Pros
Remote work, variety of technologies, mission for good, accountability for treating others with respect, and some flexibility with hours. I have found coworkers at RTI who have made working at RTI worth it, despite all the obvious corporate politics going on in the background. Despite the cons, it's an ok place to advance your career if you have worked somewhere else first. If you are in tech, there is the ability to try out new technologies, and you are usually not always tied to certain ones (depending on who you work with). Annual ~3% raise. 4 weeks of PTO to start, although recently they unfortunately implemented a (maybe temporary) rule where you cannot take more than 2 weeks at a time. On the campus: Nice Holden building and outdoor space, including a lake, and security guards keeping the area safe. The common work area on the second floor of the Holden building is lovely. I have never had so many people on LinkedIn try to ask me to be their "in" to working at a company.
Cons
My first week, I was given some tasks I found to be worth my time, but also some extremely menial tasks. I was unhappy about this, because the menial tasks weren't discussed in my interviews. My manager said doing this well would advance my career and open up other opportunities. I knew that's not how the tech industry works (but I did them anyway). Issues of freedom of expression during what is supposed to be open forum time (e.g.: opinions about Gaza/Palestine, opinions about organizational habits), higher pay for new employees vs. employees who have been around longer, siloed sub-sections, DOGE funding cuts - but job positions are somehow still being posted (probably either for optics, or because they laid too many people off). High percentage of staff have been laid off (~35% of employees, according to one source). This is not for a lack of aptitude; RTI seems to be struggling financially (although the CEO denies this -- I don't buy it). Not a good "first company", in my opinion. No higher pay guarantee for DoD project work. Politics: gatekeeping of certain tasks and project work, particularly at the practice-area level, and sometimes between co-workers. Some practice areas DO compete with each other for the same work; they should be working together. CEO Tim Gabel makes over 1.2 million dollars per year, according to the internet. He is (externally) a nice guy who is able to speak well and play the part, but this is a non-profit organization with clients who are funded by the Federal government, and many employees badly need a raise beyond the annual 2.5-5% (think the lower end of the scale) raise. He also did not found RTI. I would argue he is NOT 14 times more effective than the average employee, although he is certainly the most visible. On the RTP campus: many cubicles aside from those in the Holden building are a bit isolated and outdated. The cubicle walls are so tall, that you cannot see over them when standing. Lunch prices on campus used to be low, but they have gone up. If you are short on billable project work, you may be pressured to use your PTO (even if you don't want to). Managers do not seem to be sufficiently incentivized to help you find project work all the time, but this is partly due to the fact that RTI is likely struggling financially. Managers themselves are pressured to have a higher "direct project rate", when this counteracts their duties as managers. Communication by skips/managers has not always been effective in getting people project work. I have noticed once that forms that were filled out to get project work were not even sent to the person at RTI hiring for the target project. Somehow, this failing negatively affects the non-manager employees, and not the managers themselves. A leader in the Analytics and AI practice area was fired for an unknown reason, even though she was a hard worker who was highly regarded by her peers.