Very old tech used (Ada & C++ mostly, lots of in-house tools) Your experience is heavily team dependent (i.e., I work on F-16, but I know people who work in other departments that have a drastically worse work experience than I do) If you do not learn skills outside of work, you will fall behind as a software developer (makes looking for a new job harder) Campus/work environment is incredibly dull (working inside concrete building with no windows in a cubicle) You will constantly have to keep track of your time charging (this can be annoying if you work on multiple things since you will need a new charge code for all the things you've worked on) Severe lack of training resources for new hires (a lot of 'tribal knowledge' that you have to pick up as you go) Pay is slightly behind DFW market standards Employment requires drug screen and extensive background check PTO is bad for new hires (4 days a year, then you accrue 1 day a month) Super reliant on people sticking aroud for 10+ years (this is leading to a massive brain drain problem as older developers retire and younger developers move on to new employers) Government regulations and security restrictions make it hard to do your job (e.g., you will have to apply to get access to a hardware test station that is required for your job...) Lack of common tools (i.e., they will use in-house tools instead of tools more common in the industry) Work equipment is pretty bad (our development desktops were old and slow, but our laptops were fine) A culture of 'if it isn't broke, don't fix it' (content with maintaining the status quo instead of improving flawed processes) Stuck in a single lane, cannot 'wear multiple hats' (cannot learn a different parts of the Software Development Lifecycle, if you are a developer you are stuck as a developer)
