Pros
Excellent compensation and benefits. Company does a great job with finding a good fit for your existing skill set. Avian goes the extra mile to keeping you employed with plenty of lateral transfer opportunities. Company has good outreach & involvement with the community. The new AVIAN Engineering Services CEO is fantastic. The company is trying real hard to grow into a big-time services contractor, to grow into new markets. If you're looking for a stable job with little vertical movement, look no further as Avian is the company for you. A few things have changed for the better in the last few years: There is a concerted effort to offer professional skills training for all employees. A formal year-long leadership program is also in place, which is a large step in the right direction. Also, there's a roadmap in place for career progression. Professional initiative goals are now recognized within the company.
Cons
Unfortunately, many things are still the same over the past few years. While the skill training is there, there are still rarely any professional opportunities to get promoted into a real leadership position where you can bring the trained skills to bear. I suppose that's a symptom of a small & flat company that AVIAN currently is now. Unless you are a retired military person or a long-time local resident, the very few promotions that actually do become available usually goes to one of these two groups. So, in essence, AVIAN does take care of you financially, they really won't take care of you professionally. There's been a lot of turnover in corporate staff, but they're trying real hard to leave behind to the old bush-league style of corporate execution. The paid leave policy (a.k.a. vacation) has been in turmoil the last few years, with it changing every year for the last 3 years. HQ has been trying to find a way to offer a good policy and one that saves money at the same time. The company also hides behind "contractual constraints" when offering yearly performance raises, which has been lagging behind national inflation increases the last few years. So if you have a "stellar" yearly work performance, don't think you'll ever get a commensurate "stellar" salary bump. You might get a one-time smallish spot bonus instead.