Pros

The engineers are very smart and a pleasure to work with. Unlike most places I have worked, at iRobot I find myself surrounded by intelligent people who want to do a good job. Slackers don't fit in but creative experts will feel right at home. The work is actually fun. Really! No joke!

Cons

Scope of government funding and careful safe guarding of company money often prevents development of higher risk/higher reward technologies. Middle management can dither and waste time that could be better spent doing actual work. Too many managers managing too few engineers in some projects.

Advice to Senior Management

Your engineers are smart, your leadership has decent vision, but you need to slim the middleman and let your people spend the money advancing the product instead of analyzing until they only have the time for a quick fix.