Learned much, little upward mobility for non PhD employees. - Anonymous employee RTI International Employee Review

3.0
Aug 10, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Stable, decent raises, great benefits, excellent PTO.

Cons

Very political. Very "diversity" conscious in some divisions, meaning you are as likely to be judged by gender/race as by performance. A thick skin is necessary when working with some of the researchers as they are more likely to be socially challenged than the norm. The culture overvalues academic credentials for non research staff (IT, GA, Infrastructure etc.)

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5.0
Jun 8, 2026
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Pros

RTI has a good mission

Cons

Adaptation to sudden federal funding loss.

3.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Remote work and reasonable working hours

Cons

If you're a PhD who enjoys research and hopes to use empirical research skills at a research institute, you'll likely be disappointed as I was. Projects in my business unit were largely implementation projects that required very little creativity or data analysis. I was told by my manager that empirical-research projects are harder to come by and when those opportunities do arise, everyone wants them. Even then, project directors are very unwilling (in my experience) to let you branch out to other projects. Using any overhead time to work on your own research is also discouraged, so I ended up working on manuscripts in my personal time. And there's no funding to attend conferences either. On top of all of this, constant layoffs create an aura of uncertainty and the feeling that you're lucky to even be there even when compensation for similar roles in private sector is far better.

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