Pros
The Sponsor work can be incredible, good and bad, we get to see how government and the supporting agencies function to really try to help with their problems. I've had the opportunity to work on National level challenges that if I worked in commercial sector, would have never been exposed to and actually work to solve. However, this work is spotty, so you need to position yourself and build your reputation for these opportunities.
Cons
The old saying, "people don't quit jobs, they quit their bosses" is so true. There is no accountability at the C-Suite level. Given MITRE is not-for-profit (at least for now), we obviously don't have a real Board that holds stock. It's a good-old boy/girl network of ex- government executives with no skin in the game, if MITRE rots, they still get a fancy lunch and sit in the nice board room, have some of MITRE's best dance to entertain while offering out-of-touch advice. Not a bad day. Don't need to restate what others have said, just the morale is so low, at all levels from director level down. We've had nonsensical benefit cuts that is now causing constant attrition of good people, and then then the brain trust cuts overhead making it difficult to bring on new people while telling us to hire.