Pros
Dish is a place to get some experience to start a career. You can build a set of skills that are very attractive on the job market if you are willing to work hard and learn. The paychecks don't bounce Free TV service with very good technology.
Cons
Dish is a place where many of the long time employees in management positions are A) not qualified for their position and B) unlikely to find a position with comparable pay elsewhere. They can (and do) act like wounded beasts because of this. Golden handcuffs can ruin more lives than just your own so make sure you don't get fitted with a pair engraved with "Dish". Employee engagement is generally poor. There are several factors in this. One is poor leadership behavior. Dish is a university of how NOT to comport yourself like a leader of men and women. The preferred management practice is to rule through fear. Another is subpar compensation - many experienced employees leave because even a lateral move into another company means better pay. Employees are often stuck doing tedious work that requires little imagination or thought. This is because the Dish approach to many problems is best described with the term "Zergling rush", i.e., throwing lots of expendable, poorly paid people at big problems for hours (or days) on end. The slogan du jour in response to poor employee engagement is "Dish isn't for everyone" which is really just an excuse for bad management behavior. Nearly every con at Dish derives in some way from employee engagement. This can be seen even at the top of the heap; the big dogs just want the money and they act like jerks because although they want the pay that comes with managing people I don't think they want to buy into the rest of the deal. Since turds roll downhill the whole valley is polluted.
