Lockheed Martin Reviews in Philadelphia, PA Area

Pros

The engineering work can be very rewarding, cutting edge. The environment is quite advanced in terms of diversity, safety, professionalism (probably due to an excellent compliance training program). The IT department is top-notch. Reasonable communication from management to employees. Very good use of technology in productivity tools; there are user-friendly web-based systems for employee services & benefits, training, time recording, news feeds, intra-company communication, process document control, and performance management. There are advanced approaches to data management.

Cons

The pace at a defense contractor can be slow relative to a fully commercial enterprise. Telecommuting is not an option for most employees, but there is some shift flexibility for most people (1-2 hours). There are even some part-time positions, but perhaps not as much as in other industries.

Advice to Senior Management

The upper management (at this campus / division) can be very risk-averse, and thus slow to make changes. Sometimes, it seems that research is attempted on a shoe-string budget, instead of making a committed move into a new field. Select limited strengths to focus on; communicate more with customers, especially face-to-face. Include engineers when visiting customers. It's such a large company, that it's hard to comment on how the CEO is leading.

Pros

Very interesting work. Solid and comprehensive benefits package. Innovative approaches to time off (vacation, holiday, sick pay) that made a lot of sense for the company, the customer, and the employee. Despite the general population's impression of defense contractors (thanks to the media and the movies), I found Lockheed Martin to be a highly ethical place to work, and executive management clearly demonstrated that they view that as vital to the future of the company.

Cons

Today's Lockheed Martin is the result of conglomerating 70+ formerly competing businesses during the "Peace Dividend" era following the end of the Cold War. Anyone who has been through a merger before knows the challenges of blending 2 company cultures together; try blending 70. Made a lot of progress, but there's still pockets of resistance/mistrust between various pieces of the company toward one another. Lockheed Martin is a large enterprise (100,000+ employees) and is a reflection of its primary customer: the US Government. Very structured, very bureaucratic organization. It's very difficult to innovate from within there. Given the current state of the federal budget and impending defense budget cuts, Lockheed Martin is downsizing employee population extensively and probably will continue to do so for the next several years.

Advice to Senior Management

There is excessive pressure to find quick fixes to problems that are systemic in nature. You have great talent at both the individual contributor and management layers; listen more and trust more in what they tell you they are trying to accomplish for you.

Pros

they have great flex time. The ability to just leave when i hit 40 hours each week. The paid overtime after 40 hours (now 45 hours) isn't bad either

Cons

the union keeps everyone basically at the same place. They don't reward individual achievement. Its not really a software place

Advice to Senior Management

You need to reward the engineers who make the company move. You need to figure out how to reward people for their hard work

Pros

Interesting work if you can get on the right projects.

Cons

Slow promotion. Annual reviews are very subjective and a mediocre performer can score well if they schmooze the right people.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more opportunities for professional training to give employees a chance to move up. Don't limit it to the "golden children" who have made friends with the right managers.

Pros

LMC is great, if you are a technical person or working a program. If you are the family member of a long time employee or one who is high up in the management or you work in a headquarters location, its a great place to work. The variety of types of work performed by the company is also good.

Cons

the changed benefit plan is horrible and there is almost NO ability to get a promotion in the job you currently perform. LM sets job categories/levels by the type of work the function will perform. However, due to mass layoffs, everyone is doing much more than they ever agreed to do when they took the job initially. And, since they NEVER promote based on current job performance, you have to apply to work for another dept or manager in order to move up. And now, not many new positions are posted so no one can even apply to transfer and move up. The PRS system is a joke and they've almost eliminated completely any monetary awards for hardwork.

Advice to Senior Management

Buy a clue! We're underpaid and overworked and even the college students of today know this company's reputation. With poor benefits, little ability for job growth and low paying salaries, do you REALLY think anyone truly talented is going to want to work here?

Pros

Opportunities in a broad area of careers, educational opportunities, diverse assignments. community outreach, and benefits were outstanding.

Cons

Make sure that you are tightly networked when it comes to future opportunities.

Pros

good benefits
nice location
depth of knowledge from legacy company employees

Cons

no corporate support to maintain level of work at this site
long term downward trend leading to the conclusion that eventually closing this site is the overall goal.

Advice to Senior Management

in a "knowledge worker" environment, moving work to people is more effective and less expensive than driving employees away or operating in a very expensive locale. Eventually "Cost Plus" contracts will shrink and cost and performance effectiveness will burst this bubble.

Pros

The salaries are phenomenal. It's the only way they get people to stay there, because they are all miserable otherwise.

Cons

Not a very family oriented company. They favor ex-military, and if you work there, you can get your entire family in the door easily. Also, once you're hired your performance doesn't matter because they never fire. Because of that, those who are hard workers suffer. SI&T , Training and Technical Documentation, and Security (IT) are the worst departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Feedback will not be taken, as turnover in leadership never happens, and it's so political, no one ever gets fired.

Pros

Defense & Aerospace industry is the the top pay scale in the country. The mission is critical for the USA's security.

Cons

Because of the the mission criticality and high payscale, emploees will drive themlves into the ground to accomplish the task. Travel can be extensive, but overtime pay can compensate. Health issues are common place, due to extended hours and completion deadlines. Additional program resources are typically unavailable to deal with cost overruns, leaving employees to manage with what they have.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider promoting design engineers into upper management positions ahead of finance and accounting professionals. The nature of the business is highly technical. Engineers are better equipped to provide logical analysis and resolution of cost impacts. Complexity and size of organization lends itself to business reporting innaccuracies and excessive overhead. Consider improving cost and schedule through a more decentralized business model.

Pros

Great benefits
Flexible hours
Overtime Pay (at least for few more months - overtime gate of 5 hours is coming up)
Great people
Interesting projects
Ability move from departments and projects

Cons

Average salary
Union shop (engineering union)
Promotions are too structured
Outrageous bureaucracy
Management tolerates medeocrity due to union
>90% contracts are military based; hence, slow for change
Program management/Systems engineering focus (let other companies to do actual work)

Advice to Senior Management

Try your best to get rid of the union. Find ways to motivate folks, apathetic morale is prevalent everywhere. Aid engineers to garner ownership in projects. Value all engineering disciplines equally (even software).