Pluspunten
A lot of other reviews paint SANS as a bad place to work, and it’s probably true it was very bad for some people but my experience at SANS was more good than bad. It could be a very tough place to work but the professional experience and certifications I gained made it worth it. I can only speak to my experience in IT which operates very differently than the other business units. It’s a remote workplace and your schedule can be very flexible. As long as the work is getting done people don’t worry about the time you spend in the seat. You are generally free to leave as needed for errands, kids, appointments, etc. If you end up working late nights or excessive hours management is generally pretty receptive to your needs and comp time is usually available. It’s a mission driven organization that strives to do good in the world and it attracts a lot of very talented and smart people. I had a couple of bad managers but they didn’t last very long. The IT managers who remained when I left all ranged from good to great. It seemed like most operated on a servant leader mindsets and a phrase I often heard from the CIO was they try to “hire smart people and then get out of their way”. Free cyber security training and certifications available to employees. Autonomy, if you have an idea you’re allowed to run with it and micromanagement was kept to a minimum.
Minpunten
Flexibility aside, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself working long days. If you end up on a team that supports live training sessions, be aware SANS is a global company offering training in most time zones and you’ll probably have to work weird hours to support them. It is expected that everyone pitches in and does what needs to be done to support the mission even if it’s outside your normal job description, you’ll often hear the phrase “everyone picks up a shovel”. As another review stated there were no yearly scheduled reviews. If you want to progress at SANS you have to advocate for yourself and push hard. Promotions and raises were always tough to get. If you’re comfortable with ambiguity and can fight for yourself you could do well there but it can be hard. It’s a weird organizational structure and the instructors/authors are contractors and don’t work directly for SANS. There can be a lot of ambiguity over who owns what and where the delimitation of responsibilities lie. “Hero” efforts and going above and beyond are celebrated to a fault and can cause an unhealthy work-life balance. Silo’d areas of the business can cause communication issues but efforts to break those down was underway when I left. Some other areas of the organization seemed like bad places to work. They had authoritative managers who stifled disagreement and I heard that they often yelled at their employees.