Avantages
Laid back culture; management and oversight is extremely lax, the most junior associates are trusted and empowered to get their deliverables compelted on their own schedule. I work in the Northern Virginia office and my entire management heirarchy is in the Richmond office, so I basically come and go as I please so long as I get my work done when it's needed and the results are good. I can basically work from home whenever I like. Going back to trust and empowerment of junior associates, this is true also in terms of the work assigned; management does very little hand-holding, leans on these associates to perform most of the work on their own.
Inconvénients
Traveling to Richmond on a weekly basis is a pain the rear. At this point I basically go on my own schedule, nobody absolutely mandates I make the trip, but to effectively get results and exposure to management I don't really have a choice. Most of the analyst teams have too much middle management; anaylsts report to managers report to directors report to VP, when in reality it seems VP always sets the strategy, analysts perform the work, and everyone in between just refines the powerpoint. The "Information Based Strategy" environment at times is too analytic; too much time and manpower is spent in overly detailed valuations frameworks that provide little if any value.