Pros
Most co-workers are nice and easy to interact with.
Cons
Everything else. I believe there is much more to a “good” job than the pay. Growing up in RTP, I had high hopes for SAS. The current benefits are no better than other large organizations I’ve worked for, in fact some are benefits are worse; particularly if you don’t work at the Cary office. I can’t count the number of times I heard other employees reminisce on the good ol’ days, but those days are gone. The supposed 35 hour work week only exists for a select few. The same applies for any sense of a work life balance. If you chose to maintain a balance, you certainly won’t be advancing unless you’re buddies with management. Promotions are based primarily on tenure at SAS, not experience/knowledge in the industry or productivity. There’s also a considerable amount of nepotism. Seems to be some sketchy business happenings at headquarters. I had six manager changes in under 3 years. I can only say that one of those was competent for the role, another may have but was only in the role for a month. Take that as a sign of how things shift organizationally but often without positive effect. The company as a whole and a lot of long-time employees are slow to make any change. By the time a change is made, they are already further behind. The company is slow to adapt to evolving technologies and industry practices; some employees simply refuse to adapt and yet continue to collect a paycheck because management does not want or know how to deal with them. Leadership talks about these changes, but seeing any implemented and accepted by employees is another thing. The company and most employees are reactive, I believe this has become a part of the culture. It appears to be beneficial, reacting is rewarded both with recognition and monetarily. Proactively addressing something is only rewarded with more work, there’s little team support (maybe due to the aforementioned management issues). If you have an idea or suggestion that management likes, that work is then an additional load on your plate to complete. I did work with a few knowledgeable, motivated, hard-working individuals, but that was only a few out of thousands that I interacted with. Many of them left SAS for other companies. I can’t say that when I see SAS on someone’s resume for anything more than a few years I would hold their skills in high regard. I’ve worked at other organizations with similar issues to varying degrees, but none as much as SAS. Unless you are straight out of college, looking for a year or two experience (learn from both the good and the bad), I wouldn’t recommend working at SAS.
