Alliant Techsystems Reviews

Pros

A lot of hands on work . There is a lot of work with NASA and space systems, having a hand in human spaceflight is very exciting. There is a very intelligent and competent engineering community with a lot of experience. The company has had a very extensive history of innovation.

Cons

Lots of corporate red tape, as with any defense contractor that deals with DoD. Paperwork is needed for everything. Some communications issues with upper management- information is sometimes passed up to them in the forms of hearsay and rumors.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your direct reports to supply you with accurate information.

Pros

They have a wide range of opportunities available on different product lines. They pay well and being dependent on government contracts keeps the jobs stable. Their is relatively low turnover.

Cons

The facilities are very old and somewhat depressing. The greatest drawback was the lack of coordination. I never saw my supervisor so I received no feedback. Without feedback there was no real opportunity for promotion.

Advice to Senior Management

Coordinate more effectively with your staff!

Pros

The very best reasons to work for ATK is that you are absolutely in love with rockets, carbon fiber, resin compounds, cork, fiberglass, and propulsion systems OR that you are a smoking hot logistics and supply specialist. If you are into that, then ATK is a great place for you. ATK's Quality Department was top notch from what I could tell. The internal audit system is very robust, and well-maintained. There is plenty of opportunity for someone who wants an education, especially if you are interested in logistics and supply functions. Judging from the clothes that manager-types wear, I'm gonna guess that the compensation is really good at that level. And as a mid-career technical writer, I think the pay was slightly higher than I would have found elsewhere. From a jobby-job standpoint, it's pretty good. I was always able to balance my work vs. play time without any trouble. When I was there, corporate had capped overtime, so it was rare that I worked a 50 hour week. The production schedule is mapped out pretty far in advance, so you can get a vacation in when you want it. Since they do a lot of government contracting, there's a bit of a government job feel to the place, especially when it comes to procuring supplies for your department. Of course, the IT guys are always spying on your e-mail and web-surfing, but nobody is gonna freak out if you jump on facebook during lunch.

Cons

If you are making widgets that sell for a quarter, and you mess one up, you just chuck it in the re-work bin and move on. However, when your product sells for a quarter-million or better, and you mess one up, some heads are going to roll. This fact seems to have caused an unfortunate and ugly culture to develop at ATK, in which every single person involved in the manufacture of said product is in constant CYA mode. You will sit through lots of very uncomfortable meetings in which engineers and project managers try to slough blame on the production workers, and vice-versa. In order to last there, you need to get good at nasty politics. Fear of blame also sets up an "us vs. them" conflict between engineering and production, and everybody knows that's going to hurt your production time.

Advice to Senior Management

Ask the question "What is to blame?" rather than "Who is to blame?" That is the only way to foster teamwork and loyalty among your employees.

Pros

The work is fun and interesting. The envionrment is very friendly and relaxed, but at the same time focused on delivering quality products to the customer. It is very easy to balance work and life as scheduling is pretty flexible.

Cons

Satisfaction and experiences seem too tightly tied to your manager and workgroup. Seems the old timer managers are preferred and that non-production/manufacturing groups are, too.
There have been a lot of recent changes in upper management, which has a tendency to make peopler nervous.
Benefits are about average for today's market.
There are always rumors of layoffs on the horizon, but I guess that is a downside of working for a company that is so heavily dependent on the government and politics.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep a careful eye on your middle management and that will let you know how well your employees like working there

Pros

It's a solid company with opportunity

Cons

They work like a beauacracy and getting management to listen to you can be difficult. They are also and older company and change doesn't come very easily

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to adapt to the new models in the industry or you'll be left in the dust and become a dinosaur.

Pros

People are nice and the programs are interesting.

Cons

Top heavy management. Demands are for short term profits without thought too long term business.

Advice to Senior Management

Trim the top management and let the sites do the work like they did before being acquired.

Pros

Good pay for engineering job in Utah. The work is interesting, and the people are very friendly and helpful.

Cons

There is a ton of red tape, mostly because they work for the government and for NASA. It's probably just the nature of the industry, but that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating when you need to replace an old screw when the screw isn't manufactured anymore, and it takes a long time to get it approved.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to make the company a little more fluid/flexible.

Pros

Pride by association: working in the defense industry (integral to the world's stability) and supporting executives who used to be military leaders. Fabulous benefits. Wonderful co-workers at the management/executive level. Good pay. Stability. Education opportunities funded by the company. Employee reward programs. Exceptional employee stock purchase program.

Cons

Management incompetence, infighting &/or turnover (you'd lose a really good boss and then be assigned a jerk). Senior leaders who may have been competent in the military but don't know how to treat "real" people. Favoritism. No 360 feedback for staff-level, resulting in some co-workers who were lazy or incompetent because they felt "set for life."

Advice to Senior Management

Work together, not against one another. So much backstabbing, competitiveness, pettiness was immature.

Pros

The employees at ATK were very supportive. They all wanted to make sure that I felt confortable at the company and that I was treated with respect.

Cons

Management gave me little feedback on my performance. I wish I knew a little bit more about how I was performing whether the information be good or bad. I did get to interact with managers on a daily basis.

Advice to Senior Management

It would be nice to know a little bit more about my own career development.

Pros

Working on products that make a difference. I love working on new defense measures and defense weapons. Things that the soldier will get use when they go out on the battlefield! This company will continue to grow if they keep up the way they do business, they do an excellent job thanking their employees. My coworkers have been great and have always been wiling to help me no matter how easy the question is to answer.

Cons

Plymouth is small and limited career opportunities within the division. I wish they had more jobs that directly applied to areas that strongly interested me.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work, feels almost like a family when I come to work.