Proceed with Caution
Pros
Fairly stable work environment given a split product line between government and commercial aerospace. If working in the appropriate areas, tech dev does occur, patents are sought, conferences attended, white papers drafted and published. For the other 97% of the org, it's an operations/production/turn the crank gig. Advice for new grads? Take the gig, log some experience and join a real company like Northrup, Lockheed, or Boeing. Don't stay past year 3 or you are throwing your career away - and tens of thousands of dollars. Your next offer should be $20-$50k over what you will be making here at year 3. I've recruited/mentored and helped several early career engineers achieve just that.
Cons
If you are in the innovative 3%, PhD/very senior ppt engineers tend to rule and they bolster their career while undermining yours. Politics are rampant, diversity hires are favored over qualified personnel (especially in management) at everyone's expense. Remember your hours are charged to gov contracts means YOU are the product and yes, they also make a profit on hardware. Small town, good old boy politics. If you relocate to the area be warned that it could take a decade to be considered a local and even then opportunities to earn a promotion will be difficult to identify. Engineering leadership recommends that you obtain another job offer to get a promotion or a >3.5% pay raise. Program Managers and Engineering Directors run this place and can be ruthless, vindictive, and often seek retribution for respectfully disagreeing with them. Don't allow the "mid-western" hospitality fool you, I've met more genuine people in Manhattan. This review is in reference to the Cedar Rapids site only although I know Raytheon and UTC are very similar and many of our 38-48 y/o colleagues labeled as "high performers" have left those sites in the past two years. Tuscon, Cedar Rapids, and Hartford are all suffering from attrition of their best performers/innovators.
