Pros
- Decent cash compensation - Can be good work-life balance (depending on the group and your own desire to achieve / over-achieve) - Opportunity to work on projects at scale (if you find the right ones...) and make an impact
Cons
Pretty much what you should expect going in. Walmart is both: 1) Gigantic. Only the US Department of Defense and Chinese Liberation Army are larger. Think: massive bureaucracy, constant stakeholder management, turnover in management ranks that causes all decisions to get re-evaluated every six months, etc. 2) Clearly a few notches below Amazon, Facbeook, Google, Pinterest, etc. on the tech totem pole. Think: lower quality management, lower quality employees, people that don't really want to be there but stay for Visa reasons or until the options or retention bonuses from their acquihired startup vest, etc. It's basically all the negatives of joining Google (can be slow-moving and bureaucratic) without many of the positives of joining a Google (like free food, genius co-workers, and a fun environment). As such, what it is like to work here shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone. If you find the right pockets (of time and location w/in the company) you can use the the fact that nobody will bother much to stop you (either due to apathy, incompetence, or inability to make a decision), but otherwise expect to spend a higher percentage of your time on politics and eventually get overcome by the apathy and inertia and move on.