EDG is an afterthought in the company, and it is seen as less important than other roles. An example is that for orientation in pre-COVID times, EDGers are put in the back of the line and can end up waiting over 10 months to complete their BPO (company orientation), while staff from other departments often have the option to do it in the first few weeks/months. * The way that management gets around their failures to hit KPIs is by deflecting the failings to the EDGer. Every year, a certain percentage of EDGers worldwide are laid off due to "performance reasons" (similar to the "hire to fire" policy that other companies use).

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: These are only my personal opinions after half a year in MW. 1. Benefits are sort of competitive. There are rather frequent social gatherings across departments. 2. Everybody, I mean literally everybody, in my department is nice and helpful. Great dynamics in the team. 3. The training process is smooth and helpful. You would find yourself quickly improving along the process. 4. Overall work-life balance. Light workload for most of the time.

Cons: These are the cons that are specific to my department: 1. While the ASE department (i.e., the technical support department) has good working dynamics overall, you would sometimes find yourself in difficult situations when dealing with the actual development team. You could definitely feel their attitude toward you because you were just trying to hang out with them for the purpose of transferring to their team. 2. The reviewing process is VERY unclear. They would tell you everything they would consider but not exactly how they review you (basically, nothing useful). 3. The transfer process is totally random and uncontrollable. This is kind of frustrating because you are sometimes good enough for a team, but there is just no opening. This encourages turnovers frequently. 4. The position essentially means you will provide customer service while doing some corner project works for other people. However, I felt it was described as mostly doing projects when you occasionally write people emails. This is not communicated well in the interviews. Not that they were trying to lie to you or hide it. When they have been in the company for a long time, they might have different views on how much time the technical support work would take. But you will be the TECHNICAL SUPPORT; you will pick up phone calls for a large portion of your time. DO NOT assume the support part of your job is negligible. 5. Not trying to be an *hole here, but the percentage of a certain nationality has been increasing. You would notice a lot of them are actually friends who know each other. Yes, referral has its magic here, but the current situation is too much. I mean, like 70% of the new hires are from a particular country. I don't have the evidence to say that the hiring process is rigged or something, but the company needs to investigate it. Mathworks has a limited interview question pool, which makes this even more suspicious. Overall, I think it is a great position for you if you are from an engineering-related area and want some super entry-level job to get onramp to software engineers. If you already have enough development experience, this might not be a good place for you to improve yourself. Mathworks is a good place for you to stay for the rest of your life, so if you are ready to commit in the long term, this is also a good position for you.