Pros
Interesting work and mostly good people.
Cons
Obsession with management: throughout my entire employment there were only a couple of technicians, a handful of engineers and everyone else was either a manager or some sort of “officer”. Despite this, the company grossly lacked organisation, internal communication, transparency and leadership. The result was an inverted pyramid structure, with a lot of unexperienced graduate managers at the top and a few experienced technicians at the bottom. Company doesn’t value its staff, in particular experienced one: a company that considers graduate managers more important than technicians with decades of experience is not bound to go very far. Racist and sexist comments/behaviours were not uncommon. The company exploited the staff by offering wages well below market value because "it's a great opportunity to work in the space industry". The company was also in desperate need of experienced staff but was not willing to pay for them. Overtime was expected but not retributed. Every engineer was encouraged to become chartered but had to pay out of their own pockets. No long-term strategy: I have seen many strategic presentations, but they were all pointless as nothing ever changed. People want facts, not words. Values like inclusivity and diversity were only showcased when reporters or investors were around. A special mention for the upper management, who created a system based on personal preferences and got supported by a group of overly compliant members of staff, too busy in indulging every whim to even use common sense. In order to progress, people were encouraged to climb over colleagues by becoming their managers, causing inevitable tensions between different teams and between members of the same team.