AeroVironment Reviews

Current Employee – been working at AeroVironment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good company. Use to have a better atmosphere before the IPO.

Cons – Unstable due to dependency on government contracts. Lay-offs and hiring sprees were common.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AeroVironment as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – I liked the engineers I worked with. They had a great sense of humor. It was also a lot closer to home than Raytheon or Boeing in El Segundo CA.

Cons – Having worked at Raytheon Space and Airborne & Missile Systems and Boeing Space and Satellite and UTC, this particular company had no structure and was quite unprofessional sad to say.

- Not AS9100 certified.

- Not ISO 9000 certified

- No Doc Control System / Department.

- No procedures, processes, standards were not referenced. Simply a garage type of place.

- Management completely clueless about specs and reliability testing to ensure quality and safety of end users.

- No QMS (Quality Management System)

- No clear direction from management

- No computer setup for three weeks and, they expected a presentation to be given to the CEO to which, I wound up doing it at home on my own machine to meet the deadline.

- Their work environment is an industrial building / warehouse. They don't have anything in terms of cleanrooms.

- No structure, no HR training, No Fire Evac safety map, no security from threats, basically, wide open place with no training whatsoever due to not having any systems in place.

- Management was completely clueless about Product Lifecycle, REL testing, etc. "we don't need testing, if it breaks, we will send someone out into the field and replace the broken parts. This is how we've been doing it for years and...no value added" That was their VPs comments to me about their thoughts on reliability testing to ensure safety, quality and reliability of the end product.

- On a whole, the entire organization was dysfunctional and, how they kept getting awarded contracts was shocking to say the least.

Advice to Senior Management – I suggest going to some of the larger companies and grabbing some key people who've got experience and rid those that are of the R & D and Job Shop mentality. The current people that were there, have zero clue of what is required to build military hardware for airborne applications.

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

Current Employee – been working at AeroVironment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – AV is cool company who does relevant things to make the world better. In they markets they serve, they bring great value and innovation. They care more about their employees than any other company I have worked for.

Cons – They are in California, which is not where I live.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to value your employees. Empower them with the resources to push innovation.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at AeroVironment full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Cool products...but is that really enough?

Cons – Not sure I have enough space...
-Product quality is non-existent
-Senior management is ONLY concerned with their bonuses and nothing else!
-Too many spineless VPs and Directors. Too worried about their job just do what they're told even when they know it's wrong.
-DCMA must be blind
-So many VPs, Directors and Managers it'll make your head spin
-Company probably being positioned for purchase. It'll make the rich richer but may be the only thing that saves the company.
-R&D is chock full of prima donnas because it's encouraged (even though they would deny it...very, very poor engineering senior management)
-HR is a joke. Could absolutely care less about the employees.
-Benefits are average at best
-Company was good until it went public then it became about shipping anything and everything

Advice to Senior Management – Do the right thing and quit worrying about your bonuses and stock options. Weed out inept senior management (of course that won't leave much). Ship good product and quit relying on smoke and mirrors to give the illusion of quality.

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

Current Employee – been working at AeroVironment as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – No pros - I would talk anyone out of applying at the company.

Cons – Company has grown too big too fast; Upper Management is so concerned about pleasing their shareholders after turning into a public company they don't take the time to keep up with the welfare of their own employees and how well Dept Managers relate to them. Employees are afraid of reprisal - they don't have a way of voicing their dissatisfaction of Managers.

Advice to Senior Management – Replace the UAS Purchasing Manager with someone who can relate to employees without manipulation and deception. Replace the UAS .Human Resources Manager with someone who cares about helping people.

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

Former Employee – worked at AeroVironment full-time for more than a year

Pros – friendly co-workers and knowledgeable people in general. great engineering capability.

Cons – losing the great engineering capability by not investing in new technology, dragging resources around without a long term plan. putting vast resource in EVSE and trying to shift the company to a service provider is a mistake.

Advice to Senior Management – short vision on the long term goal. totally disconnected management (2010) and marketing goals. total ignore of the feeling of workers (giving out underwear pants as reward to those who served over 10 years during a company event?!) Safety lady needs to be fired if she is still there - she nibbles for just signatures so that she's not in trouble, she does not really care about your health or safety... still no respirators right?

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AeroVironment

Pros – 2 weeks vacation and 2 weeks personal time to start. They also have a league they enter each year for company sports.

Cons – Little to no opportunity for internal advancement. Little to no written policies or procedures. Stuck in Simi Valley, which is far from the action.

Current Employee – been working at AeroVironment

Pros – You get to work some of the coolest SUAVS in the world.
The ability to live where you want in the USA when working in the Services Operator / Instructor side based out of Huntsville AL.

Cons – Managements inability to manage the schedule and the pay plan for the employees who work on the services and instructor side of the company.
No Vacation time earned even though you work more than other full time employees at the company. This applies to the services side based out of Huntsville AL.
Overseas travel to some of the most dangerous and awful places on the planet.
240 plus days on the road overseas at this High Threat areas.
Constantly changing policies and schedules
Biggest Con with the Huntsville AL. management: This used to be a great place to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat your employees the way you want to be treated.
Stop the ex military / combat control nepotism
Stop with the bullying management style.
Respect your workers and their lives.
Surround yourself with good people, not yes men.
Understand who the people are who make this company great and are the real reason you win contracts and reward them/us, not just yourself.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AeroVironment

Pros – Interesting work. Fast paced. Good people mostly. High profile products that you can discuss with people and enjoy working on.

Cons – VERY un-organized, management is incredibly arrogant, foolish, and at times un-professional.

Advice to Senior Management – Fire VP's

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AeroVironment

Pros – You will be working with some very smart, very motivated people on the cutting edge of the newest field of aerospace and green electricity. Operations management is very efficient and well organized. There are no resource limitations - if you need a tool, book or other material resource, it will be provided with far less hassle than you're probably used to. The benefits are among the best in the industry, and the corporation is very employee oriented when it comes to work-life balance and employee social events. Company picnics and holiday parties are very well funded.

Cons – These same smart, motivated people can be very cliquish, very aloof, and very distrustful of anything "not invented here." There is a clear division between new hires and the old guard employees who were around before the company grew in size tenfold. Old-guard Engineering and Project managers are openly averse to adopting any lessons learned from outside the company. New hire managers are given little authority but much responsibility. AV's project-oriented management structure is not scaling to match the number of projects or personnel present and often struggles to staff small projects adequately. Employee annual review process is tedious and byzantine, yet no better in practice than the "what have you done for me lately" myopia typical industrywide. Day to day performance feedback is inconsistent at best, and often completely absent.

Advice to Senior Management – Shed your "not invented here" biases. Make it a top priority to improve day-to-day performance feedback to employees. Stop allowing senior management to fill multiple spots below them in their org charts, and hire experienced managers with people skills from other aerospace firms to fill them. Learn how a matrix organization works and adapt it to your company culture. Hire a senior level project manager from a large A&D firm to show you how to manage very large development programs. Delegate authority along with responsibility.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend