MITRE Reviews

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Work-Life balance,benefits and starting salary.

Cons – Overwhelming pressure to find new projects to work on...either it works with what you are trained to do , or not...for example I'm a systems engineer who spent 7 months working on Microsoft Productivity software since I had no new task and my older project had been cut and would no longer receive funds.
GL's and upper management should step in and actually help does who need new projects to make new connections outside of the center to help you find new and suitable projects...don't have an engineer spend 7 months slamming his head against a keyboard.
Expanding into the new centers is very difficult and practically taboo. All centers behave as independent "companies".

Advice to Senior Management – New Technology is coming...Social Media..Simulations..advancement in computers and data...stop trying to make everything that is new sound like it will not help the company....your competition is well beyond MITRE....you introduce old technology to late...you embrace the new to late...you let you "youthful" employees leave and depend on older "old wood" to embrace new technology.

Also what is MITRE's identity? Are we Contractors? Advisors? Developers? R&D?

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

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Work arrangements can be very flexible, as long as the project lead and government customer agree.
Opportunities are there to pursue leading edge technology through innovation projects.
Relatively easy to move from project to project and pursue technical interests.
Technology refresh of computers every 3 years.
Multiple ways to connect remotely.

Cons – The federal government is the customer and ultimate decision maker, so frustration may be high at times when decisions are made for political reasons rather than economic or technical reasons.
Pressure to find new assignments when one project comes to an end, especially when the government stops funding in the middle of a task.
Work force is more senior so trying to use social technologies is frustrating and slow

Advice to Senior Management – Don't spend so much time trying to motivate with corporate programs. Focus on a framework that encourages employee innovation instead of employee participation

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than a year

Pros – thinking, thinking, thinking...fail. Okay, okay, work life balance is real here.

Cons – Despite priding themselves as a "technical" company, MITRE completely disrespects their technical staff. That is, people with soft PhDs in technical *sounding* fields like systems engineering or engineering management are briskly pushed through the ranks. Others who have hard PhDs in fields like physics or math languish---even if they are good communicators and work well with clients. Yet, on projects, guess who does all of the difficult technical lifting? Guess who has to constantly correct superiors on technical points? Guess who has to listen and nod heads to half-baked ideas from project leaders?

There is, in fact, a disincentive to promote lower ranking technical people: they would take up more resources for the same hours on a fixed budget contract. Meanwhile, there is terrible upper management bloat, especially at the AC5 level. Usually, they are supposed to manage relationships, yet they completely fail at it. They often tell the client incorrect information, or they email a draft copy of a document to them before its been vetted.

Meanwhile, the raise structure is designed to maintain the status quo. That is, having an “excellent year” and an “outstanding review” only earns you a fraction of a percentage point higher than the average raise. In fact, MITRE even boasts that they *try* to keep everyone very near each other. Where is the incentive to do good work, to excel?

My take, there are four kinds of people who will flourish and love MITRE: 1) people near the end of their careers who want a stable job with good work life balance but care little about advancement, 2) people of low or mediocre talent who want to avoid competing with real talent, 3) people who think systems engineering is a real discipline (alternatively, people who like ridiculous certifications like Lean Six Sigma and Scrummaster), and 4) people who aren’t very technical but can talk like they are and can fool the weak minded. Those are not meant to be orthogonal categories. There is one kind of person who will absolutely wilt and loathe MITRE: anyone with at least half a brain. They are completely orthogonal to the previous four types of people.

Advice to Senior Management – Wake up! You are losing your real technical people in droves because the company's advancement policy has reverse incentives. A freshly minted PhD in a difficult field should be an automatic AC3 with a pro forma promotion to AC4 after a year of observation. A hard PhD with a few years of experience (even academic experience) should be an automatic AC4 hire. Clear out some of the bloat at AC5 and higher; make room for the technical people that are crushed under their weight.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than a year

Pros – Flexible and relaxed atmosphere. Good place to pick up and learn from.

Cons – None so far... I will provide updates when there is one.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Can easily make a career at MITRE
Lots of job opportunities

Cons – Discouraging sometimes
Contract renewal (government sector)
Old Culture

Advice to Senior Management – Change work culture to support the NEXTGen worker.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than a year

Pros – Friendly environment, down to earth hardworking engineers and people. Everyone loves to learn and help.

Cons – Unrealistic goals for some projects, a little to optimistic at times. Some departments have no idea how to work with interns or new hires.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Very friendly atmosphere.
Challenging projects that keep you engaged in the work that you do.
Competitive benefits
Competitive salary.
Great work/life balance

Cons – No cons that I can think of.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than a year

Pros – Incredible environment of professionalism. Freedom to embrace the various aspects of working for an FFRDC, whether it's supporting our Government sponsors with their most strategic challenges or researching and developing new solutions for use across multiple agencies.

Cons – Slow growth potential. Working for Government sponsors can sometimes breed an attitude of "it's been tried 100 times before" and not embracing new, innovative approaches.

Advice to Senior Management – Empower staff to make clear, committed career decisions based on transparency between what is organizationally in demand and what our Government sponsors need most to improve their agencies.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Very smart people, employees work together as opposed to competing against one another, valuable work, excellent work/life balance, great benefits

Cons – Low churn rate makes the organization top heavy

Advice to Senior Management – keep it up!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at MITRE full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Smart people, focused on the mission of our sponsors. Very technically focused and innovative. Staff have the opportunity to be creative and define their work.

Cons – Officers making decisions that do not support keeping staff engaged (e.g., reduction of vacation days, re-organizing and getting rid of Group Leaders and Associate Department Heads).

Advice to Senior Management – Think through the impact of the decisions you make

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend