Pros
I joined Portal Solutions from a staff augmentation firm because I wanted to work at a company that values expertise. Portal Solutions has been the perfect fit for me in that area. The company provides a culture that allows us to been seen and sold as experts, which is very important to me. Portal is a decidedly Microsoft SharePoint consulting firm, although the company desires to break into the wider Office 365 space. If you desire to work on that platform, there is no doubt that this is great company to work for. The company also works across many verticals as well from government, non-profit, and for-profit. To work for Portal you need to understand in 2014 and beyond there are going to be a lot (a lot) of Office 365 intranet projects because those are the projects they desire. You just need to be comfortable with that. When I came to Portal it was a very traditional work environment where everyone sits at the same desk everyday, but that has changed in recent years. Portal now is open to a wider array of working locations and environments, and that leads me to the single greatest "pro" in working for Portal: Work/life balance. Portal has allowed me work remotely, and they give me incredible flexibility in how I balance work and life even in my daily schedule. I have never received grief for needing to handle something during the day or ask for PTO. As long as you are committed to delivering great work in the time allotted to you, there is great flexibility. Also, Portal is always very open to re-evaluating an employee's importance and role in the company. My salary has been consistently raised to meet market expectations and my growing role in the organization. I've never felt like I couldn't discuss this honestly with management. Also, it's important to understand that Portal is not a "hand holding organization" in terms of personal success. That in my mind is not a con but a pro. The company gives you great flexibility, but if you want to do more training, further your personal brand, etc. you need to self-motivated. That is really the advantage in my mind of a small company (and why staff augmentation is revulsive for me). Even though work/life balance is the greatest "pro," there is a close second. I have always felt like the management of Portal go out of their way to care for me. Even though I'm remote, the CEO and other management takes time out of his schedule to meet with me personally and hear my thoughts on a myriad of topics. Some people don't want visibility into a company's management, but for me it is critical and Portal gives that..
Cons
The two areas that Portal Solutions has struggled in the five years I've been here concern our identity/values as an organization and type of clients/projects we go after. Regarding the identity and values. When I came to Portal the identity was clear: Portal Solutions is a first-rate SharePoint development firm. Over the last three years through acquisition, a changing market, and management movement that has become more difficult to pin down. It feels at times that Portal's identity and values are being shaped by the market instead of having a clearly defined identity and set of values that determines the markets we go into. The good news is that Portal is opening to changing this, and this goes back to my "pro" that to impact this you have be a self-starter. The opportunities are here to define how Portal works (in terms of internal processes) and what the company's identity is. Again, the self-motivation factor of Portal can be seen as a con, but in my mind those are people who want to have their careers handed to them. I prefer to define that for myself and work for change in an organization, and Portal gives that to you if you want it. If you think we need to work on our ALM process, marketing, etc. then just show an interest and motivation. It allows you to become multi-dimensional as an employee. Secondly, there are the types of clients and projects we go after. Being a small company, it's harder to sponge down turns in the market. We sometimes take clients and projects that aren't the best fit for us economically or culturally. It's a lesson we continually have to relearn. Thankfully, in my time at Portal these times have been few and far between.