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General Atomics

Is this your company?

Poor leadership plagues the company - Systems Engineer General Atomics Employee Review

1.0
23 Mar 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Incredible ownership of work material -Interesting projects -Deep breadth (can be a bad thing)

Cons

Upper management is clear time and time again that they do not care about their bottom line. They are leading the business to failure, literally. Although the owner is able to afford mansions in San Diego from war profiteering, there is no money for bonuses or raises for those lucky to not get laid off. Don’t expect flexibility in your work hours, either. They are adamant against working from home or a flexible work schedule. If you try to bring these points up to senior management, you will get shut down as the best response they can come up with. The President of EMS is known to be a terrible person, who gets his way through intimidation like a teenage bully. I was unsurprised to learn that he called a bottom line engineer to proceeded to verbally abuse him for 15 minutes due to a failure of a supplier. I would run, not walk, away from the company.

Explore other reviews about General Atomics

5.0
8 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very good work life balance

Cons

9 hour shifts 4 days a week

3.0
11 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Mostly good people and skilled engineers that are easy to work with and great to learn from across all groups/locations. There is opportunity to pursue technical areas of interest and to stand out by leading improvement efforts. The company is flexible and often facilitates changes according to interest. Sense of job security generally feels good and stable, the greater GA really backs the Space division. The greater company works on some really interesting and cool things, beyond just defense. Pay is pretty good. Experience with most middle management (of engineers) has been positive, they typically advocate and support their employees.

Cons

Unsure of division leadership and strategic direction. Overall impression is that engineers' perspectives are not adequately weighted in both proposals and certain decisions for active missions. Processes burden performance, though there is intention for constant improvement. Ignoring engineering concerns (i.e. with schedule) + process burdens often result in delays and increased pressure, and therefore a less than ideal working environment at times. Overtime pay is not guaranteed but can be approved. Working with teams in different locations can lead to tension and "silo-ing" (though not always). Space division is becoming mostly defense focused (an industry trend), but would be nice to continue work in the civil earth and space science arena. They also demo'd a nice cafeteria/gathering space for more work/equipment space.

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