Pros
Varies widely depending on department and college, but you will probably be working with interesting and passionate people. Solid benefits. Pretty secure place to work as a LGBTQ+ gender-nonconforming person.
Cons
Some critical pieces of the university run on the oldest software you can imagine, and now they're trying to replace it all with Workday, which is notoriously user-unfriendly. My experience in finance was that it was a high-stress position where you were responsible for a lot but had no actual power to change things. Leadership often tone-deaf when it comes to staff. For 2026 benefits, they nearly doubled health insurance premiums for employees with almost no warning - an actually historic increase, even compared to the Great Recession years. You will pay to park on campus and it will cost more every year, while Cornell haggles with TCAT over how much to fund public transit. If your manager is a control freak, you will not be allowed to work from home.