Pros
Endless possibilities. If you’re interested in working on something nobody will stop you you. Everyone on the production engineering teams in Long Beach are really top notch, and most of us are very passionate about what we do. I was surprised to see the negative reviews on GD, which prompted me to write this, as I feel they completely do a disservice to the actual company culture. Most negative reviews seem to be about working more than 40 hours / week. Not going to lie, we work a lot, but nothing insane and no one is forcing us to do it, we just enjoy the work. Management teams in manufacturing and Archimedes teams are all very technically competent and actually contribute to engineering challenges. Compensation is competitive with other actual companies, and stocks are actually liquid (we can sell them for a defined price whenever we want).
Cons
The people and culture team is out of touch at times. This recent round of performance reviews was embarrassingly bad. The process took nearly 6 months, and the managers appeared to be kept completely in the dark. Also, for high performance teams, like the ones on the floor in Long Beach, it is frustrating to see new job reqs coming out for Space Systems engineers getting paid in a higher bracket. Also, now that pay information is transparent, it doesn’t seem fair that engineers who have been with the company for years would in some cases literally be better off quitting, then reapplying for the same position. Just make the adjustments and get on with it.
