Aptima Reviews

4.3

83% would recommend to a friend

(46 total reviews)

Daniel Serfaty

100% approve of CEO

72% positive business outlook

Aptima has an employee rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars, based on 46 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Aptima employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management and consulting industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

46 reviews
2.0
14 Dec 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Aptima gives you the opportunity to work on interesting projects and learn new technology; They are a smaller company with little bureaucracy, and give you alot of independence; Salary is decent and other benefits (profit sharing, flexible leave time, insurance, etc.) are probably better than average

Cons

In the 5+ years I've worked here, not 1 project I've worked has resulted in a tangible product that can be used by anyone. Sometimes you will work on 5+ projects at the same time which makes it very difficult to focus and be productive, especially when you know at the the end of the day what you are making will never be used by anyone. Some people like the culture, but I feel like there is not enough accountability on employees, leaving a small few left to make things happen (this might be universal to all companies though). There is no steady stream of revenue that comes from product sales; all revenue is generated from winning research grants from the government which is very stressful, especially when the government decides not to fund projects. There are very few engineers who make their way into any kind of management role, almost all of management are research scientists. Working with the government is a pain, which is where 99% of Aptima's business comes from. To sum up, if you are an engineer and want to actually make something usable, this isn't the place for you. If you are a scientist and like to research things and don't really care if what you do makes its way into someone's hands, you'll probably like working here.

2.0
2 June 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-If you work overtime, you (usually) get paid for it -Mostly small and short-term projects, so you get exposed to a lot of different work -You get to have a lot of input and decisions on the projects that you work on, very little bureaucracy -Friendly people/coworkers -Get to travel to various places in the US (mostly military bases), great way to see other states -Everyone has their own office, but there are also collaboration areas

Cons

-Below market pay. Lots of smart/good people have left recently. They didn't feel appreciated, partly due to below market pay and very low raises. New hires, who were not as good, were getting paid a lot more than older employees... I believe Aptima had to pay new hires market rate in order to get them to join, while older employees were kept at the lower salaries. -Most of the projects you work on never get put into real world use -It can take forever to get things done if you have to interact with other companies or the government -Some managers are good and some aren't. Your experience here relies greatly on your manager -Little transparency, feels like upper management wants to run the company and keep workers in the dark

4.0
10 July 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I worked at Aptima for about 3 years and it laid out the foundations for my career and directed me towards what I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life. To anyone applying, it's a bit difficult to explain what Aptima does; but their bread and butter has been researching and developing tech that augments the way humans work. They do this in a variety of different sectors, particularly in defense and healthcare. -First and foremost, I want to applaud what makes this company truly great: The People! Defense is a stale old industry that has been an old boys club for way too long, particularly lacking in diversity for race and gender. Aptima bucks this trend: You have a great mix of people, from various cultural backgrounds, various educational backgrounds, and has many women in leadership and executive functions. Along with that, many of these individuals are extremely knowledgeable in their fields, who are always willing to help you on things or teach you new things. Combined, this makes it a great place to work. -The projects are extremely interesting and forward thinking, and you get many opportunities to bolster your skill-sets in cutting edge fields like Software Engineering, Data Science and Applied Psychology. This is truly a gem: the way this company works, and the way projects are done, you get a lot of time to learn things on the job; an opportunity that is extremely rare in the rest of industry. -Depending on your role, the work-life balance here is great. This is a company that truly cares about you and your well-being, and offers some great policies to bolster this such as working from home/remotely. -Lots of cross-functional work opportunity: since the company's rather small, you aren't just confined into the business org you were hired in, you're able to work with people in different units and pursue different work. -There's a lot of upward mobility depending on your role and what type of contributor you choose to become. You have the freedom to pretty much carve your own path (e.g. if you come into the company as an individual/techncial contributor, you have the flexibility to pursue project management opportunities and get tied into more strategic initiatives).

Cons

-Aptima's primary bread-and-butter is working within defense; work that is usually contractual. Because of this, there can be ebbs and flows of how much and what type of work you do. This can lead to a lack of consistency on the amount of work you do on a day-to-day basis. -At many times, if you're skilled at something that the company is lacking, you may be boxed at doing just that. This can be hindering, especially if you're someone looking to get out of an individual contributor role and tackle more strategic initiatives. -Due to the research and development nature of much of the work done here, the work you do may or may not get any practical use. If you're in a technical capacity, this can be pretty demoralizing after putting in months of work to no avail. -Though there is upward mobility, attaining it could require a bit of politicking and shoulder rubbing. This is especially difficult if you're boxed into a role that requires you to do a lot of technical work. -Sometimes it felt like there was an imbalance between project managers and technical contributors.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 46 Reviews

Glassdoor has 53 Aptima reviews submitted anonymously by Aptima employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Aptima is right for you.