Raytheon offers engaging work with decent pay and benefits.
Pros
Employees start with two weeks of paid time off, and they get an extra week after their one year anniversary. Further increases in PTO are much slower. Employees can carry 40 hours of unused PTO for the next year (the carry-over must be used by September, though). Raytheon offers matching 401(K) contributions plan up to 5% of an employee's salary, or the maximum annual 401(K) contribution as allowed by law, whichever is less. The company offers both traditional and Roth IRA's. I think that new employees start with 2% matches and get an additional 1% in the following three years. The company has a number of healthcare plans available to employees and their families. The company pays part of the cost of each plan. Alternate Fridays are off-days. Much of the company works on a 9/80 schedule, which means that they work 80 hours in 9 days, as opposed to the usual 10 days. This means that employees work 9 hours per day Monday through Thursday, 8 hours on a Friday, and have the other Friday off. I consider my work engaging and interesting, but that's because my position does not require me to do the same thing every day. I am aware that there are positions that involve repetitive and tedious work. The pay is decent. The company has a program that reimburses up to $10,000 in education costs per year, but the money will be taken back if the employee voluntarily leaves the company during the next two years. The company makes a concentrated effort to support ethics, diversity, and healthy living in the workplace. The machinists can enroll in a union, the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers.
Cons
The annual merit-based pay raises are barely above inflation. At least in techincal services, merit-based bonuses are usually in the form of a $1,000 achievement award awarded once per year, which are subject to 25%-35% in taxes, depending on the employee's tax bracket. Many engineering jobs require knowledge of specialized software and many years of experience, so they can be hard to obtain if the applicant did not previously work in the defense industry. Exempt employees, which includes administrative, executive, and professional employees, do not receive overtime pay. They can work "extended time", instead. Extended time is paid at the regular hourly rate (as opposed to one and a half times the regular rate for overtime) and requires the manager's approval ahead of time. Some employees become corporate drones and find a niche position where they attempt to become irreplaceable to their organization. As with any large organization, there is a significant amount of bureaucracy that can cause simple tasks to take longer than expected.
