Originally Posted by Unregistered

Ah. Nice to meet someone who have had more or less the same experience. Agree with what is said here - both about the learning curve, and also about getting to work with amazing, committed and intelligent folks.

For me, I've too moved on to a more functional role but still work very closely with those in Policy. Knowing their set of rationale/concerns makes working really does empower those down the stream (i.e. execution).

Deadlines are deadlines. Some are realistic, and some are ridiculous. 3/4 AM OT tends to be seasonal, but working at home until 9/10 PM is rather normal. That was so for me back then, at least.

All in all, you need to be comfortable with writing. Copious amounts of writing. And I think this is the third time I said this now, but you would definitely need to be comfortable with your paper being discussed (in some cases, torn apart). The bright side of all these is, as the other contributor shared, you learn a LOT in Policy. I am not sure where else one can learn as much but then again I could be biased, since I started out in Policy and all.

Hope this helps you, as well as all others who are or may be considering a career in Policy.