Sytem Engineer/Analyst with Leidos (SAIC) for 15 years
Pros
As a major player of government contracting there are many opportunities for new employees with the right background. As a larger company there is also a measure of safety in the event the contract you are supporting is restructured or goes away. There are often many job openings readily available in the vent you need or wish to find a new opportunity within the company. Historically, Leidos initial pay has tended to be on the generous side while the benefits scope and costs lagged somewhat behind other similar companies. In recent years thought the benefits cost and scope have started to improve compared for employees. As a relatively large company there are also differing types of career paths you can follow. The primary revenue generation of Leidos comes from selling the services of employees primarily in technical areas. This means that employees that have strong technical skill sets but no desire to work in the corporate structure can choose to take a path where they focus on providing their technical expertise to external or possibly internal efforts. Additionally, there is opportunity for those individuals that want to work within the corporate structure as well. With so many employees providing services to varied customers in a range of locations there is a need for a fair amount of support and management structure. Then there are employees that balance between the technical and corporate side. This is a common career path for more technical individuals as they become more experienced and/or as they become involved with corporate activities to capture new revenue streams. These individuals tend to work on technical tasks earning revenue and at the same time hold some form of corporate title where they manage individuals or efforts.
Cons
While Leidos is the carryon of the previous employee owned SAIC, the corporate philosophy has changed quite a bit. SAIC was known for seeking out well qualified employees and putting much emphasis on keeping those employees with the company. This was done by combining relatively generous pay, employee ownership options, and a management style that emphasized streamlined overhead. This is not the current atmosphere within Leidos. It started to change in the mid-2000s as the company moved toward an emphasis on expansion and generating new revenue streams and less on nurturing long term revenue streams. The result was a greater turn over rate in employees as the emphasis switched from keeping more seasoned (expensive) people in positions they had held for a long time to hiring less expensive employees that could be plugged into new contracts that were also turning over much more quickly. When SAIC went public and then spun off Leidos the emphasis has been more focused on new money and on reducing costs primarily by moving toward a less experienced work force. There has also been a greater focus on the expectation that employees will offer time to help the company generate new revenue through bid and proposal support. This results in a number of cases where as employees start to have skills that could help with bid and proposal work they will be "encouraged" to offer to work their normal 40 hour week and then support bid and proposal work in extra (non-paid) hours. While it is not every week, employees that have been with the company a couple of years can expect to provide about 80-100 hours (unpaid) a year to corporate efforts just to meet minimum expectations. This is not something exclusive to Leidos, but it seems each year the pressure for this type of support is greater. While initial pay still seems to be on the higher side for new employees, the annual pay increases have largely stagnated over the last few years. In the past, you could expect employees with average performance reviews to see something akin to government cost of living increases and above average rated employees saw increases up to a few percentage points above the cost of living increase. The emphasis on new money/business which in many cases is won by low cost has resulted in less emphasis on keeping long term employees around. While the company does offer some assistance for employees that find themselves needing to find a new position (due to contract changes) will largely need to find something themselves, especially if they are in the mid-to high salary range.