GE Global Research Reviews

Pros

It is a nice place to work, with cutting edge technology. You get to know today what world will know tomorrow!

Cons

Less of traveling round the world. Salaries could have been better given the competencies of the employees. Career growth is somewhat slow.

Pros

Friendly peer group
Diversity of problems
Very good soft-skill training programmes for technologists
Great campus
Very good work life balance

Cons

Lower compensation
Difficult to work on a long-term meaningful project due to changing business situation
Inability to see how the research that one does makes an impact

Pros

if you do what your manager/project leader wants, you'll be rewarded. easy job for competent researchers. many different projects you can get into assuming it aligns with your manager's goals. after recent reorganization (added new level of management), much smaller labs and first line managers are expected to do some technical work. very young (inexperienced) first level managers now.
great place to learn how to be successful in industrial research, unfortunately.

Cons

opaque review process: of the 6 reviews i got, varied from 'outstanding' to 'need development' back to 'outstanding' in a span of two years. bad review is because i followed scientific integrity instead of 'spinning' results as lab manager wanted.
project reviews are not technical in nature. researchers are expected to be 'experts' in not only research but in marketing (every project needs a business case).
high turnover rate. workers tend to overestimate GE/their abilities.
horrible healthcare benefits (don't have a family!).
funding decisions are not driven by technical feasibility, therefore most projects fail to deliver initial promises.
expect to be punished if you make anyone in your chain-of-command look bad.
GE businesses tend to view Global Research as a 'tax'.
research is really done by acquisitions.

Advice to Senior Management

create independent council of Chief/Principles to evaluate funding for projects.
kill or revamp Advanced Technology program.
ask yourself if the reorganization achieved what you wanted. if not, why?
need a SVP who understands technology, not just worried about safety audits.

Pros

Get a chance to work with multiple businesses, so one can develop breadth quickly, a good place for earlier career. Work with a lot of smart people, learn a lot.

Cons

Has to work hard to influence business for good technology transition.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to have longer cycle of development

Pros

1. Managers, senior engineers, co-workers are very nice
2. You will see different projects and you will find one that you know and could talk about.
3. Work with sharp and passionate people
4. GRC pay attention to health very much. You could enjoy healthy lunch and join in different sports activities.
5. You could meet big big bosses and talk with them

Cons

1. Too many smart people stay together. :D
The result of so many young talents get together is that you have to work very very very hard or even overtime to compete and standout. But remember, they will do the same thing to outperform you.
2. Too many projects carried out at the same time thus make the employee hard to concentrate. Of course I was an intern so that was not a problem for me. But for other employee, they complained about it.

Advice to Senior Management

NA.
Just short time intern and my manager is good!

Pros

There is a great variety of projects to work on. For the most part, they are very professional. You will have exposure to the greater scientific community through conferences, publications, collaborations, etc. The resources there (in terms of expertise) are unmatched at most other work places - there are world experts in many different fields, and they are very willing to help you out if you simply ask.

Cons

It is a very flat organization, making it difficult to advance into leadership roles. Being a big company, there is a lot of "red tape", which is to be expected with any company that size.

Advice to Senior Management

I think that their EMS review process is cumbersome and overly formal. I think a more informal approach should be taken, having mini-reviews more often throughout the year. You are, for the most part, direct in communicating with employees, but I feel that it should be done more often, to help employees gauge their performance and adjust throughout the year.

Pros

Challenging task, cutting-edge project, personally learning a lot, not only in technique experiences, but also in GE values which is very helpful for career

Cons

Interns are not allowed to use the GYM

Pros

flexible working schedule, get to work with a lot of smart people, get to learn a lot of things.

Cons

It has been a trend to reward the talker not the doer. The people who are doing day in day out technical work, sometimes hard, sometimes tedious, are called useless technical people, and they are ranked mediocre. The people who are not doing, but superficially knowing something, and talking all the time to sell to business or other people, are highly ranked. So when the new hire come in and they want to get ahead, that is what they will do. When an IC has more than 60% time booked in meeting in their calendar, it is really puzzling, what technical accomplishment he/she can achieve. It is amazing that IC does so well (ranked highly) by doing purely professional management day in and day out, no substantially technical contribution at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward the doers, not the talkers. If this trend continues, GE GRC will lose its technical advantage over others.

Pros

For young people, a good place to work on many different projects. You also get the chance to work with real experts in some field.

Cons

Very little room for technical people for carer advancement if you do not want to become a lab manager. You have to be a good power point engineer to get credit.

Advice to Senior Management

have few non-productive project reviews. Giving people that are doing real job some credit beyond lab managers and project leaders.

Pros

Diversity of expertise, abundance of high caliber scientists , collaborative environment. Exposure to enormous field of applications for many technologies

Cons

leadership does not show clear direction for technology or market

Advice to Senior Management

Too many bureaucratic metrics are keeping management busy, distracting from their leadership job.
Stop metric proliferation and worry more about setting direction for technology based on business needs, market trends.