Argon ST Reviews in Fairfax, VA

Pros

Superior technical capabilities in their niche.

Cons

Quarterlt focus on financials led to questionable strategy.

Advice to Senior Management

Try and revert to the long view.

Pros

Good people, working hard - strong sense of community

Cons

Some "old timers" - fairly set in their ways - not very flexible. Hard for them to be open to change.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more open to new ideas.

Pros

The engineers/people at Argon ST are outstanding. The benefits, facilities, and location are top-notch. The technical challenges and problems are interesting and important.

Cons

Argon ST has been poor at procuring new business since becoming publicly traded. The public contractor model encourages short-term vision, sadly shared by Argon ST's highly risk-adverse management, which resulted in hefty and repeated consequences. The lack of business was significantly detrimental to career growth. A default lack of transparency (unnecessary obfuscation) exacerbated other issues.

Advice to Senior Management

Hopefully being acquired by Boeing helps on the business side. Management, please have a comprehensive overall vision and work with your employees.

Be willing to take calculated risks. Think twice about long-term repercussions, especially when you know about them in advance. Acknowledge stockholder sentiment but do not be a slave to it. Listen/identify, analyze/plan, and importantly follow-through with your employees and projects. This involves profiling and acting on recurring issues that can resolved through better policy, infrastructure, etc. Being transparent by default helps identify and address important issues as soon as possible and promotes trust. Good and mutually beneficial decisions between management and employees can access an immense amount of untapped potential.

Pros

They have great benefits and really do care about the employees. The people I work with are incredibly intelligent and very willing to share their knowledge with me.

The work is interesting and important to the country's defense.

Cons

I believe the company has grown to an awkward size - not really big, but not small so management does somethings that a small company does, but other processes like a big company.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on who/what you want to be and then set out a plan with resources to get there.

Pros

Work is reasonably challenging and you learn a fair amount. You know that your work is going to help defend our country. Colleagues are smart (but not stuffy or arrogant) and fun to work with. I think that hours are reasonable - at least, I don't know of too many other salaried jobs that you only work 40 hours a week, or have the possibility to get paid for overtime. Benefits are great - medical reimbursement (way better than an FSA), the week between Christmas and New Year's off, banking holiday time to use as vacation later on, etc.

Cons

This might be typical of most defense contractors, but I found the amount of requirements/design/code/test reviewing to really slow down my work. Also, you might not be working on the most cutting edge technology. Keeping track of hours and charge numbers was kind of a pain too.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep innovating!

Pros

The Benefits Package is top notch in comparison with similiar employers. The holidya bonuses are usually sizeable depending on how you program is doing and your personal performance. The work environment is not stressful and everyone that I worked with was in good spirits the majority of the time.

Cons

They do not allow enough time to spend with you family, go to school, or anything other than work. Simplify the time and labor entry process, in some postions you have so many charge number to keep track of during a day it is almost impossible to keep up with them all.

Advice to Senior Management

Ensure that there are enough employees in each position in order to not over work the rest of the employees. Also instill the value of furthuring education in employees.

Pros

Great opportunities, environment, and compensation (and benefits). The people i work directly with and manage really make this job for me though.

Cons

HR & Management sometimes don't communicate as clearly as they should, and there is a resistance to dealing with tough issues. Also the PMs have a tendency of planing poorly and then requiring engineering to make up for their mistakes (although this isn't a shock regarding PMs).

Advice to Senior Management

Be more forthright with our customers about potential issues in our systems, create more dialog on customer expectations, don't keep incompetence around, and hold program mangers more responsible for lack of planing.

Pros

Colleagues are smart, skilled, and friendly. Informal atmosphere. Company growth is good, so there's plenty of opportunity for advancement. Senior management seems to have common sense and care about their employees. Our products serve a very important function and are fun to work on.

Cons

The company has grown so quickly that it has sometimes had some issues with getting information communicated effectively between locations. Integrating groups across the country is a work in progress, though it is one senior management has recognized needs improvement and is trying to address.

Advice to Senior Management

The strategic objectives senior management recently outlined are right on - but it is important that resources be allocated to ensure we get there.

Pros

It is a good company to start out at.

Cons

There is little room for advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

None.