MDA Corporation Reviews in Brampton, ON

I worked at MDA Corporation full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great people to work with. Interesting Work.

Cons – Work is rather slow due to the nature of aerospace design compare to the commercial industry.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at MDA Corporation full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – - The people are great for the most part, with a ton of very friendly and very helpful peers to draw on for knowledge. Skill of employees is variable, but there are at least a few highly skilled people in each discipline to ensure project success.
- Occasionally there are amazing projects to work on, though these are becoming rare.
- I've learned so much working here, and have been very lucky with what I've worked on and who I've worked with.
- I have a lot of cons below, mostly because I care and wish things were back to the old days of dynamism, can-do attitudes. It could come back, but a lot will have to change first.

Cons – - Senior management and executives are fearful of competition in commercial space endeavours, despite having been far in the lead world-wide in relevant technologies. That lead has eroded, and management prefers that we assume the usual role as a sub-contractor for hire.

- Gross inefficiency is everywhere and sometimes even encouraged. This lowers morale and further lowers efficiency.

- Dead wood is kept around. Some staff have severely atrophied skills, and many people are wholly bought-in to out-dated processes and baggage from old programs, or are incapable of making a decision.

- Potential customers are sometimes turned off by our high price. Overheads are high.

- Careers are stagnating both in technical staff and management. Result is a lot of cruft clogging up the advancement chain, little fiefdoms in line management and above, and ultimately poor program performance.

- Canada's gov't is incapable of making a commitment to space programs without the US first leading the way, so there have not been (m)any real new flight programs in Brampton in several years. A decade of prototypes gets old after a while, and as mentioned, management is unwilling to take matters into their own hands on the commercial side.

- There is an overt adversarial relationship between HR and technical staff. I was amazed at this when I joined, assuming HR is supposed to be on the employees' side and that employees would negotiate with management. Not the case.

- Others have mentioned the pay situation. Yeah it's lower than industry averages by a considerable margin, and yeah that's a stated part of the company's business plan because they know that few space opportunities exist in Canada. Historically, attrition has been right where they wanted it. But good people are leaving regularly now and morale is pretty low.

Advice to Senior Management – Take risks. We need to, at this point. Invest in internal R&D or there will be no future of innovation at MDA. We can still compete if you allow real change. Stop shuffling the chairs. Yearly re-organization is not helpful unless you allow for corporate and cultural change in parallel with it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at MDA Corporation

Pros – Unique domain, relatively flexible working environment, great co-workers

Cons – limited career growth, lack of respect from senior management, poor / unclear corporate strategy

Advice to Senior Management – Improve soft-skills and appreciate value of human capital

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MDA Corporation

Pros – The work can be very interesting. In general, the staff is well educated, very competent, and easy to work with. It's a relatively relaxed work environment. There can be many opportunities to learn some very unique skills. There can be a very engaging social atmosphere.

Cons – The work load can be cyclical, with occasional down-times between major programs. The quality of the work assignments can be very dependent on which department you work in. The technical staff is part of a collective bargaining unit. The pay is a bit below standard.

Advice to Senior Management – Business development efforts and the focus on R&D have occasionally been misdirected in the past, leading to lost opportunities. The current effort to develop a commercial oriented business model is positive, but should also be linked to evolving developments in International exploration.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend