Pros
Great pay. Fairly low stress. Slow learning curve. Low expectations. Firm is (currently) privately held. Downtown Chicago. Nice employee referral program. Great resume stuffer. It's a great "in" if you are in the Financial field or have an interest in Options and/or Stock. Lots of knowledgable people who have been around since the early days of CBOE.
Cons
Poor working relationships. Poor direct management supervision. Poor performance planning and management. Poor project management. Poor project execution. Low quality technological system. There seem to be serious disconnects between the average employee and the overall direction of the company. Projects are often discombobulated, hard to implement, hard to follow, hard to clean up. With multiple projects being implemented, one on top of the other, the quality of the system would seem to be compromised. The employees that have been here for a while often come across as arrogant and can be difficult to work with, requiring other employees to pry information out of them.