This is also a pro, but you get very attached to the kids. They rotate staff around once a year to different classrooms to prevent staff and client burnout/satiation. This is a great idea, but it's hard to watch and work with the same kids directly for an entire year, get moved to a different classroom, and not be able to have direct knowledge of their progress after that due to confidentiality (staff were not allowed to discuss clients with each other unless the same 2 staff talking about that client worked directly in the same classroom with that client).
I'm also in disagreement with someone else who reviewed saying that they inquired about advancement at every review. Because a con I am listing is that ABC was not diligent with their reviews. And being that raises are determined based on the result of the review, it was very frustrating. It took me 2.5 years of working there before I got my first review, and you're supposed to get one a MINIMUM of once a year (also, to that same person, you can't get direct therapy Behavior Technician work signed off for your BCBA hours).
Once the school districts, and subsequently ABC, got hit with budget cuts and started getting furloughed a few years back, they made a promise that they would not conduct any layoffs. And to my knowledge they held true to that. What happened instead, at least from the BT perspective, was that people started getting fired for seemingly random and wrongful reasons. Admittedly, I only received second or third-hand knowledge, but from the stories I heard, it sounded like random reasons were made up to terminate some people - and it seemed to be, from my perspective at the time, a way to save some money and tighten the belts without having to officially lay people off. This all may or may not have any validity, but what it did for those of us who remained was made us incredibly fearful for our job securities. The supervisors seemed to be alienated from the direct classroom staff, and it made it so that every time a BCBA was in the classroom, we were all fearful of every little screw up, thinking we could get fired at any moment. Giving the benefit of the doubt, it was probably just because of the rumors going around at the BT level, but anxiety of all the staff increased, and I feel work performances suffered. So I think there was an oversight on the management's part, which I hope has been resolved.
My only real gripe was that the pay was absolutely not good. At all. For being a college student, it was enough to pay the bills and have hours that worked with my school schedule, but really not much else. Maybe it's a symptom of being in California and when budget cuts happen at the government level, education is the first to go. But being in competition with other companies who do ABA, the pay doesn't come close. I worked there for nearly 5 years, and I was only making $1.50 more per hour than when I started. When I got my new job about 6 months later, I started off making almost twice as much per hour than I did at ABC, and that's not even with a company that pays the most in the area. If it weren't so hard to leave the amazing team of staff and the incredible kids that are there, I'm sure other staff members would have a much easier decision leaving for a company that pays better. Medical, dental, etc are good if you are full time, but the paycheck you bring home is never a lot at the behavior technician level.
If you hold a Bachelor's Degree or less, there are few opportunities for upward mobility within the company. Unless you want to move to work in administration for the company, behavior technician and lead behavior technician are your only real options. And since the leads tend to be people who have been around the company a long time, and have a desire to stick around, that leaves opportunities for promotions very limited. Personally, this was part of the motivation that I had to seek a higher degree and certification, but I saw a lot of people get complacent, or even discouraged.