Pros
Competitive salary when adjusted for cost of living in Owatonna. Excellent benefits (e.g., fully funded pension which could cover a modest retirement even without adding your own savings, extremely cheap health insurance with solid coverage compared to most places). Flexible schedule, as long as it doesn't include remote work. Great sense of community and purpose. Insurance is important work and Federated does it well. Mutual company (owned by customers, no shareholders to kowtow to). Almost without exception, people are friendly, helpful, honest, and easy to get along with. Good opportunities for internal advancement and lateral moves, if you get tired of what you're doing and want to try something new. High stability. People always need insurance and Federated is in a solid financial position. As long as you do your work and nothing cataclysmic happens, you'll be able to spend your entire career at Federated, and many people do. Training program is perfect for people right out of school with no industry experience yet – several months paid adapting to corporate life and figuring out how to put your education into action. Day-to-day work is mostly well-defined and the right level of difficulty. Some opportunities to innovate if you are adventurous enough to go against the grain.
Cons
Leadership is deeply out of touch with the twenty-first-century workplace and sometimes dysfunctional. Common sense has been repeatedly ignored during COVID for vaguely defined “culture” reasons, getting employees sick. Absolutely no willingness to consider any kind of remote work, even in the face of losing most of the company's best talent. Frustrating lack of transparency and paternalistic attitude toward employees. Management often approves proposals and then makes employees defend them again mid-implementation. Lack of diversity. Leadership is almost entirely white men and other staff isn't too much different. Granted, it's tough to build a diverse workplace in small-town southern Minnesota, but still frustrating and a significant weakness in perspective. Conservative and reluctant to change. Technology stack badly out of date in some places (but catching up or even excellent in others). Probably not worse than an average financial services company. Many positions in the IS department involve less “development” and technical work and more configuration, maintenance and administration than you might expect from the job title; some are very far on this side of the continuum. When starting in the training program it is impossible to know what type your placement will be because most hires are not made for a specific position. (That said, historically they seem to be good at matching people to positions that fit them well.) Expectations for work hours are varied and unpredictable. Some departments and teams work ~40-hour weeks indefinitely, others have significantly higher expectations or mandatory overtime for years in a row. Mediocre project and work management. Limited social opportunities in Owatonna for people without a family. If you want to live somewhere else, you'll be spending a lot of time in the car.