Pros
I got some good technical experience and got to spearhead some interesting tasks/projects on my program. It’s a big name company and generally a big company, so the benefits and vacation were strong (pay wasn’t as strong). They relocated me for an internship a while back and relocated me for my return offer as well — they are willing to give you some exciting opportunities in some new and different places. I managed to make a few friends who I still stay in contact with, enough people work at the company for you to find at least one person you click with.
Cons
Definitely a backwards company culture. Lots of closeted bigots, or just blatant ones, line the building. Gossip and cliques are everywhere, it was worse than High School honestly. Leadership can be downright disrespectful and are often embroiled in some ethics violation or HR violation (or both). The company provides avenues to report serious issues anonymously, but solutions got caught up in politics and bureaucracy that severely slowed their implementation or prevented them entirely. My coworkers who were at the company a long time would tell “you think this is bad, ten years ago people walked out of conference rooms crying they got reamed and screamed at so bad.” Many leaderships, especially program managers, acted like loud, disrespectful, children — I do not exaggerate, they would scream, flail their hands, blame everybody but themselves. They don’t have too many checks or balances on the advancement of “highly favored” individuals. If someone senior is obsessed over an employee (whether or not for good reasons, they often weren’t) that said employee could easily advance despite the HR controls in place. In some ways, the office I worked at had a beautiful set of rules and values that were ostensibly ignored by both leadership and staff. The Raytheon I interned at was an awesome experience, but the Raytheon I returned to after college was a very disappointing and pathetic one. The issue may be that the different regions and offices have too much leeway and too little oversight to align to corporate requirements. So in one office you have a top tier company and another you have a company spiraling down the drain.
