So much disappointment and frustration after four years in engineering at Northrop – Rolling Meadows.
Pros
Opportunity to work on some fascinating technology. Opportunity to do some real hands-on engineering work.
Cons
There is entirely too much management at this company. There are Engineering Project Managers, Program Managers, Logistics Program Managers, Engineering Functional Managers, the list goes on. There is an overabundance of people trying to direct the work, and never enough people who are actually doing the work. Engineering Supervision (Engineering Functional Management) is almost completely broken. These people are the direct supervisors of the engineering staff, and have an outsize effect on the quality of work coming from the engineering organization. And yet, they are consistently staffed with people who are duplicitous, incapable of critical thought, and unwilling to stand up for their people. The constant push for more diversity has gone completely out of control. People are hired not because of their skills, but because of their gender or race. Unqualified people are promoted up the ranks in order to fill a diversity quota. It’s maddening how much this occurs, and incredibly frustrating. Compared to other defense contractors, there is a very small number of military veterans working here. This is true at both the worker-level, and in the management ranks. Military experience isn’t valued. Very strange for the defense industry. Programs and projects are always in a state of chaos. The only way things ever get done is via last-minute scrambles. Management treats this as the norm, and the “way things have always been done.” Efforts to institute some semblance of planning always fall on deaf ears. For the past couple years, there has been a significant trend in engineering staff. People start here early in their careers, many fresh out of school. They start very motivated and dedicated, but after 3-5 years, they all leave for elsewhere, bitter and jaded from the experience.
