Not innovative at all - Configuration Design Engineer Boeing Employee Review

1.0
Jul 23, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The company does pay well, and does provide good benefits, but that's about the limit :/.

Cons

This is not a company for "free thinker" engineers. The engineering side is run by "subject matter experts" who are 20 years behind in their field. When challenged, they respond with something along the lines of "we already have the best in class capabilities, why do we need to change?". Job status has no basis in merit: it is purely based on how long you have been at the company (which explains why some really unqualified people are considered experts). Whenever people poke their heads out of the box, they get pushed back down. They actively hunt down & destroy disruptive innovation, despite claiming "innovation" is a company value. Design is largely done by intuition and experience of the experts, which usually leads to poor performing designs and cost over-runs. The design mentality is largely the same as it was in the late 1980's, but with incremental technology improvements. Also, there is the bureaucracy. It took a full year to get approval to bring in non-standard computers for a group that needed better computers. Any time someone tries to do something new/non-standard, it has to go through a massive approval process, which inevitably ends up getting an expert to say "well, we don't need that, we already have the best", despite whatever evidence you show to the contrary. And, since they're the experts, their word is god.

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5.0
May 7, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Incredible mission, interesting work, culture is positively changing

Cons

I am “on” for work all the time

4.0
Jun 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work-life balance has been great at the Long Beach site. My coworkers are very considerate and supportive. Benefits suck as parental leave and 401k, Roth 401k, and mega backdoor Roth make it so you can really get ahead in terms of retirement building. They are trying to get better in culture and performance rather than some companies that don’t even pretend to care. During the pandemic there was no training. Now there’s some!

Cons

Base pay can be slightly lower than other companies for specific skills. Each site and each organization within each site has its own culture depending on who is the VP/executive team. There are so many executives it’s hard to get things done. Things move very slowly.

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