Pros
One of the most compelling reason for any Quant PM /Researcher to pick Cubist is the quality and variety of data. Data Services team is highly proficient at Cubist and they go extra mile in making sure that the data you need is delivered to you in an easy to use format. Most of the Data team analysts are very smart and have a graduate degree in Computer Science/Statistics or relate d fields. Also, the team has put in a lot of hard work in documenting data and also becoming familiar with the data as a Subject Matter Experts to answer detailed data related questions. Data related support is 24/7 and thus there are not many data related production outages. Another important differentiating factor is many datasets have been collected PIT in-house and thus not available at other places. While I was at Cubist, I was able to get access to pretty much all the data sources which were mentioned in academic literature and more.
Cons
I stayed with the firm over a decade and can't think of any negatives about the place. Probably there is a room for improving snacks in the Pantry