Pros
- Amazing, supportive coworkers who are invested in the work and building each other up. - Remote work option allows for a lot of flexibility. - Depending on your area, you have flexibility in selecting the work that you do. Some of this work can be interesting.
Cons
- Staff are often overworked and not well compensated. You can tell when people are working overtime on weekends and evenings. There is a guise of "work-life balance" that is not often emulated at all levels of the company, and sacrificing your personal time to deliver work is an unspoken norm. The base pay for junior and support staff is quite low, and would not be sustainable for staff who live in higher CoL areas where there are Mathematica offices (e.g., DC, Cambridge). Considering the ridiculously high pay of the highest level staff, one would wonder why an organization with a motto of "Progress Together" wouldn't have a more equitable compensation structure. - Your experience at the company is very dependent on your supervisor and area. In an area with lots of work with a good supervisor? You'll have a great time. In an area that is struggling with a poor supervisor? You'll want to leave. The company has no mechanisms to ensure supervisor quality is even across areas/divisions, and has no interest in developing such mechanisms at the current moment. - Leadership actively does not want to listen to staff. In light of recent policy that has impacted federal contractors, Mathematica leadership has unilaterally made decisions and released guidance without any staff input, especially the input of staff who are most impacted by specific decisions or guidance. The few forums that exist for staff to voice thoughts on company policy have been removed or disregarded (e.g., no Q&A sessions during all-company meetings, online company platforms not regarded as "legitimate" forums for employees to have a dialogue with management). Now that the company is facing certain furloughs and layoffs with the changing federal landscape, the lack of dialogue and transparency is even more concerning. - Management has made it clear that their previous commitment to core values of DEI were performative. Leadership erased any and all mentions of equity and trans inclusion from external and internal websites the first week of the new admin in January 2025. The way they did not engage with staff at all and did this in secrecy, showed a lack of respect for staff and a lack of genuine commitment to the stated values at Mathematica.