Pros

Apollo has a large IT organization where there is the opportunity to be exposed to the latest technology. You will find that most of your co-workers are friendly and polite. They foster a team environment where each individual has a distinct role and it can provide a good starting point for those just beginning their career.

Benefits and employee costs are fairly standard, plus they allow you take courses at their associated universities free of charge. It is an organization that does promote advancing your professional skills by attending seminars and other educational opportunities.

Most of the organization supports flexible schedules (i.e., compressed work weeks) and allows a "work from home" option on a regular basis.

Cons

The benefits and downsides vary greatly depending upon your direct management. As a developer, your workload will differ depending upon the project/department to which you are assigned. Some teams have a relatively light workload, giving them ample time to explore professional growth opportunities within the organization.

My personal experience was the expectation to work 10+ hour days on a regular basis, struggling to meet tight deadlines. Because of the tight schedules most of the time I felt like a "code monkey", simply putting together the quickest solution - not necessarily the best solution. Despite the access to new technology, development techniques employed at Apollo seemed to be years behind current standards. Lack of standards and defined best practices was shocking.

Compensation (although consistent with market rates) seems lacking in light of the demands placed upon employees. If one were to calculate an hourly rate using the actual hours spent working, it would actually be far less than market value.

I can honestly say working at Apollo has been the most stressful job I have had in my entire career.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide a more standardized development process and guidelines to the software teams. Evaluation of existing practices and policies by external consultants would probably provide some useful insight on how to improve.