Pros
Managers always harp on job security, which is very strong in this industry based on the long lead time and high voluntary turnover. PTO policy is pretty decent, but the number of company holidays could be better.
Cons
Engineers are leaving in droves due to poor management and significantly below industry average pay. The raise pool is ~3.5% based on the total salary of a group and that is spread amongst all the people in the group. Top performers will be in the 4-6% range, which means even the best will take a pay cut most years due to inflation. The only group that sees a significant increase year over year is the amount they are willing to pay someone directly out of school. So much so that someone with a year of experience will immediately be getting paid less than a new hire the next hiring season, even after a merit raise. HR ignores most requests to improve pay to retain engineers and have only done large increases outside of merit twice, and even then it’s not enough to match the competition. When engineers get promoted to senior (4-5 years experience) here they just seem to lump them all in at the very bottom of the pay bracket ($82,000). This won’t last much longer since they are bringing in new E1s straight out of college around $75,000. The salary compression is insane and results in people being around $10,000 short of where they should be. Unnecessary stress is imposed on the engineers because of the lack of talent and results in a poor sense of work life balance. The company does not provide the tools to do a good job and management is still stuck in the 80s. The company is a perfect argument against unions when it comes to the MDA. It is a safe haven for poor performers who will ride out the union security blanket for years before retiring. There are a significant number of designers who should straight up be fired or be forced to retire. They get away with things that if an engineer did them they would be fired immediately. Overall this place is just a job, and not a career and it shows. Most people are not happy there and those who can are jumping ship to significantly better pay.