Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Employee Review

I have been working at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Overall interesting work that can be very flexible when you're newly hired. If you don't like your current projects, your supervisors will try to work out a way to change to something that fits your interests.
- Almost everyone is friendly, good-natured, and fun to be around.
- There is a JHU satellite campus right on site where you can take courses for free after work.
- Job security. They don't seem to fire anyone so you don't need to become paranoid about every little detail.
- Flexible work hours
- Above-average salary

Cons – - Technical collaboration is not encouraged across the lab. You could be on a project where it's just you in front of the computer for many months.
- The quality of the project managers varies. You could have a really excellent one who is receptive and intelligent, or one who's more obtuse and difficult to get along with, and the latter can make you pretty unhappy for long periods of time.
- A little too top heavy. Too many people working on papers and powerpoint presentations and not enough doing modeling, simulation, and prototyping.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep your eye out for inept project managers who can undermine their workers by making technical decisions for them when it's not their expertise.
Have white boards in the halls, encourage more technical collaboration and transparent discussion of what projects need to succeed.

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