Great People Hamstrung By Leadership and Process - Aerospace Engineer III Blue Origin Employee Review

2.0
Oct 30, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- You're at a company doing big things - launching people is no joke! New Glenn, delayed as it is, has solid people working very cool projects. - There are many terrific people working here. - Once established, it is easy to move around the company and find a home. Between NS, NG and ADP, there are tons of opportunities to see and do many different things. - With Jeff getting more involved recently, I'm more optimistic about Blue's future than I have been in a while. - If you find a specific "home" in Blue, the work can be rewarding enough on its own that you can persevere through the BS. That said, if you're just starting out, and/or expect the company to be exciting on its own, Blue is not the place.

Cons

- Dead weight is allowed to stick around. This lowers morale and the performance bar for everyone. - Management is incredibly out-of-touch with individual contributors. - When management does hear feedback, reactions are very often too-little too-late (ie after the company has been bleeding staff for years, they have finally reacted by increasing 401K match one percentage point and adding pet insurance) - Obsession with process, corporate structure and bureaucracy has caused many people to feel that they have lost ownership of their work. This leads to slower, lower quality work with little motivation to go above and beyond. - Human flight certification is being used as an excuse to stifle engineering improvements on New Shepard. While the vehicle is generally robust, so many small changes could massively increase our turnaround and overhead work scope. - Recruiters are slow to contact candidates and even slower to extend offers. It is critical that they strike while the iron is hot to improve candidate yield.

Explore other reviews about Blue Origin

5.0
Jun 3, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good team to work with. No complaints.

Cons

No cons at this point.

1.0
Jun 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Free coffee and snacks and a slice of pizza when New Glenn launched and landed. They years before Blue gave everyone a 10K bonus for the New Shepard first human flight, they have since shut the entire program down.

Cons

Too many to list. The high performers get hit the hardest. I went 8 months without out missing a day, pick up other incomplete projects. After 8 years I received zero stock options which was promised at time of hire. When I left Blue had 383 people with Director in their title and had 40 VPs. Blue even posted a picture of the Chief Engineers on their Facebook page, they had 42! I was there for 8 years and my title never changed, every year they promised a promotion but they never come. I have 2 Masters degrees my Sr Manager had an A.A in arts, once he made Sr Director he was there for 6 months and moved to Andril. The pad repairs will take a year and they will loose the FCC bandwidth which will make them obsolete.

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