General Atomics reviews

3.8

72% would recommend to a friend

(1,977 total reviews)
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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 1,977 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
2.0
Jun 22, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Opportunity to work on some fascinating leading-edge technology; excellent as a first job and stepping stone to a better-paying job elsewhere for new graduates; good benefits, but you will pay for many of them; 401K and pension plan; fair starting salary but nothing stellar; chance for annual bonus; nice annual event for employees and their families; public recognition for length of service; 9-hour workday with alternate Fridays off; some very technically talented people to work with; as a privately-owned company, GA can take the long view without shareholder interference; San Diego

Cons

Excessively bureaucratic; highly compartmentalized with little cross-team interaction; little opportunity for advancement or growth; plan to stay in the same job, doing the same thing, at the same job classification and inflation-pegged raises, for years and years; manager can block intra-company transfer even if it would be for a better job; little autonomy, multiple levels of approval are needed to do anything new, different, or even to get the tools needed for your job; plan to get thrown under the bus at least once during your time at GA so your manager can move up; increased responsibility rarely results in increased pay; training focuses mostly on learning internal administrative policies and procedures; little instruction on the tools needed to comply with internal policies and procedures; virtually no technical training or direction, you're on your own to maintain your skill set; administrative demands, even trivial, always seem to take precedence over customer work and deliverables; no recognition for your work accomplishments; just won a multi-million dollar contract after years of work?, that's nice, now get back to work; no way to report any extra hours you work (bad for project planning and personal credit); no comp time for evenings or weekends worked; no special amenities, like free coffee or meals if they tell you to work late or on weekends; annual performance reviews focus on the past, rarely the future; no career path planning from management; get it out now then firefight the problems later

2.0
Jun 18, 2014

Good company with benefits but very much a government contractor

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's a solid company that seems to be growing, the benefits are good and also have a pension, a 9/80 schedule is the best thing about the company because it gives you more of a chance for a vacation without taking too much vacation time.

Cons

Don't promote from within, a lot of favoritism involved here, if you are not a favorite well than you are basically out. Management doesn't believe in being "overwhelmed" its just something you have to deal with because people should not be overwhelmed. If you ever mention that you are overwhelmed than they just think its because you cannot prioritize properly. Management is not good at offering chances for promotion or any mentor ship what so ever.

2.0
Jun 18, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you are mediocre and not ambitious, this is the perfect place for you because you'll just float on by getting a paycheck, not being developed, and contribute very little.

Cons

Too many managers, every single one of them has to have a say and nothing ever gets approved. Projects will sit and sit and sit and pass from employee to employee that you feel you are in Groundhog's Day redoing the work someone before you had already redone for someone before them. It is a crazy circus here.

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Glassdoor has 2,271 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.