MITRE Reviews

I have been working at MITRE full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Outstanding quality of work/life balance. Supportive and easy going management. Career growth opportunities, and many different work programs. Good benefits.

Cons – Salaries a bit below average. Limited bonus structure. Management structure allows some employees to remain in positions long after they should be moved to other areas.

Advice to Senior Management – As a company that works like a consulting organization, the lack of non-billable management and lack of dedicated business development personnel, could be improved by hiring dedicated staff for those roles.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at MITRE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Trusted advisor
Provide great work to the govt.
Treat employees well
Worklife balance

Cons – Flat organization so limited oppty for growth

Advice to Senior Management – Tenure does not equate to a good manager

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MITRE full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great people, public service atmosphere

Cons – Sequestration is scary, but they seem to have it under control

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at MITRE full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – You get the use the latest technology, Flexible spending plan, Company match on 403b, Company Fitness center ($)

Cons – For a company that guides their sponsors, they don't implement their own recommendations.

Department managers don't communicate with each other - instead they compete against each other and run each department and division like private fiefdoms.

Lately, you can't trust anything that management says. Earlier in the year we were told that we were well positioned for sequestration; a month later the layoffs began.

The results speak for themselves: MITRE has steadily moved down over the last 5 years from being in the top 100 places to work to off the list entirely.

Advice to Senior Management – Our CEO needs to start being honest with employees.
After two fireside chat videos where you could submit questions to the CEO, the chats suddenly stopped (and the layoffs began).

If you are going to freeze employee pay and cut employee benefits, freeze pay and benefits for upper management and board of trustees as well.

MITRE should implement 360 degree reviews for managers. If managers realized that they actually had to be civil to subordinates, morale might improve.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at MITRE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Job Security - if you're not a poor performer, and have a clearance your job is stable
Retirement - The retirement contribution by the employer is better than average (but they keep lowering it over the past 5 years so if that trend continues it may no longer be a pro)

Cons – Most of the time you work at the client site, your manager or boss frequently has no idea what you actually do or how you're performing which makes it nearly impossible to get recognition, raises, or promotions.
Salaries and benefits were either stagnant or cut during the time I was there due to the company stating that our rates were higher than other companies.

Advice to Senior Management – Managers should have more involvement with those they oversee, more connection to what their employees are doing, and maybe even part of a manager/leads own performance and such should be based on how their people perform. Isn't the best indicator of a good leader/manager shown by the successes of those they've led?

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at MITRE full-time

Pros – MITRE has great corporate policies of valuing their employees. They have great employee benefits and internal resources to create high-quality products, and to serve the government well. I believe many divisions within MITRE are great places to work. Collaborative environment with mostly very bright people.

Cons – A couple of weeks after the CEO of MITRE proclaimed to all employees that the company's last resort would be RIFs, 100 or more people were RIF'd. This is indicative of the unmet promises at MITRE. The leadership is changing, and the great corporate policies no longer hold true.

My personal experience at MITRE was horrible -- and I do mean horrible -- due to the politics and morale. People don't talk to each other in the hallways. It's a very unfriendly place to work. Direct supervisors give no direction to employees. Politics govern most decisions, and very hostile work environments are well known -- and remain -- while senior management does nothing about it.

I think MITRE does an excellent job of thoroughly outlining project requirements, procedures, standards, etc., for projects for customers. But, to my amazement, I saw no evidence that MITRE has ever done this internally. They need to listen to their own advice!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at MITRE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Flexible hours, good benefits, make easy for commute.

Cons – Just another contractor with short task period, undefined scope.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at MITRE full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Lots of exposure to various DoD entities and promises to serve the public interest and help the Warfighter and Homeland Defense agencies.

Cons – The dark side is that management promotes on politics and hopes there is an automatic injection of management brains and skills. If the customers only knew how much they are charged for employees doing "none work" work such as travel arrangements, updating their PCs/laptops and making charts. Lots of people in offices who do not have entrepreneurial skills and collect a paycheck. Management fails to recognize these folks and seem to be worried about the "25-35 somethings" versus everyone. The CEO even has monthly meetings with this demographic but dismisses other experience categories.

Advice to Senior Management – Advice to Board of Directors: clean house and get people from for-profit industries and run the place as if the quarterly returns are next week,

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at MITRE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Work/Life Balance
- Mobility (i.e. remote reachback to corporate network)
- 401 (a) matching
- Certain individuals willing to work with you to succeed

In my time at MITRE, when I actually had good MITRE work to focus on, I could easily focus on how to leverage internal resources to provide value to sponsors. In certain difficult situations, there seemed to be a consensus as to providing legitimate opportunities to succeed within the company.

Cons – - Unclear direction in certain work programs
- Too much reliance on traditional ways of doing business
- Inability to clearly define FFRDC role to most sponsors
- No clear direction on progressing from certain managers

Seems to be a communication issue among DHs in different divisions. A consistent problem programs are running into is the type of work requested by the sponsors, which in turn puts MITRE in a difficult position when it comes to justifying its requirements in order to support said sponsors. Management needs to be approachable when dealing with issues along with working with employees to get into positions quickly.

Advice to Senior Management – - Like the concept behind the MITRE Way, but there needs to be more accountability brought into the process, especially at the MTS 5-6 levels.
- Better clarification on how to progress from the MTS 2-3 levels upward, recommendations are extremely vague.

Understand that things are getting tighter due to the sequester. To that end, there needs to be a truly concerted effort with the MITRE Way to effectively manage work across all of the work programs. What is really troubling is the lack of understanding that many sponsors have in terms of the value that MITRE provides them. MITRE is not a body shop that can fill certain roles at a moment's notice, nor should the sponsors try to influence the types of people whose skills are being brought to bear from MITRE to help meet their mission.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at MITRE full-time

Pros – Great retirement, health insurance, friendly co-workers.

Cons – I'd rather not comment on this.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend