MITRE Reviews

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – Every one gives lip service to worklife balance but you really see it here.

Cons – Took a long time to find a billable project.

Advice to Senior Management – Implement a better system for matching unbillable workers with projects.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – Interesting and very important work

Cons – Byzantine culture for new hires, but once you break the code very enabling. Introverted technies and engineers often get frustrated because they have to work collaboratively to differentiate themselves.

Advice to Senior Management – Collaboration and consensus-building works at a team level, but breaks down at a corporate level. Sr. Leaders often deflect accountability by shifting the hard decisions to a committee.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – The work is important, challenging environment, peers are top notch. The work makes you want to come to work and solve important problems.

Cons – All companies have negatives. MITRE tries to do an admirable job of balancing innovation and a collaborative environment with the environment of their largest customers, but ultimately recommendations and results need to be accepted by senior DoD officials who many times are illl equipped ot trained to understand complex technical issues.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to manage the workforce to provide opportunities for the future leadership of the company. MITRE provides great educational and career advancement opportunities. These benefits help make MITRE a great place to work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – Retirement matching contributions
Fewer layoffs than private sector
Most staff are very professional and cordial
People stay for years
Company promotes individual well being

Cons – No career path for administrative staff.
Pay is just enough to keep people from leaving.
Recognition is spotty and inconsistent.
Pay raises not tied to performance.
Working conditions vary greatly by manager and department.

Advice to Senior Management – Of all of the companies I have worked for, MITRE places the least value on the administrative staff. One might think we are invisible to senior management. Fortunately, most of my peers have resilient, service-oriented attitudes, but you can see how some people who have been here a long time are worn down. Most of the managers are great. Please take action with abusive managers, some of whom have been left in place for years.

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – MITRE is very unique. It represents a blend of the best aspects of the private sector (dynamic, passion, competitive), academia (intellectual energy) and government (mission, complex problems and job security). Highly recommend it to all potential employment candidates.

Cons – Very few. Promotion rate is not high and given the great work force, they is a lot of competition. Pay is average for their locales and oddly, they deny their is pay premium for cleared individuals.

Advice to Senior Management – Pretty simple: keep the bar high on the qualifications of MITRE staff (academic achievement, technical skillset and relevant experience) and everything else becomes much, much easier.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – Mission focused, impartial, family friendly

Cons – Opportunity for bonuses is extremely limited

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to find meaningful ways to recognize outstanding performance

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at MITRE

Pros – Excellent compensation package and working on cool technologies. Working on behalf of agencies responsible for the security of this country is great.

Cons – Management needs to improve recognition of employees. The dartboard approach to promotions kills morale causes the good employees to find work elsewhere.

Advice to Senior Management – There is a great opportunity for management at MITRE to pay more attention to its employees and inform them of the ways to get the promotions they deserve. Being more clear as to how the individual fits into the whole is critical to employee satisfaction. You have a great benefits package (second to none) and good direct compensation, but that only covers 50% of employee satisfaction.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at MITRE

Pros – Relatively laid back atmosphere, ability to do work in the public interest without having to settle for a government salary.

Cons – Without the pressure to sell a product or make a profit, the atmosphere can be too laid back at times.

Advice to Senior Management – Get more women and people of color into roles of senior leadership. It's way too white male-dominated of a company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – Varied and interesting work, frequent opportunities to tackle problems outside your usual experience. Management and staff are nicer people compared to most private sector engineering companies I've worked at. Very flexible work hours, good benefits, layoffs almost never happen, laid-back atmosphere if you want that.

Cons – Some departments get lots of promotions, others little or none. MITRE doesnt tell the staff which technical specialties they value, you have to figure that out after a few years there, but it makes a huge difference in raises and promotions. They seem to really like systems-oriented expertise. As consultants, MITRE is expected to be expert in anything the Govt. wants help with, so they throw whoever needs coverage in their department at the problem, sometimes someone who doesnt really know what they are doing on that problem although they may think they do. There is an assumption that anyone from MITRE can be an expert in anything the Govt. needs advice with, resulting in good or bad advice at various times. Department management #1 priority is keeping their own people at work, which sometimes limits using expertise in other departments. Review process (P&D) is a joke to deparment management. MITRE's main product is viewgraphs to advise Govt. MITRE projects usually dont really need to make anything actually work all they way since MITRE doesn't actually field systems, only prototypes at most, but thats a problem not only at MITRE but in lots of Govt. high-tech systems since making promises they can't deliver is often the only way to get the Govt. contract in private industry. MITRE is supposed to help with that, but the DoD is so politicized that it can be impossible, and if you say 'this won't work' on a huge program its like saying 'the emperor has no clothes' and its not appreciated and not listened to by the DoD decision makers and sometimes by MITRE project management.

Advice to Senior Management – Promotions should be distributed more among all the departments. It would improve job satisfaction to promote more people to AC4 or AC5 in some depts which never get promotions. I dont see why promotions have to be so closely tied to salary level.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at MITRE

Pros – - Intranet and Potential Access to Shared Information (although this is not KM by any stretch)
- Senior Leadership Awareness and Overall Direction (implementation by mid-mgrs suffers)
- Opportunity to be a true government advisor in an operational setting without commercial pressures and ALSO being able to be a part of research initiatives
- Intent is initially generally good but not latter insincerity causes staff distrust

Cons – - POLITICS
- People talk around and behind others and almost never directly to each other
- How can we be trusted advisors if our behavior causes each other to be self-promoting (vs. collaborative towards a group goal); and initiatives are treated as surface-level hot topics of the day instead of with the sincerity they deserve
- Diversity initiatives are a true HR joke - clear as day to everyone but those spouting 'inclusive values' as they are the ones generally who don't walk the talk themselves
- Shameful, contractor-like behavior
- As someone else said, they want to be agile in a hierarchical, non-transparent, non-accountable, non-empowering (at least for teams), waterfall environment.

Advice to Senior Management – Please, please, please go beyond jsut reading the hot govt/mgmt topics of the day and even beyond just consulting a few "pet" technical SMEs / change mgmt / behavioral mgmt folks for input. Go beyond to useless focus groups that are rushed and don't share results and truly get humble and create that open, new thought (not from general mold) supporting environment that is so, so desperately needed. Truly TALK to your people. Especially those that have proven their value but not necessarily "connected and engaged" like the traditional staff mold expects, those that care and want to be heard b/c they want to be trusted advisors inside and outside of the organization.
CCG has grown way to fast to just get by with sr leadership changes and a framework ...real structural changes, built organically in tandem with the staff, that promote the innovation and key FFRDC work is overdue. We need to iteratively prototype a new org for the over 800 matrixed, multiple client staff so people truly can connect and engage in an agile, SAFE, environment. It's clear I could continue but I guess mgmt needs to get "passionate" itself about what it cares about and enable staff to do the same.