Interesting projects; Bureaucratic, slow paced, poor compensation package
Pros
-Interesting projects (especially for R&D or projects designing new systems). Work on projects that can have a big impact or addresses an important government need. You get the opportunity to create systems or products that are very tangible/deployable and protects lives. -Work-life balance (though this is changing and getting worse) -Flexible schedule - for engineers, it is generally not a problem if you come into work later in the day but also stay a little later at night to get work done. Very helpful for doctors appointments or picking up children for events. -Engineering colleagues are generally pretty collegial, and you may get to work with some very brilliant people -401k with company match, 100% vested immediately -Well known defense contractor
Cons
-Not a "hot" technology employer. LM does not have the pull or allure of a Google/Amazon. -A lot of the systems you will work on are very old/outdated, and the skills you develop here will only be helpful in the defense industry. Especially for software programmers, a lot of the languages used are fairly old, and from what I have seen from friends looking to transition over into the commercial tech sector, the skills you develop here are not attractive to other employers. -Bureaucratic and slow paced; decisions need buy-in from multiple different managers (even if they are only tangentially related to the project), which requires many meetings and follow on meetings. -Overall compensation package is not good. Salaries are below market average. No year end bonuses. Employees' performance is graded on a normal curve, and the nominal wage increase barely beats inflation. Health insurance plan is a common complaint among employees. -Job security: current cuts in the defense budget and projected slowdown in defense expenditures point to a lot of belt tightening. LM has gone through a series of layoffs over the last few years. This has led to poor morale and has further exacerbated the next point: -Political, territorial, and top heavy management. Some projects have more managers than actual engineers/workers. Some managers have no understanding of the technical product they are overseeing, which can lead to bad decisions and stressful/unreasonable demands on engineers. -Lack of diversity.
