Harris Reviews

Pros

Challenging work Great Benefits Good Path

Cons

Large Company hard to keep up with other divisions

Advice to Senior Management

I think they do a pretty great job there.

Pros

Ability to work on a variety of projects (although that depends upon your group)
Occasional internationl travel opportunities
New hires start with 3 weeks vacation
Unlimited sick leave/personal time and decent 401k matching

Cons

No correlation between performance and compensation.
Upper management is wasteful and borders on incompetent
Xerox/Kodak like mentality of adaption (too little too late)

Advice to Senior Management

Software development doesn't cost millions of dollars. Just some motivated employees who feel they're working on meaningful projects and are being fairly compensated for their efforts.

Pros

great medical benefits and other coverages at a resonable price to employees

Cons

lack of communication and direction, continuous non decision on cross matrix issues

Advice to Senior Management

reduce the matrix bosses to 3 or less

Pros

Great benefits
great people to work with

Cons

Not a lot of room for advancement.

Pros

okay place to work, close to home, educational benefits are good, good college program, talented engineering staff

Cons

management is top down in a vacuum, everyone copies everyone, leadership doesn't seem to be comfortable with employees making decisions. Decisions are constantly questioned.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your employees or let them go. Leadership by example would be fantastic. Howard's style of leadership doesn't filter down.

Pros

Harris is staffed with very intelligent and courteous employees. Opportunity for advancement varies with the assigned program. Great benefits package. Harris Family Medical is super and continues to evolve. Compensation is fair.

Cons

Work life balance seems to be the biggest challenge. Very long days can be the norm. With a contract based company deadlines are met at all costs. Meeting personal obligations and planning family time can at times be very difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to management would to find support solutions that mitigate the need for employees to work more than the equivalent of double shifts. Also, design a knowledge database as a repository for project information.

Pros

Harris is a great company to work for. Their employees are intelligent, talented, and courteous. There is a strong company identification and being a full-time Harris employee rather than a contractor is a status thing. The maintenance of a good/classy company culture is important to Harris.

Cons

Career progress is based more on character rather than competence. It is not the most educated or skilled that gain promotion or are offered employment with Harris. They have to like you.
Contractors tend to be second class citizens at Harris.

Advice to Senior Management

Management is a spot on. Keep up the good work.

Pros

Pretty good Benefits, training opportunity's

Cons

I was totally mislead as to what my hours and actual role would encompass after accepting an offer. I accepted a job as a network engineer w/ 10 years experience with the understanding I would be working with the most advanced network technology.

 After the first day on the job I'm told ill be working 12 hour midnight shifts in a customer service position. I actually thought there was some sort of mistake! None the less I was told I could apply within the company 3 years down the road and possibly relocate to a actual Network Engineering role! How Exciting!

Needless to say my experience with Harris was a total disaster..

Advice to Senior Management

Don't mislead or over hire new talent to fill some warm body quota.

Pros

They put a lot of focus on people. Promotions are fair and expectations are clear.

Cons

Some things move at a slow pace.

Pros

Very entrepreneurial, almost to a fault.
Lots of IRAD funding and interesting work to do.
Patent opportunities, if you are part of the select few.

Cons

Relatively low pay.
Easy to go unnoticed. You really have to sell yourself to get recognition, b/c it won't come from your boss. (He or she is too busy selling themselves.)
Promotion based on the paradigm of "I can't tell you the exact criteria, but I'll know it when I see it."

Advice to Senior Management

I was grateful for the chance to work there.
Don't take the easy way out regarding employee (especially engineer) development. Try to find a way to task people in a way that challanges them, and don't be afraid to let them fail and leads from it.