Pros
You'll get hands-on experience with regulated lab environments, which is genuinely valuable early in your career. The CRO world gives you transferable knowledge of clinical trial operations that other companies will recognize. If you're self-motivated, there's room to build things on your own. I taught myself new tools and built reporting dashboards for my department because nobody else was going to do it. Tuition reimbursement existed when I started, which was a real benefit.
Cons
Compensation does not match the workload. You will be overworked and underpaid, and when you bring it up, nothing changes. I repeatedly asked leadership to let me take on work that aligned with my career goals and education, but I was always "too busy" with my regular responsibilities for that to happen. They'll happily benefit from your output but won't invest in your growth. The tuition reimbursement policy changed while I was mid-degree, which tells you everything about how they view employee development. Benefits are underwhelming for a company this size, and when I needed them most, they fell short. A workplace injury made it very clear where employees fall on their priority list, and it's well below the bottom line.