Pros
1. The best work/life balance I've ever experienced in my professional career. I worked for Elsevier for five years and this is why I stayed so long. 2. Great personal development opportunities, plenty of training and access to conferences.
Cons
I found working at Elsevier to be a frustrating experience, for many reasons: 1. Elsevier's customers are large institutions, rather than end users. It was hard to feel pride in my work when we were asked to make user-hostile product decisions. The feedback from end users was poor and I can only sympathise with them. I really wanted to make products that end users enjoyed but that was not Elsevier's objective. 2. Elsevier's bureaucracy is legendary. For example, getting approval to use a new software tool took over a year. 3. Department-level management at Elsevier is by far the worst I've seen. So many great co-workers left due to poor, often politically-motivation, decision making. 4. Elsevier wants to be a tech/data company but is unwilling to behave like one. The culture is simply too conservative and too risk-adverse.
