Northrop has Assimilated (read: Steamrolled) Xetron
Pros
Site has a legacy of solving hard problems in short time frames. Opportunities to sometimes work on important, quick-turn programs. Pay is good for the area. 1 week training per year. Tuition reimbursement for Masters (beware handcuffs) A few good senior technical staff remain (chained down because they are grandfathered into the discontinued pension). Networked Corporate Licensing means you can usually get a license for most tools.
Cons
*Corporate ownership does not mix with local heritage of quick-react capabilities. - Urgent, quick-turn programs are forced to follow corporate processes. -- Corporate machine takes 2 weeks to do anything. -- Most tools / processes from 1990. Strict adherence required. -- Buying any material requires a chain of 4 people, one day of your time to hound them, and takes minimum of 2 weeks to receive. *Local directors have lost respect of most technical staff. - Local directors sugar-coat all communication to the extent that it's a bad joke. - Local management culture prevents real-time negative feedback down the stack. - Negative feedback up the stack is not tolerated. Warning first, then retribution. * Site exists within a humans-in-seats division. - Local site lumped into a division focused on providing bodies in gov't-owned cubicles, for the lowest cost per hour. - Local site's labor rates affect division's bill rates. - This means that local site's facilities are just overhead, and will be neglected. - This means that employees are strongly encouraged to always be billable. -- no process improvement budget -- no internal tool development budget *Persistent Engineering Slow Brain Drain. - There are other local small defense companies persistently poaching anybody with any experience. Management's sugar-coating exacerbates the problem. *Zero feedback from staffing capability to sales expectations. - Local sales force and site management are strongly incentivized to sell, sell, sell! - Recruiting team is asked to fill or back-fill positions, to keep up with sales. This task is impossible, due to qualifications, clearance, tight technical labor market. - As a consequence, there is more work than can be completed. Anyone with any experience is stretched thin to cover as many projects as possible. - Management strategy has been to hire as many interns as possible, since qualified engineers are scarce. Gotta bill the hours somehow, or director's bonus suffers. * Beware the following pay-related stuff: - 401(k) match doesn't vest for 3 years for new hires. - part of 401(k) match withheld to end of calendar year (probably to help cash flow) - golden handcuffs: tuition reimbursement, signing bonus, relocation expenses
