Hopefully this will help others... - Senior Software Engineer Boeing Employee Review

3.0
Jul 14, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1) Great health benefits. Company is very flexible about use of sick leave. 2) Generous amounts of vacation/year, and vacation carries over from year to year (up to a certain point). 3) Company is relatively flexible about telework/flexible hours. 4) Work/life balance is pretty good. >95% of my weeks are under 50 hours, and I've never really had a week over 60 hours. 5) The work for the most part is interesting and impactful to society. 6) There are lots of opportunities to do different kinds of work, as long as you're proactive with your manager. (This may depend on your organization.) I started as a C++ embedded software developer, then transitioned to full-stack web development with modern Javascript frameworks, and now I'm transitioning over to systems engineering.

Cons

1) My organization has a very short term outlook. As in, priorities set by management change on a weekly basis. This I think is in part because Boeing as a whole expects its subsidiaries to perform well each quarter (I work at a Boeing subsidiary). 2) Raises suck. Better than inflation, but not by all that much. Promotion raises are bad as well and even after you've moved up a level, they don't increase your raises by all that much. 3) We are required to take a lot of useless training every year. It's perhaps useful the first year you take it, but not after that. 4) The career ladder grinds to a halt once you hit senior engineering level (level 4 and above, highest non-executive level is 6). Climbing the ladder while remaining technical is extremely hard to do, and requires a lot of ambition and a little bit of luck. Becoming a manager may be a bit easier, but by doing so you sacrifice your ability to do technical work. Boeing expects its managers to be people persons and nothing else. 5) Boeing is mired in bureaucracy. Trying to get things done through official channels (e.g. getting licenses for software) takes weeks at a minimum.

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3.0
May 27, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Easy going, nice benefits, free further education (masters/PhD). Great for an engineer starting out who needs to dip their feet in the pool of engineering for a few years and to get a great 401(k) match at the start of your career (compounding growth). Great for late stage career due to the benefits and solid enough pay in a low cost of living area

Cons

pay-scale lagging, no emphasis on learning new things, no punishment for people who are bad at their job. After working for 4 years, I feel like I should have jumped ship after 2. I haven't been given meaningful work that really challenges me in a while. Now I feel pigeonholed into staying because I have enough years of experience that I really should be considered senior, but I haven't been given work that reflects what I senior engineer should be capable of. Now I'm trying to jump ship before it's really too late. If I stay here another 2 years I think I will be genuinely unemployable and will have to stay at this company forever.

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