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Pros/Cons of Working at Big R&D Consulting Firm?
pagalvin asks: "I'm being recruited for an 'R&D Architect' position at a Big 4 consulting firm in the U.S.
Does the community care to share its experience working as 'overhead' in a large organization that is most famous for its consultants working 60 hour weeks and billing 'til the fat lady sings? In such places, do non-billable R&D types get any respect? Is there a a long-term career path that sticks with the technology track?"
You will have a higher risk of being cut since your work is not core to the business. You will be both admired and hated by the non-R&D folks. You will work on cool stuff and have lots of fun. You'll likely have lower pay and advancement opportunities since your compensation is getting to work on cool stuff and having lots of fun. You will have a higher chance of using Nerf(TM) toys at work. You probably don't have a girlfriend. You will have a conversation about Sci-Fi at least once a week. You will feel that you would be more appreciated and arguably at lower risk (other than company viability...) if you work for a small startup tech company rather than doing R&D in the IT universe.
:-)
The important thing is to follow your heart and do what you are passionate about. If you do that, everything else you want will likely follow. Well, maybe not the girlfriend...
My father retired from the Navy and went to work for one of the government contractors in the area; he wound up going through seven jobs in six years, because every time that a contract ended, the company would lay off all but the top three or four managers from the project, and he'd have to find another employer. After that, he decided to go back to work for the Navy as a civil servant (amusingly, winding up working about fifty yards from where I worked (having gotten hired as a civil servant for the Navy when I got out of college), and eventually retired from civil service. Working for a company that depends on government contracts for its operations is a chancy business until you've got enough experience that you're on the high end of the pile when the cuts go in when the contract ends.
Deloitte&Touche Ernst&Young KPMG PricewaterhouseCoopers
Are generally referred to as 'the big four' consulting firms. They are not technology or management specific. They will happily sell you absolutely anything you ask for....
The names have changed but the people are the same.
The big 5 Accounting companies which had to spin off their consulting divisions after some court ruling (can't remember if it was a conflict of interest case or something related to Enron/ Sarbanes Oxley). Arthur Andersen died after Enron (check Wikipedia for more) and now they are only the big 4.
Deloitte & Touche --> Deloitte
Ernst & Young --> Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGEY)
KPMG Consulting --> BearingPoint/ Deloitte (depending where)
Arthur Andersen --> Andersen Consulting --> Accenture
PriceWaterhouseCoopers --> PWC Consulting --> bought by IBM Global Services
During the late nineties and early naughties, these companies were considered the shit.
Having worked with some of them (not at) for projects I can say that they are amazing project entities with capabilities to build, mismanage and sometimes deliver the most enormous projects. In all cases they overbill and seem to be staffed by overworked miserable people trying to find their way around the massive org. chart.
Go work for a nice company if you can or at least an investment bank where you can at least make loads of money.
29 mpg. YMMV.