Pros
Company culture is unmatched. It is a very fun company to work for and networking opportunities are limitless. If you have an outgoing personality, you will THRIVE at this company. Amount you can learn is what you make of it. When I first started, I wanted to learn everything I could. Brushless motor control, firmware, inverter bridges, best practices. You can learn if you put yourself in positions to learn and listen to your tech leads / Sr. engineers. Career advancement is 100% possible if you show to upper management you are capable, reliable, and self-sufficient. It takes some time to build an "image" of yourself, but it’s just office politics. If you want to go into management, you probably already know and understand that though. You can transfer to other departments if you want, which is nice when you realize NPD is the same thing over and over again.
Cons
Work life balance is absolutely terrible. I'm really tired of hearing "Ebbs and flows". Sure, I'll flow for a week or two and be bored out of my mind, but then I'll ebb for 3 months straight and work till 8/10pm every day. It is 100% not worth the flows, so stop saying it. It's more like a MOSFET operating in saturation. When it's on, you’re going to WORK. When it's off, you will be doing NOTHING. There is no linear region here. NPD is a dead end job. That whole organization is a "churn and burn" machine. Hire fresh engineers who don't know what to expect and have the "I'll do anything to be seen" mentality, work the life out of them until they are burnt out and leave, then rinse and repeat. You'll be working 50-60 hour work weeks at the lowest possible pay for 2 years. Just rerun the same tests over and over again. Don't really get design creativity. Compensation. Given the above issues, you will not be compensated anywhere near what you should be. It's absolutely insane. Work hard for an entire year, bend over backwards to hit schedule, and you'll receive a 6% merit increase (despite inflation being 8%). I've about had it with this game.
