Pros
Everyone you work with is smart -- your fellow editors, your authors, your publicists, etc. Most editors have PhDs in their field areas and stay on top of developments in their discipline. You cannot work in the editorial department without learning a ton about your subject and current thought in it. The office is casual and very open. I never got a sense that there was competition and people on 'rival' lists wanted to help each other hit targets. Half of my intern group was hired into fulltime positions
Kontras
Like all publishing jobs, the pay is dismal and you have to work long hours to make those deadlines. There's also some disillusionment with academia that sets in once you reject 200 proposals in one day knowing that all those professors need to be published to get tenure.