Pros
Raytheon is the typical big company. Lots of bureaucracy. You'll know whether you're on the fast track within 3 or 4 years. But as an engineer it offers interesting work and being a big company there is opportunity to move around. As an engineer, if I get interesting work that engrosses me and makes the day fly by, and I get paid a decent salary, I can't complain. Benefits are good although they have been changing the medical insurance options which seem to be getting more expensive and cover less. This is probably happening at many companies. Flexible work schedule. The extent of the flexibility varies depending upon your manager and your work in particular. In my experience it is easy to flex a handful of hours here and there, and no one bothers you if you make them up within a 2 week window. Also they allow the option of a "9/80 work schedule" which means you work 9 hour days and get every other friday off. After 5 years you get 4 weeks of vacation/sicktime (all one bucket). After 15 years you get 5 weeks which is the max. Some people are grandfathered in with more time off, but they are the older folks. They offered a pension up until about 2005. I know it's not useful for new employees but I figured I'd mention it (the pension is calculated as 1.8%/year for the first 20 years and then 1.2%/year every year thereafter. That final percentage of your salary when you retire is the benefit). For 401k, they match up to 4% of your salary.
Cons
Hard to get promotions. In engineering they have 6 levels, and then two engineering fellow salary grades. So I will admit there aren't a ton of rungs here. However, even if you perform well, they are very stingy with the promotions. They only like to see certain %(low) of people move up in a given timeframe. The first 3 or 4 grades will go fast. Then it slows down. There are also management tracks which become less technical the higher up you go. More like managing people and department resources. Then there are tracks for Program management. In my experience, the frustrating thing to see on your review is that you're "promotable" and then not actually get the promotion. The designation seems to hold little meaning. They are also a fan of carrot dangling. The "do this additional thing" or "wait til next cycle" is a common response. I'm not a huge fan of the review process in general. There is a large disconnect between the people who decide the rankings / raises / promotions and the project management. Also the performance review timeline is crazy. You tell line management who your technical leads have been and divide up the time you spent working on the tasks with those leads. Usually you report this in November. Typically this is 2-4 people. Then the line management asks those people for a review of your work. Typically a paragraph or so. Then the requesting folks who haven't spent more than 10 hours with you all year are sitting in a room ranking the people in that dept within each level (ranked against your peers). These rankings determine raises and promotions. If you are top 10% you will probably get 1-3% over someone in the middle and you may get a promotion. In my experience the typical raise is 3-4% and a promotion is typically worth another 3-4%. To get back to the time line, I have been told the ranking are determined by the end of the year. Sometimes before a required final self assessment and report on your year. They ask for this but it appears it is more for documentation and has little, if any influence on rankings b/c they have already been done. Then sometime in January the raise budget is decided per department and the dept manager and the 5 or 6 section managers below him must divide up the budget guided by the rankings. Then in April you get your previous year performance review from your section manager with a summary which is often recycled stuff you or your technical manager wrote. It'll say M = meets expectations, E = exceeds expectations or FE = far exceeds expectations. It may also have a designation P for promotable. Here is the stupifying thing. At that moment you can have a great review with tons of positive feedback. Then about 3 weeks later at the beginning of May you get a raise notice (effective the first paycheck in May) which tells you the bottom line % increase all this BS has been leading up to. At this point it's too late to do anything. Management is very inflexible on disputes and making any "corrections". Then about a month later you have your mid year review for the current year and the horrible cycle continues. Why must this be so drawn out? And why do people who have no clue what is being done on a daily basis wield so much power over something as important as this? By the time you actually get feedback on the previous year, we are a solid 4 months into the new year. That is so dumb. I have no idea why the review cycle must be so extended. Plus if you want to dispute something, or make a case for yourself, time has passed, no one remembers details, and management claims there is nothing they can do. It's typically a "wait 'til next year" scenario. Not good. I'll tell you this. If it weren't for the pension, I'd leave. But as the title says, slow and steady wins the race.
