Lockheed Martin Reviews

Pros

Weekly paycheck are a plus.

Cons

Lack of advancement. Unfair to have to compete with all LM employees, even global ones and outside applicants for a job that is internal that the internal employee meets and exceeds the qualifications for that particular position.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward your people for work well done.

Pros

diverse, flexible, good beniefits, career growth

Cons

government contracts, decrease in defense funding

Pros

Here's the secret to success at Lockheed Martin: stretch assignments. If you come in as a new hire and wait for your lead to get work you ARE average. My mentees regularly complain they get an average rating (we are rated on a true curve) when they think they are knocking it out of the park.

You can come in and watch an hour of YouTube and troll Reddit all you like. You will probably even make E3 without much trouble, but you will not get many opportunities. No one cares you had a 4.0 at a top 25 university, we all did. We respect the time you served your country, but you have to keep working for us, too.

At Lockheed you don't even have to work overtime to be above average. You have to stretch. Ask for more work when you are close to done. Ask for work in an area you specialize. If you get hired in bonding parts but you did research in optics tell someone! They will respect it and find a position for you! Talk to your managers. Ask them how they got where they are. I guarantee they worked nights, they screwed things up, they made mistakes, but it was because they were paving the road through hard work and innovation. If you make a mistake here, it is ok. Learn from it and don't let it stop you.

Cons

Nothing will be given to you. The "rack and stack" (curve-based rating system) means that management can't hand-hold everyone without damaging other peoples' ratings. It can seem opaque at times, but if you ask someone that was rated above you what they did for the year, after they finish explaining it will put you in your place. Due to the size of the company your cube-mate may be working a project on the side you have no clue about.

Advice to Senior Management

You should just post the rankings publicly. People get frustrated because they don't know how much the top performers are really doing.

Pros

I was a retiring military member at the time I joined the company and they know how to take care of their people!

Cons

There are not many negitives to this company. I workd for them for three years before my contract ended and they did an excellent job assisting eith the transition.

Advice to Senior Management

Great management and team leardeship. Excellent HR department. Keep up the excellent work. A company I would choose to work for in the future.

Pros

Benefits, Pay, Tuition Reimbursement and Diversity of People

Cons

Huge company, sometime you can become just a number.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what you're doing.

Pros

Engineer practices
Multi-disciplinary team
Exposure the latest and greatest tools in engineering

Cons

Not a whole lot.
A little bit of red tape

Pros

Work Hours
Salary
Benefits
Medical
Facilities

Cons

Management, Professional development, Time Off, Promotion potential, Facilities

Advice to Senior Management

Work with subordinates better

Pros

Flex schedule, 3 weeks vacation, good 401K match program

Cons

raises are some what minimal, contracting customer

Pros

Good Salary
Flex schedule
Good career guidance and feedback
Travel
Education Reimbursement benefits
other benefits are pretty decent
People are generaly pretty nice

Cons

Health benefits keep getting more and more expensive
Very political at times
Hard to work around the good ole boy system sometimes

Pros

The work itself is exciting and satisfying and we have the greatest customers in the world.

Cons

Lockheed has been cutting benefits aggressively over the past few years taking full advantage of the recession to maximize profits. What used to be valuable benefits have been cut to be substandard so much so that I, unfortunately, would no longer recommend a career at Lockheed to a friend. Health insurance is more expensive than ever and is structured so that many of my employees have neglected to get needed care because of the cost of treatment being passed to the employee. Education benefits have been cut from 100% unlimited reimbursement to a still healthy but comparatively meager $7,500/yr and the restrictions on the programs is worse. Pay raises are always very small either due to the economy or company performance or market conditions. They always make something up to keep raises under 3% no matter that the company has strong performance. The pension has been eliminated, 401k contributions are still in effect but don't stand out as exceptional against other employers. Vacation accrual limits have been set where there were none before. Just all in all it has progressively become a place that I no longer can recommend to a friend as better than competitors. My main complaint however is the health insurance where the cost for premiums has doubled, the cost of care has increased, deductibles have been implemented, and the coverage has decreased to a point where some of my employees have neglected going to the doctor because they cannot afford to. This is ridiculous considering we work for such a profitable company with such a stellar reputation. Given that, I believe the reputation should be challenged as a greedy corporation rather than a good employer that values the employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Fix the health insurance, bring back HMO, stop fleecing the employee benefits to add margin. Your employees should be seen as those who are actually enabling the company to make money, keep it up and when the recession ends, there will be a mass exodus of talent.