Pros
Battelle was a fun and interesting place to work. We got to work on very interesting projects. Battelle has significant resources, that when properly utilized, can magnify the impact or the research or project upon which you are working It is a very stable work environment. If you are a good worker, you don't need to fear losing your job.
Cons
The office culture at Battelle is degenerate In many ways the employee interactions with the company are tainted by a huge asymmetry of expectations and values. Battelle management culture attaches huge value to the privilege of working there, which in my experience was not supported by the local marketplace, unless you assign some large value to the small amount of prestige that Battelle has in the area. I got the feeling that the management views the employee as a resource to be exploited. In many of their business lines, I think they can get away with it, because they are a local monopoly. Be prepared to be managed. I don't know a better way to explain it without coming across as a bitter ex-employee, which I am not, but you will be managed. If you think about management as a synonym of manipulation I think you will get what I mean. I prefer to be lead, or even to lead. Politics abounds at Battelle. Poor business decisions made for political reasons. Be prepared to have unqualified employees assigned to your projects for political reasons. Your managers will ask you to 'donate time' to the company to save projects, or even increase their profitability. It is not a donation, but an expectation for the 'privilege' of working at Battelle. Be prepared for abysmally bad management. Be prepared to work almost exclusively on Government Contracts. There are a lot of inefficiencies at Battelle that strongly discourage private companies from buying their product. The Motto is the Business of Innovation, but it really is the business of evolution. The culture there makes real innovation difficult to accomplish, because of the inherent risk, but there is still a lot of interesting stuff can be done evolving the existing projects. There are a lot of inefficiencies at Battelle, and you need to be prepared to carry the load for the inefficiencies, because actually fixing those inefficiencies does not seem politically possible with the current environment. In many ways, Battelle is a micro-socialistic economy, so if that type of thing appeals to you then you will love it. Battelle does donate a portion of its profits to charity, but in my case this goes in the 'con' Section, due to the nature of the charities to which they donate. Politics abounds at Battelle and that even influences the charitable side of things, so their is a definite Leftist-Socialist leaning in all of the charities to which they donate. I spoke the departement responsible for charitable giving one time, and they showed me their donation guidelines which basically guarantee that they will only donate to Neutral or Leftist charities. If you find yourself agreeing with the Hobby Lobby and their way of doing business, then you will have a hard time working to generate profit for Battelle, if you really think about it. In the end there is a lot of interesting stuff that you can end up doing if you are willing to put your head down and look the other way as horrible business decisions are made, but despite all that you will still have some moderate professional success. If you are looking for a good salary, a stable job, and a pension, and don't really care about any of these other factors, Battelle may be the place for you.