Pros: I learned tons about computer vision and deep learning while working on an augmented reality team. I have a PhD in another technical field with a lot of computational research experience, so I found being part of a research team extremely interesting. I listened to lectures, assisted in various projects, trained models, and learned Facebook infrastructure. And I only worked 8 hours a day while getting paid a lot. I would happily grab another contract, likely with a different team to get a variety of experience.

Cons: Conversion to full-time requires going through the full interview loop. Of course, I bombed my interview despite having several teams ask me to join. Turns out with a family and job, I just didn't LeetCode enough (though they could just look at all my commits to see if I could code or not – hint, I can, which is why specific teams asked me to apply!). If you work 2 years, you can't grab another contract for another 1 year.

Pros: Enjoyed the time there, amazing perks.

Cons: Wasn't too happy with the corporate culture.

Pros: 21 days PTO, child care benefits, learning opportunities. All of them are great! Flexible workplace, especially permanent remote work.

Cons: Extremely stressful. It forces you to go into promotion, or you will be out of the company. 70% of the employees are under 30s. The culture is spinning around them, not senior folks. They implicitly want to get rid of you if you cannot pull up into management when you reach your big 40s.