General Dynamics C4 Systems Reviews in Phoenix, AZ Area

Pros

Wide Breadth of Technologies and Projects
Job Security
Job Stability
Competitive Compensation (Salary and Benefits)
Education Assistance
Augmented (“9/80”) work schedule

Cons

Limited Visibility/Interaction between projects and departments
Closed Work Environment
Burdensome Process
Seniority Driven Compensation
Many Short Term Projects
Increasing Limited investment in Research

Pros

Military friendly, challenging, good advancement opportunity, reasonable downsizing practices

Cons

Losing focus on products, resistant to aggressive pursuits, resistant to spending internal funds on IRandD

Pros

They pay well. Plenty of time off when needed. The people, individually, can be pleasant.

Cons

The management structure makes no sense -- there are at least 5 effective layers of management between me and the person who finds work for me, so he has no idea what I actually do. Communication is horrid. Every project I started on would begin with 10 people individually asking about file permissions, where documents are, etc before management realized that they should just take care of all of it at once. All we have are technical managers who are supposed to be able to tell me how to do our task, but they don't even know. The other kind of managers are people managers, who guide meetings, clearly delegate responsibilities, help guide brainstorming, and otherwise guide workers to a common goal. They didn't do that well, either. There are no opportunities for advancement. Sure, they give you a new title every few years and a good raise, but you don't actually do anything different. I really want to get into management, but they are unwilling to notice. Also, my voice is rarely heard when there is a problem. Without getting everybody in one room, they assume that if it's you versus somebody who's been there for 20 years that you must be wrong and not a team player. All the while, I haven't had but one steady project in 5 years of full time employment. There has been no mentorship to show me how to do the most important tasks of my job (ie hardware development), and every project feels like I'm reinventing the wheel.

Advice to Senior Management

Create standards for practice for engineers. Get a real consensus, without relying solely on senior engineers to just get stuff done. Get us low level engineers involved in the way the company works. I had been there for years before I found out that our personal commitment is a waste of time, and what really matters is the rank-ordering done throughout the year. When you talk to us about developing the business, give us a way of actually accomplishing it.

Pros

Initial salary better than most.
Benefits were good
Generous time off when you can get it

Cons

No interest in employee retention
Management attitude is engineers are a replacable commodity
Loses best employees to movement due to lack of market analysis.
Hires and promotes due to ethnic background or sex not based on performance
Very political environment.
Management circles known as the wine and cheese club

Advice to Senior Management

You work hard to attract bright and talented people, learn how to retain them
Get rid of the "old dead wood"
Strive to attain "best places to work" designation

Pros

GD offers flexible hours, a decent working environment, good people to work with, work that can be exciting and challenging, decent pay, etc.

Cons

GD keeps cutting benefits, laying off people, and asking those who remain to put in even more overtime. Our division started out as Motorola Government Electronics, and it was obvious that Motorola cared about its employees. There was 2-way loyalty between the company and its employees. GD took over and that remained a while. But now, it is obvious the company has little loyalty to its employees, because they keep cutting benefits. They say they're staying 'competitive', but the benefit cuts are never ending. I'm not feeling much loyalty from them towards me, and I know many others feel the same way. If you want a company that cares about building loyalty and doing good things for its loyal employees, GD isn't it. If you just want a company that gives you a paycheck, GD's pretty good for that.

Advice to Senior Management

Better communication. Pay attention to keeping employees happy. Show loyalty and appreciation to employees. Quit cutting benefits, awards, and milestone recognition events.

Realize that the government way of doing business is changing, and find ways to compete in the new marketplace.

Based on the recent poor communication, lack of support, and benefits cuts between GD and its employees, GD can expect an exodus of employees (including many of the ones they probably want to keep) when the job market picks up. There are a lot of employees who are feeling let down and underappreciated.

Pros

Benefits package was decent. People were ok to work with.

Cons

Very political with short-term foresight. No accountability for slackers. Promotions not based on merit.

Advice to Senior Management

Clean out the old dinosaurs and welcome new fresh blood and ideas!

Pros

Top notch engineers, cutting edge C3I technologies, job stability, flexibility, extensive benefits, tuition reimbursement, challenging work, opportunitiy to advance if well connected.

Cons

Politics and bureaucracy, lack of recognition, restriction compensation growth, limited opportunities to try out new technology outside of immediate project.

Advice to Senior Management

Become more employee centric, reduce politics, provide incentives for teams to work faster, pick team leads that are good leaders.

Pros

C4S is a good company for engineers, with some interesting programs in satellite and network communications. Salaries and benefits are fairly good, and there is opportunity to learn new skills by moving to different programs. Salaries have not been reduced or frozen, as they have been at many other companies over the past few years, but the raise pool has been small for several years.

Cons

C4S has started laying off staff this year, as older programs are completing and there are not enough new programs. Criteria for lay off selection has been very unclear, as very long term staff (30 year people) as well as staff with only a few years of service were targetted. Based on expectations that layoffs will continue, several staff have also left to pursue opportunities at other companies. Management has signalled that layoffs will continue in 2012 by stating that C4S needs to pursue more cost controls and leaner operations, but is withholding information about how many more jobs are at risk, probably to encourage staff to leave on their own. Similar to what has been happening at other companies, the benefits package was reduced again starting in 2012, with a reduction in the 401K match and reduction in number of paid days off.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior Management has isolated itself from the layoff process and is not communicating about this with the employees. The layoffs in May were only announced via internal email after several people had been already laid off and it was on the local news. Other layoffs followed in October with no communication at all.

Pros

Great benefits and great pay

Cons

Ok management, managment don't recognize what you do, alot of politics in the company

Pros

Time off, health benefits, breakfast at the on site cafeteria, flexible work schedule, parking, distance from main freeways and working with wonderful individuals.

Cons

The lunch at the cafeteria is not worth your money or what it does to your body.
Systems Engineering has issues defining specificness in requirements which causes issues with design and test. Your time is not always valued, e.g. you either have too much to do or not are scrambling to find something to do. You may end up putting in your required 20% travel in one trip.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate with your employees, especially during lay offs. It is difficult to be laid off. Extremely difficult when it comes with no warning and no explanation. Most people would be willing to take a pay cut to avoid this fate.