Pros
I worked on the RealTime (RT) side which is a completely separate building so my experience may be different than those who work on the offline side. 1. Majority of people are very smart and very helpful. If you show interest and effort to learn people will be willing to help you out and teach you. This is a great opportunity since ETAP's VPs and principal engineers are extremely knowledgeable on their subject matter. ETAP RT Managers are also very approachable with questions/concerns about their modules/projects. 2. Many different things you can work on; you won't be bored. At the start you will do a lot of testing of similar/the same modules to familiarize yourself with it. After a while you will be asked to test different modules which is nice since testing the same thing over and over can be boring. Eventually you will work on projects and be involved in the design of additional ETAP modules. There is also opportunities to travel and do installations of ETAP RT systems for clients. 3. ETAP RT does have a pretty good pulse as to where the industry is headed. Can't speak much about developing side but as far as engineering, ETAP RT does understand where the industry is headed and does appear to be moving in the right direction. 4. Parties/get-togethers outside of work and during lunch if that is your thing.
Cons
I worked on the RealTime (RT) side which is a completely separate building so my experience may be different than those who work on the offline side. 1. Testing can sometimes feel like a high risk no reward system. 2. Hours do have to be logged and every task has an estimated time to complete ( generally 1-2 hours but there are some that are 200+ hours for projects) but I have never seen any manager make a big deal if you go over - whether testing or developing. Payroll also asks to log hours via ADP, however, and that is a complete waste of time. You have to do it to get paid though. 3. Some people can be difficult to work with. Some developers/engineers seem to take it personally when you report an error with a module they worked on. You must be prepared to defend reporting the issue. Overall, though, this does not happen too often and only when you report something that is not 100% reproducible. 4. Working on large projects can feel overwhelming at times. ETAP and ETAP RT are very robust and with large projects it can be a bit overwhelming testing everything. Especially if there are only 1-2 people testing it. Does feel like you are expected to be an expert at every offline/online module when working on projects. If you do try and become an expert with all the modules it can make you a master-of-none. This can be particularly stressful due to #3 above. As you build rapport with developers, this issue becomes less and less of a problem, however.
