Lockheed Martin’s current and long-term business outlook is very poor due to government budget cutbacks. Mostly under the radar, up to 30,000 layoffs have happened in the last several years, and more layoffs are coming. My LM colleagues are looking over their shoulders for the ax; morale is absolutely terrible in Sunnyvale, CA, and likely at most other company facilities. Just last week, LM targeted several new facilities for closure, with another several thousand jobs lost.
There used to be many development and educational programs available, but most have been cut in the last couple of years (or dried of support), so many fine employees are now left on their own, with little or no support (outside of their manager's advice) in their efforts to advance.
Work/life balance varies wildly, some are lucky to be working a normal and easy 40-hour week. For my first five years, I worked between 55-70 hours a week; my last eight years have averaged 48. Some very senior managers (or those on proposals) work seven days a week, and haven’t had a day off in a year, or more.
For the last 8-10 years, the company’s mantra has been “We never forget who we’re working for,” urging even more hard work and sacrifice from you, all because the company supports our government and military (which I also strongly do). But, in the end, it’s just propaganda; LM has turned out to be just another company wanting to make money, and (in the words of a company VP) they “will get everything they can from you.” The only things proven to be really important to LM are profits, the shareholders, and the customers buying the products. Those customers end up calling many of the shots in project engineering and management, and on many occasions, they have ruined an engineer's, manager's, Director's or VP's career on a whim or a disagreement, or just a personal issue in a meeting. Employees are disposable to Lockheed Martin; those that are truly valued and respected are rare. Running afoul of a company policy is just fine when the company does it and it benefits the company, but when an employee does it, it's big trouble, and likely termination. I've seen (and heard of this) many times.
And finally, watch your back with HR – they have a very long history of protecting select people (especially those within HR) who blatantly and frequently break the rules or mistreat their people. For years, I’ve seen far too much wrongdoing (and stood up against what I could - I likely was laid off because of it). LM surely does not want those things coming to public light, so with your (pretty good) severance package comes with a big string and a very strong warning – you saw nothing, and you will say nothing.
