MITRE Reviews

Pros

Decent pay, good benefits, good retirement plan

Cons

No technical track for advancement. To get a promotion employees must take on management tasks. The company is tightening the purse strings by cutting back vacation says (24 to 21) and decreasing the amount of time saved up (240 to 200 hours).

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize employee contributions and make them aware of what they need to do to advance.

Pros

- Variety, availability of very interesting technical work
- Overall good atmosphere, nice facilities
- Management is attentive to employee morale and enthusiasm
- Very well run company
- Generally, very stable company

Cons

- Depending on department, middle management can be hit-or-miss in helping, guiding personal development
- Difficult in tough economy (like now!) for Mgmt to keep rates low and keep up all the benefits and perks
- Research oriented work program is not for all, especially for those who like to be closer to actual design, development/integration and implementation. Lots of conceptual work, can be frustrating to see how long it takes for government to pick up (or not) on innovative ideas.
- Middle management is promoted from technical/engineering ranks, hit or miss on how well they actually manage and care for employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work, Continue to try to find ways to grow and breed better middle managers (group/team managers, department mgrs). I don't think training is the right answer, more about inclulcating a value ethic to seeing others be successful, helping them develop.

Pros

MITRE has an extremely collegial atmosphere, where most employees are eager to help others. Education is highly touted and reimbursement is nearly unparalleled in this field.

Cons

Pay can be an issue at MITRE, where many employees would otherwise see themselves in a university setting accept that at MITRE, they do not need to worry about getting published, can make a bit more than they would as a professor, and can be relatively left to their own devices to perform esoteric research.

Advice to Senior Management

Make more adaption to mimic SETI contractors' pay and upward mobility. Training is very healthy at MITRE, but often too geared for engineering. Non-engineers can feel out of place at MITRE.

Pros

- The culture at MITRE was great
- It was fairly relaxed, but everyone did their best to get the work done on a timely fashion
- Real work life balance
- Good equipment to work with (up to date laptops)
- Great benefits

Cons

Hard to move upwards, but that's simply because hardly anyone leaves so there's almost never a need to refill a position.

Pros

The benefits are excellent and most of the staff are great.

Cons

Poor management. They do no respect Admin staff or encourage career advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Poor management. They do no respect Admin staff or encourage career advancement.

Pros

40 hour work weeks and a foundation in public service

Cons

Compensation is not on par with comparable roles.

Advice to Senior Management

There are far to many senior staff that have retired in place.

Pros

Respect for employees
Work Life balance, tilted in favor of "Life"
40 hour work weeks, not 60, not 70
Critical mass of smart people, not too many idiots
Opportunities to work on interesting projects

Cons

* Some employees are flat out lazy, and contribute nothing to their home departments
* Organizational excellence SHOULD be a pervasive theme internally, but sadly it is not
* There seems to be lack of accountability at the middle and senior levels of management; if 20% or 30% of projects fail to deliver impact, no one seems to be bothered by this situation
* Many employees tell great stories of the "old days" when they solved big problems (often at previous companies) - - Very FEW can tell convincing stories of big sponsor problems they are positively impacting RIGHT NOW
* In CCG, the practices seem to be "body shops" of individuals, with no real core methodologies used within departments
* Several other reviewers here on Glassdoor have mentioned "dead wood" in the AC5 / AC6 ranks. I have seen that also. The real problem in this situation is lack of accountability - - No one cares that dead wood is slowing down the organization. This leaves an atmosphere much like an assisted living retirement home: Feeble inept people that are not contributing to impact are tolerated and treated comfortably.

Advice to Senior Management

Implement 360 degree feedback: Project leaders need feedback on how they are doing from team members, and department heads need feedback from department members
Collect relevance metrics about departments (by surveys of employees, etc), to determine whether departments are believed to be having a positive impact on meeting MITRE's vision and mission.

Pros

It is possible to work on multiple interesting and influential projects. Management treats employees well and coworkers are extremely friendly and helpful.

Cons

The DC metro area where largest offices are located has a very high cost of living that eats away your salary.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote people that both understand technology or understand how to actually utilize it effectively. Make the technical track a viable path for engineers and ensure that managers can do more than make pretty flow charts.

Pros

Work on tough problems technical and non technical
Develop strong relationships with key government leaders
Caring colleagues
Great benefits: vacation, retirement and tuition reimbursement

Cons

Some poor performers that float around for years
Working as consultants to government is what pays the bills
Research program is out of touch with real world
Too many subject matter experts and engineers in middle management

Advice to Senior Management

Government contraction is opportunity to get rid of legacy poor performers
Invest in middle management
Make research program more relevant to our customers

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