Lockheed Martin Reviews in Denver, CO Area

Pros

In certain locations, employees can work a 9x80 schedule (every other Friday off) by working 9 hour days. Great pay and benefits with an acceptance on the west coast of work-life-balance and flexible schedules.

Cons

Job security is purely dependent on contracts awarded to the company and their duration.
Lots of proposal work can mean working long hours. Managers don't receive compensation for overtime.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to value and listen to your employees.

Pros

Competitive pay, consistent annual raises, interesting work, opportunities to move around within the company, employee retention, tuition reimbursement program, onsite 24x7 gym and health club reimbursement

Cons

Bureaucratic, continues to trim benefits year after year (though that appears to be the industry trend), lack of recognition for hard work, merit system that comes up short on rewarding high achievers over average or sub-par employees, lack of opportunities for career growth and/or promotions for employees with 5+ years experience, limited technical career path that induces technical employees who are not management material to pursue management positions in order to be promoted

Pros

Diverse amount of products and services, pride in serving the country, competitive salary and benefits, educational assistance great work location, great people.

Cons

Current downturn in new business resulting in workforce reductions across the Corporation, challenging tpo make a name for yourself based on size of the organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to mine the ideas and creativity of employees. Reward cost saving ideas and behavior. Be willing to invest in changes that will have a long term significant impact.

Pros

Aerospace work and initial opportunity to share.

Cons

Inconsistent disucssion and work expectations.

Advice to Senior Management

Communication does not flow down from Prgm Mger.

Pros

Unlimited opportunitys to gain different experience

Cons

Execs are losing sight of what make the company work

Advice to Senior Management

Empower the business areas to manage their own affairs - the corporate departments have no clue of what is required to run the day to day business..but they still dictate!

Pros

Lockheed is a good place to work in terms of pay, the products employees get the opportunity to work on and the inside look you can get into the aerospace industry.

Cons

As an intern, unfortunately there was very little work to do. Most of the work was busy work that wasn't meaningful or associated with engineering. Intern leads would often "push aside" the problems with the internship program rather than trying to work with the interns on what could be improved.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your interns when they give feedback and be more involved with their day to day work.

Pros

If you're into doing spacecraft and defense products, LM has one of the best portfolios of these sorts of things. It's a large diverse company and if you're interested in moving around to different projects then that opportunity is there (but you have to make it happen for yourself). If you're truly a superstar (top 1%) you'll be treated well -- but you still won't rise as fast as you would at a smaller company.On the other hand -- you don't have to work too hard. You can put in the standard 40-hour week and still be considered a good performer. So if you've got other things in your life than work it's nice in that regard.

Cons

The current "affordability" climate means promotions are almost nonexistent and raises are paltry. Don't take a job thinking you'll get promoted within a few years -- your manager might want to do it but his hands are tied by HR and central management. The raises are about in line with inflation -- so not really raises. The new health plan is expensive! The glossy brochures make it sound great, but here's the summary: If you're married with kids, expect to pay $3000/year in premiums. If your family remains in perfect health all year, then that's all you'll pay. But of course that doesn't happen. Factor in some kid office visits for colds, some parent visits for this or that, or even one emergency room or urgent care visit and you'll be out of pocket another $3000. So budget for $6000/year for health care. It *is* capped -- so the $6k/year is the max you'll spend. And you can choose just about any doctor you want. But that's about the only good news.

Advice to Senior Management

Enough of the process/CMMI push. Great for the manufacturing line, I'm sure the customer (government) laps it up. But for the groups that are doing real engineering it's a waste of our time. Also it seems that our recently promoted VP's are more of the MBA mindset rather than the old school which promoted those who had actually showed themselves to be stellar engineers. Read Bob Lutz's book "Car Guys vs Bean Counters".

Pros

Great reputation. Good for a resume

Cons

Boring. Too much government involvement.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't treat people like children

Pros

Flexible work environment. Quite a few very talented engineers.

Cons

Incompetent leadership. Terrible talent management. Tolerance of nonperformance of leaders.

Pros

Regular hours. Job stability in many locations is very high due to contract structure. This company is a good place to work if you are nearing the end of your career.

Cons

The experience I've gained here is not what I would consider conformant to industry standards nor does it excel in utilizing new technologies (keep in mind I don't work in the areas of fighter jets or sattelites, which this company sure IS very cutting edge). If I don't leave soon, I fear I will be premature nearing the end of my career!

Advice to Senior Management

Please solicit feedback for the manager, from employees working under that manager. Management support of themselves at times make the workplace feel hostile.