Pros
In some areas, FFRDCs are trusted to do some very interesting work, particularly on the defense and intelligence sides. The work is hands down the biggest pro, but you have to be on the right projects in the right parts of the company. General employee benefits are average, retirement is good, about double the average matching at most companies, but nowhere near accounts for the less-than-average salaries, particularly in certain high-demand technical areas. Some may consider the lack of hard-driving goals, low expectations, and easy-going culture a pro. Those with more drive and/or ambition will consider it a con. Great place if you are retired and/or on a second career and want to take it easy. Golfing every other Friday is pretty common. Job security is higher than average, despite the current layoffs, but that also means there's lots of dead weight.
Cons
The company is in the middle of significant change driven by Jason directly (relatively new CEO). While Jason sometimes has the right vision, he’s unable and the wrong person to execute. Al (previous CEO), agree or disagree with him, took the company to new levels and was the kind of leader the people would follow. A simple review (or 360 evaluation) of Jason’s poor decision making history by the board should have precluded him for the position. Many have asked for board action on this site, what they need to realize is Al and Jason are buddies and Al got him the job. Al is still in the board. The board of trustees isn't a powerful board like that of a public company, the board only sees what the CEO what's them to see. Leadership typically has little vision or strategy. The few good executive leaders were frustrated by all the dead weight. The effort to reduce management levels has been of course focused on the lowest possible category of “management” (associate department heads) rather than the director and above (VPs and Officers) levels. At the same time, the number of VPs and officers has increased significantly. The only thing worse than a team of executives with no vision or strategy, is a larger team of executives with no vision and strategy. The 2018 creation of co-department heads is just the most recent hilarious example of bad management. The job of managing was already shared with the creation of “The MITRE Way” (reorg years ago), so now half of that shared leadership is further divided by equal co leadership?? I guess it's now a co-shared-matrixed leadership model (?), which will definitely ensure no one's responsible for success. Many of the good people are bailing from the company, leaving only those that can’t/won’t leave. My advice to those looking to join the company would be give it several years, my hope is this is just a temporary blemish in what is otherwise a long impressive history and a great company.