Pros
You do not have to be very competent to make a career. Moreover, non-performance often leads to a promotion. All you need is to be a good politician. Is this a "pros"? For many people being hired or still kept, unfortunately it is.
Cons
If you are competent and keen, you will get a disproportional amount of work and responsibilities, that a human being - even the most capable, ambitious and motivated - cannot safely handle for a long time. When you want to slow down, you are low performing then. Burn out, hospital, drop from orbit, divorce, robotization are your destinations. A bunch of dependants will gravitate around you with demands for constant operational support (read: do their work). Another layer of colleagues mostly talking about work and gossips around the coffee machine. The latter group has better survival chances! Hard to get anything committed, organized and done without nerves, polemics, politics, meetings. Most effort and personal energy dissipates in anything but not core engineering. The real engineering problems - this is side activity! "Don't bother with details." Excellent awareness about the non-responsibilities.
