Pros
The company's employee friendly policies are a plus. A lot of decent policies like day care, adoption assistance and health club reimbursement though are overshadowed by the the incompetence and arrogance of the SSO department's management.
Cons
More than deriding a company or it's people this review is aimed towards being feedback for the company and also a message for Java developers joining the SSO department in SAS R&D, Pune. The management in SSO works hand in hand and there are no skip level meetings where you can provide feedback or expect improvement. Technically the department is in the 90's! There existed no build files or mechanism for projects on production when I joined! And that is just the tip of the iceberg! No code reviews are done and the usual attitude is just to get the job done via the shortest route possible. There are absolutely no technical leaders in SSO and code quality as a result is dismal. SAS has certain standards when it comes to code, build, libraries, etc. None of these are followed in the SSO department for some reason. Decisions are ad hoc and spontaneous often portraying the management's juvenile and arrogant ways. Politics is prolific! Deserving people beg for promotions and are cited ridiculous reasons for not getting or delaying them. Rumors are floated around about people who want to leave so that the management can save their behinds. I was lied to about promotions shamelessly. I hope the top management looks into SSO and realizes these issues before more employees suffer.