Pros: Free food. Free peanuts. Full of slackers with few hard workers who run the ship.

Cons: No differentiation between hard worker vs. slacker. All you get is peanuts, no matter what.

Pros: Good work-life balance, and they have a good training program for new employees.

Cons: No room for growth, and you can't provide bottom-up insights.

Pros: I was hired straight out of university and did technical support for 1.5 years. I made some lifelong friends and gained a breadth of knowledge in practical mathematics/analysis. My next 4.5 years were spent with a math-centric software team. I would recommend MathWorks for either starting a career in numerical computing or supporting a family. It is very difficult to move up or down the corporate ladder. You learn 95% of everything you'll ever need to know in the first 2-3 years.

Cons: While a job at MathWorks is very stable, it comes at the price of long-term stagnation. Understand that MathWorks is a private company and has been run by the same person for 40 years. Most managers have been with the company for 15+ years, and there is an emphasis on the "slow and steady" mantra. Both salary increases and career advancement are slow. After 6 years, I left as a junior developer – the same position as when I started.