Pros
You may like it, if you are a workaholic with no interest in free time or becoming wealthy; or if you want distance from your family. Good employment for non-exempt, non-degreed workers; the benefit package is above average for the typical employee, but below average for high-level employees like staff engineers and above. Small pockets of interesting work, but usually hidden from all but pet employees. Talented people, but some of the best have recently moved on.
Cons
For all but a few protected pet employees who are assigned a fraction of the typical workload, the crushing overtime leaves no time for the use of benefits, family, or interests. People are exhausted and frustrated and it makes for difficult workdays. Due to the overtime, an employer that offers 2/3 of the GDC4S salary offer is actually offering more. Before you sign-on, have documented discussions with HR and the hiring manager regarding, bonuses, cost of living and performance adjustments, paid time off, compensation, flex, sick, and personal time, teleworking, stock options, travel specifics, car allowance and anything that you may need to offset the overtime that you will be working. You MUST get everything in writing and get copies of it SIGNED by HR and the hiring manager, and then expect to fight for it. Expect between 500 and 1000 hours of UNCOMPENSATED overtime per year. Engineers of all levels are scheduled to work 70 hour per week, 10 hours days and longer when traveling are typical. Laptops are provided to “encourage” work from home, but teleworking is frowned upon. When engineers travel, they are “encouraged” to travel on weekends and on the cheap (increasing their inconvenience and unpaid overtime), and managers commit them to support other project meetings in the very early AM, late PM or during lunch; resulting in hundreds of hours of UNPAID, UNCOMPENSATED overtime per year. Junior employees, like senior engineers and below, attend meetings far above the scope of their professional competencies; which confuses stakeholders and customers who end up thinking that they are principals. Managers do not instruct them to be courteous, perform the tasks assigned by or to follow the directions and mentoring given to them by the high-level employees. They are not educated in the differences in responsibilities between themselves and the higher organizational levels and constantly argue with and bypass more senior employees; often running amuck, jumping across many levels of hierarchy, and complaining to managers and creating additional unnecessary work. Some interesting and smart people who, in other cultures, would be fun to work with and become lifelong colleagues, but due to the crushing overtime, relationships are difficult to form and maintain. Due to the overtime performance “awards,” if provided at all, represent a tiny fraction of the lost income. The company lawyers-up and uses tons of restrictive policies, psychological and mid-management pressure, and creative contracts to get around the legal complications of the crushing overtime. HR may be being instructed to not divulge what the typical work week will be; since requisitions do not include any wording like “Significant uncompensated overtime required.” The culture is highly warped by its customer base and thinks that, rather than being a civilian company employing people, it is part of the military and owns workers who must serve and sacrifice for the company. Too many prior-military who place way too much importance on how much or what kind of military service someone may or may not have had and too little on the level and quality of their day to day performance and delivery. Government pressure to reduce program cost and waste is passed, without impact, through the management levels, has no impact on management compensation and perks, and is borne directly by exempt engineers. The company may be violating accreditation standards with the detrimental practice of hiring non-degreed employees into engineering positions.