Pros
Upsides: 100% Remote work, ability to learn from industry experts , and decent pay (Depending on your role). There are pockets of really excellent people, and the events can be fun, but that's not all what makes for a satisfactory, stable job.
Cons
This is said sincerely, trust the bad reviews. When they receive a lot of bad reviews, they ask current employees to go in and say it's the best place ever. They do it because they're afraid of losing their jobs. Either that or they're one of the bullies that don't see a problem with everything that's going on. The culture at SANS is very toxic. The management and leadership is aggressive and it's a militant good ole boy's club. There is such a lack of communication and transparency, it's unreal. You're constantly having to keep up and gathering tons of information from individual sources because nothing is unified and everything is so tribal. What's worse, there is such a lack of diversity at higher levels. Everyone in a leadership position is someone's brother, uncle, cousin, or friend. The nepotism is very thick which results in a ton of people put into positions they don't know how to do. This causes a ton of micromanagement and an intense workload for others who produce results. If you're overworked and mention it, you're gaslit. If you give any sort of constructive criticism, you're gaslit. If you try to bring an issue of bullying or harassment to HR, you're gaslit and also told you will be fired if you talk about it to anyone. I've seen sexism get protected and leadership seems to think DEI is simply a money making lever they can pull. Because of this the workload is very intense because the company can't keep it together so they offload everything on everyone else and expect immediate results. If you try to triage and prioritize something else above another person's ask, you're met with animosity, pettiness, or aggression. Whatever person is asking you for whatever thing in that moment is the most important. There's a use it or lose it PTO policy, no sick days, and even when you try to take off for being sick, it's common a manager will ask you to work anyway or will ask if you completed any work while away on PTO. People are constantly getting laid off under the radar and the remaining employees are told not to contact anyone who was let go or they could get a reprimanding. You're forbidden to talk about salary ---which is illegal--- and they threaten to fire you if you do. If you try to talk about customer concerns or pricing, you're also met with animosity and made an example of in front of your peers.
