MITRE Reviews

Pros

- Workforce contains high level of expertise and very intelligent individuals
- Truly tries to serve in the best of the public's interest
- Exposure to great work

Cons

- The career advancement and promotion process is inconsistent
- Hiring standards are not as highly selective as they use to be

Advice to Senior Management

- Continue the great work and innovation that made MITRE MITRE.
- Set high standards for recruitment
- Do a better job of helping employees advance

Pros

MITRE is a great company, with many opportunites for growth. It is easy to work on projects that interest you. The management is very understanding in creating a good work-life balance.

Cons

It is a government job, so there are hoops to jump through related to security. It also offers slightly lower compensation, although that is accounted for with good benefits.

Pros

Even with the recent changes in benefits, they are near the top in the area. You cannot beat the amount matched for the retirement plan and the flexibility of not having to invest in the company's stock since it is a not-for-profit corporation.

I do not think you can beat the work-life balance that MITRE affords its employees.

When we are allowed to act as a traditional Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), the work can be very rewarding. Those of us who work in more technical areas can find satisfaction in helping the government solve problems by acting in their best interest without any issue with conflicts of interest.

Cons

The average age of the staff skews older. This is because the type of job we do requires experience, background, and maturity that younger workers would lack. However, this does not mean MITRE couldn't benefit from hiring younger people and bring them in to be mentored to replace retiring staff.

The older staff, especially with MITRE's high retention record makes there very little room for advancement. Promotions are slow and when they do happen seem to go to those who have ingratiated themselves to upper management. Frankly, some people have been promoted in technical areas that couldn't engineer their way out of a wet paper bag!

MITRE has grown a lot over the last 10 years. In order to fill its ranks, there have been a lot of hiring from the commercial consulting world whose attitudes are not aligned with that of an FFRDC. Not only has this caused tension with long time employees who could really serve the government in the FFRDC environment, but the consultants have pushed MITRE values outside of what an FFRDC should be making MITRE look like any other contractor in many areas. For example, there is nothing MITRE is doing for the Department of Homeland Security than any other contractor could do. In these cases, it makes MITRE look incompetent.

Depending on the center that hires you, there is no career path for technical people. If you do not want to go into management of some sort, you will top out in your career. Jobs that sound like they are technical, such as Chief Engineers, are not technical but a management job for engineering functions with no chances to get your hands dirty.

Advice to Senior Management

With the slow down in government growth, it is time for upper management to look at anyone hired in the last 5-6 years, even at the director levels, and assess what they are doing to advance MITRE as an FFRDC and whether they are acting as if they were still working in the contracting world. If these people are working as if they are contractors, it is time to ask them to change or find some place else to work.

Aside from the issue with "going native" many others have written about, centers have to start to live the goal "bring MITRE to bear" and stop hiring in their own little world and start to look around for internal resources that would qualify for their positions. It is frustrating to see an announcement within CEM/CCG of a hiring that could have been filled by someone on the bench. It is time to learn to use already cultivated talent before going outside.

Create a career path for employees who want to remain technical.

Make the review and evaluation process more transparent.

And when one of your technical people tells you in advance that a project is going to hit the wall, no matter how it looks, you may want to listen. Otherwise, if you do nothing and the project does fail, please be adult enough to apologize to the employee for your inability to see the forest from the trees. A little humility can go a long way!

Pros

The way the government engages MITRE is strategic in nature and with a level of access and influence not afforded to those working in the commercial contracting space. MITRE allows you to apply engineering excellence through a unique type of relationship with the government: the Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)

Cons

Turnover and growth are lower than at commercial companies meaning there may appear to be fewer opportunities for advancement. The corporate culture is one of inclusion and so some employees feel that decisions can take too much time and/or result in many rounds of discussions.

Advice to Senior Management

MITRE management has to work hard to find a ablance between the needs of the sponsors and our commitment to FFRDC operational excellence, and new developments in human capital management. Management should look for ways to adapt our internal organization to meet the needs of the next generation of engineers while keeping the delivery of mission-critical solutions intact. A tough job, no doubt about it...

Pros

Work with higher level sponsors, if you are good.
MITRE Institute for training.
Previously good benedits.

Cons

As the other reviews said, no promotions are available.
Salarieis are languished.
Management is old and stogy. Would never make it in a commercial environment. They're not going anywhere, however.
Too much administration, no marketing.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of the old dead wood managers.
Implement more marketing, because the company is vulnernable to downturns.
How about good salaries, not 50th percentile?

Pros

Work life balance and interesting work.

Cons

Too reluctant to promote staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Drop the dead weight and promote the talent.

Pros

Smart, friendly people, a great campus, a collegial atmosphere, and the ability to address important problems are some of the reasons that make MITRE a great place to work. Of those there are two that stand out: the people and the mission. The people are terrific--smart, friendly, and helpful. The people I work with are the reason I like to come to work each day. They are colleagues, each talented and gifted in their own way, and they are friends. The mission is a second great reason. As an FFRDC, we serve the nation without a motive for profit. We relish the opportunity to apply the vast knowledge and experience of thousands of MITRE scientists and engineers to the toughest challenges of the nation in many domains: security, defense, flight safety, health, law enforcement, and more. In a less altruistic sense, the fringe benefits are a major reason to come to, and stay with, MITRE. Aside from a retirement plan that has got to be one of the best in the country, there are many small things that make a huge difference. MITRE has gone above and beyond to create a workplace to attract the best and brightest.

Cons

Working on a sponsor site can be difficult, especially if the sponsor sees you as just another contractor and does not "get" the FFRDC difference. Being away from the main campus and the opportunity to interact with other MITRE scientists and engineers can make one stale.

Advice to Senior Management

Get out to sites more. Visit our technical people who spend their days in sponsor spaces and see how they are living and what the environment is like for them.

Pros

Work life balance is great and overall benefits are def. plus.

Cons

Company is set in its ways and runs in a old fashion corporate structure. There not so open to younger employees new ideas or taking advantage of the amount of potential some people have. Pay definitely needs to be better, yearly raises need to increase by double when comparing to outside companies.

There are too many people here that are set in there ways and are not as productive compared to recent graduates. Lots of Bureaucracy when it comes to promotion and raises. Only those who have constant relationships with upper management are rewarded year by year. The same people seem to be wining the all the time.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management should have a more active role in knowing whats going on in the lower ranks.

Pros

MITRE is a great place to get a foot in the door since they'll hire just about anybody to keep up with attrition in the middle engineering ranks.
MITRE is a great place to finish your career due to generous retirement benefits and the fact that they'll hire just about anybody with industry connections.

Cons

There is almost no chance of getting a meaningful promotion if you start off at a low rank (AC2 or 3). Since becoming an AC4 almost definitely requires you to stop doing technical work and start managing projects, engineers are pretty much capped at being AC3's (with a few exceptions). This means that salaries severely stagnate compared to anywhere else in the industry.
Add to this the fact that MITRE's middle and upper management is severely bloated by people who would most likely be unemployable anywhere else, and the chances of moving up are almost nil.
If there is an opening, there is a 90% chance they will hire somebody from the outside than promote from within.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire people. Plain and simple. There is so much fat at the AC5+ level that would be much better utilized courting younger engineers and trying to retain them.
Look around at the next meeting and count the number of managers to people actually doing work. When there are more chiefs than indians, something's wrong.

Pros

Work/life balance, good retirement matching.

Cons

Lots of incompetent and non-technical managers for an engineering company that is one of the "best places to work." Limited feedback going up the chain (no 360) so terrible managers and department heads tend to stick around forever (as others have said, they'd be basically unemployable anywhere else). Lots of talk about ethics and values but very little behind it when bad things actually happen.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to employees, not just managers. Why are benefits being cut when you can get rid of useless employees to cut expenses?