General Atomics reviews

3.8

72% would recommend to a friend

(1,978 total reviews)
avatar

Neal Blue

77% approve of CEO

69% positive business outlook

General Atomics has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 1,978 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The General Atomics employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Aerospace & Defense industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
4.0
Sep 10, 2023

Hit or Miss

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I was in the aeronautics division. The 9/80 schedule was a plus and most mechanical engineers were given 1-2 work-from-home days after the pandemic. GA-ASI was a good place to learn about big company processes like SAP and design reviews. Some groups like engines and airframes were more well-funded in R&D.

Cons

Aeronautics groups not belonging to engines and airframes seemed to settle into a strategy of doing the bare-minimum rehash of old technology. Opportunities for long term technical advancement might stagnate as a result. If you're okay with working the same type of problem every year, GA can be a good place. GA is not the best environment for design engineers who want to work on a variety of projects and exercise some creative freedom. Pay raises were not competitive until after the pandemic when engineers were leaving en masse for better opportunities. Some managers were only there to coast to retirement, uninterested in developing their team. I was fortunate to eventually transfer under a good manager and stayed as long as I did because of it.

3.0
Sep 10, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

San Diego is nice, Torrey Pines campus is very pleasant. A lot of talented scientist to work with. Pay is alright, but I notice a lot of scientists struggling to afford San Diego nonetheless. La Jolla is about as unnaffordable as it gets so you more/less have to commute no matter where you live. 9x80 means every other friday off, and well you get to live near the beach if you are in San Diego, so that is actually super nice.

Cons

Procurement and beurocracy seems optimized to frustrate engineers and stifle progress. Management seems unable to track budgets, risk averse and not open to change. IT is a joke, and tele-working is only tacitly approved and unfortunately not well supported by their archaic IT systems. 401(k) vesting slow pension? is that even worth anything? Overhead rates are crazy high, which basically means labor consumes hours from a project like no other, so it's hard to fund R&D appropriately. Flying F35s overhead are noisy :)

3.0
Sep 7, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cool work, good benefits fun teamates.

Cons

Bad pay, always a reason to work late

Viewing 343 - 345 of 1,978 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,272 General Atomics reviews submitted anonymously by General Atomics employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if General Atomics is right for you.