A very average job but well below average compensation - Anonymous employee L3Harris Employee Review

3.0
Oct 30, 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's an average job for the industry. Some days are good, some are not. Some projects are good while others are dumpster fires due to poor planning by those bidding contracts. A nice pro is there is rarely direct micromanagement and some managers are allowing remote work. The downside is corporate wants to axe remote work again and limit it to only certain days of the week, so this benefit will likely be gone in practice next year. 4 weeks vacation (no accrual, also no payout for unused so you must use 4 weeks per year or you are just losing out), Inexpensive but not that great of insurance options. 401k is through Fidelity. Allegedly the culture is "pay for performance". Sounds great in theory but my experience has been you will never surpass inflation as your annual raise so you just keep making less money over time. There are effectively L3 through L6 as position ranks, so four pay bands for the majority of staff (read: likely only 3 promotions possible in your career for most employees). L1 to L2 don't exist for engineers. Theoretically there is a lot of room to move up without a formal title change. A rare L7 exists here and there, but only a few career employees are granted the rank.

Cons

Middle management does not and seemingly cannot offer any career enhancing opportunities at present. No training opportunities. No industry conference visits. No certifications to earn. Not even support for publishing trade studies because some people just don't want to deal with getting the content reviewed. A stale innovation program due to reviewers in charge being rather dismissive of disruptive technologies they don't understand. Exceptionally limited input is accepted from those who have been end users of products and services. Upper management only exists to cut costs and squeeze more out of employees. CEO received more than $15 million in 2021 while staff received <3% raises in many cases. I have never once seen any executive in person in the office. They don't associate with engineers working some of the most lucrative and profitable programs the company is involved in. Best you'll get is your sector president or VP hiding behind a video conference where they won't answer any question that is difficult or has a potentially negative answer. I am leaving for a nearly 50% raise at a competitor with $60k sign on bonus. I will have no additional responsibilities and will likely be working fewer hours annually from wherever I want. HR will probably respond here with their canned statement about having a competitive compensation program. L3Harris compensation is only competitive in terms of who can compete to pay the least in my recent first-hand experience. They use almost the same payscale as another large defense company known to be a cubicle farm for those who want to twiddle their thumbs and just collect their paychecks. I was never offered a meaningful raise within the company despite bringing in several million dollars in revenue. No bonuses anymore either, so zero incentive to try to bring in new business. Truth be told, there is no reason for any employee here to care about company financial performance as they don't get meaningful raises anyways.

Explore other reviews about L3Harris

5.0
Jul 9, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Passionate people - Lots of work - Open to new implementation

Cons

- Ladder climb is a bit unstructured.

2.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Missions are impactful to the world Top talent in specialized fields Wonderful people Respectful environment

Cons

Processes and policies are not robust enough to support the large growth / merger, which leaves everyone operating in silos and interpreting things in their own ways Shared service model is not structured properly Not enough critical thinking around how budgets should be allocated for tools, capital, and salaries Higher level leaders are too in the weeds and not working on the harder strategic aspects Businesses are not aligned with common products to gain best synergies as all businesses fight to defend $s not what actually makes sense for the company (radios sharing same suppliers are in completely different segments; CCAs are built across 10+ different factories managed by different management teams instead of a couple of large COEs) All leaders felt unempowered due to lack of ownership of budgets. Budgets were set but then adjusted at further levels without any additional discussion of new targets and how to achieve. Then budgets would be reallocated a few months into year if you weren't demonstrating that you truly need it. This drove teams to spend heavy up front and not make the smartest decisions at times

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