Pros
The people: there are a handful of "difficult" colleagues who have a reputation, but this is a small minority. Otherwise, the best group of colleagues I've had in my career.
-Flexibility: a "soft" 2 days in the office & the existence of flex time helps take out some of the sting out of long hours.
New CEO: a new CEO came over on 2023 and he seems to be a lot nicer than his predecessors, and actually gives more license for departmental and company-wide team building events.
Cons
Salary: salaries do not keep up with the market. Even a promotion to a new role does not provide opportunities to get a market rate reset.
General HR involvement: the HR team are far too involved in the day-to-day operations of staff. The ratio of HR staff to non-HR staff is by far the highest I've seen on my career, and many HR initiatives feel as though they're implemented for the sake of giving HR more to do.
Management approach: a very top-down approach to decision making. The people tasked with carrying out the work are very rarely asked for their thoughts on what would be successful.
The Japanese factor: a quote I was given from a former colleague when I joined - "At Sumi, if you're Japanese, you'll live like a king. If you're not, you'll do ok, but you'll never be one of them". with a few exceptions, it is hard for local staff to progress beyond a certain level because senior management roles are almost exclusively allocated to Japanese ex-pats. Often times, the guys sent from Tokyo (in particular the men) avoid interacting with local staff if at all possible. I have attended more than a few meetings where Japanese staff will switch away from English, excluding the majority of attendees.