Pros
Unique projects. Bright minds. Library support. Supercomputer. Opportunity to be creative. Most colleagues are genuinely helpful and collaborative.
Cons
Emphasis on selling something to the sponsor. Praise given to those who can sell a promise to the sponsor. Reprimanding given to those who admit and report bugs to the sponsors. Lots of misrepresentation and hand-waving with graphs and statistics. So much consciousness about one's "brand" and "image". Lack of true technical integrity. An environment where everyone is too afraid to appear incompetent. Weeks or months would go by where underlying problems do not get brought up. Honesty gets punished if it ruins the image they want to give off. Lack of transparency. Group leaders will just cancel your one-on-ones. Bullying and superiority complex among some colleagues. I would often hear the word "stupid" or "blind". Bias for those with military connections. Due to the prototyping nature, projects lack scalability and usability.