A place where good careers go to die. - Senior Systems Engineer United Airlines Employee Review

1.0
Sep 10, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Near-free standby travel used to be a good perk, but now you can't get on a plane to save your life. If you want to go somewhere and not work very hard and get left alone, this is the place for you. Underachievers' haven.

Cons

Nobody seems to care about anything. After 2 pay cuts and 50% layoff in department, still being told you need to work harder. There are some super people with outdated skills working their butts off because they fear for their jobs while others enjoy getting paid for surfing the web all day. They have recognition awards which are basically a way to make 90% of the employees feel like they're even more underappreciated.

Explore other reviews about United Airlines

5.0
Jul 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

management cares about employees well being.

Cons

Hard to grow if you don't want to move to Chicago

3.0
Apr 22, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

United is genuinely a good place to work in a lot of ways. The dev side has strong leadership, the work is interesting, and there are real engineers doing real things. When I started, I was proud to tell people where I worked.

Cons

The Quality Engineering org has gone downhill fast since the leadership change about two years ago. It's hard to overstate how much the culture has shifted. The focus now is almost entirely on offshoring roles to India, and the US team has been quietly squeezed—people being nudged toward retirement, others suddenly finding themselves with negative performance feedback after years of solid work. It doesn't feel issue-driven, it feels like a headcount strategy with a polite cover story. On top of that, we spent most of last year implementing process changes that look impressive in a slide deck but don't actually move the needle. Meanwhile, the QE org has drifted away from what the dev leadership is actually trying to build. We're solving problems no one asked us to solve while the real priorities sit on the side. It's frustrating to watch, especially when you know what this team used to be capable of. The day-to-day environment has gotten noticeably toxic. People are checked out, the good ones are looking, and there's a real sense that institutional knowledge is being treated as disposable.

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