Avantages
As many have said on here, MathWorks is a good company if you are a new graduate or if you are waiting to retire. It is a stable, comfortable work environment. Most people are kind, intelligent, and willing to help you out. The top leadership (CEO, VPs) really know what they are doing and they seem down-to-earth. Other benefits: 1) Most people have their own office 2) Tuition assistance up to $5000/yr 3) Great health plan, 401k options 4) Some really useful training programs 5) Yearly summer outing 6) Free Breakfast, cookies on Friday, onsite gym
Inconvénients
Promotions are determined by years of service, not by merit. This definitely factors into the stability of the company (see Pros), but can really kill motivation. Teams are not given much autonomy. Every design decision seems to go through 2-3x more reviews than necessary, and process improvements are distributed from the top down. Again, this helps with stability, but kills motivation if you are driven by delivering products in a timely fashion and if you enjoy satisfying customers. The lack of autonomy seems to make middle management less effective leaders too, which is discouraging.