NASA Ames Research Center Reviews in Mountain View, CA

Pros

Good work life balance
Lots of cool things to do

Cons

Wish the had more money
Needs more support from politics

Advice to Senior Management

Get leaner
Remove the middle management
Learn how to fire folks

Pros

Good job security. Friendly people.

Cons

In my division, they papers published were not interesting as applications or as theory. I felt isolated from my team. I did not feel challenged.

Advice to Senior Management

Group teams together, encourage cross collaboration

Pros

Depends on the group, but mine had some pretty cool people and the work was legitimately interesting. besides that the location is great - weather is always perfect, lots of good restaurants nearby, and there are fun things like centrifuges and wind tunnels on the Ames campus.

Cons

Their cafeteria food is ... cafeteria-grade.

It depends on your group. Some of them appear to be largely populated by very old people.

Advice to Senior Management

Good stuff. I enjoyed my internship experience and I hope other people have similarly good experiences there as well. Opportunities like these are great.

Pros

Prestige, Flexible working hours, Great mentor

Cons

Not good work culture, Things run slowly, Labs not well equipped with latest technologies.

Pros

It is a very friendly place to work. Great sense of community.

Cons

Work is not very challenging

Advice to Senior Management

Support small spacecraft effort

Pros

The Cafe was subsidized. That was the only benefit at working at NASA Ames.

Cons

I worked in the Accounting department for 6 months and it was terrible. The only people that really working were the external contractors. Other employees where very slow on accepting new processes and systems. The building was extremely old and you had to PAY to use the microwave and to drink from the watercooler. This place was extremely depressing.

Advice to Senior Management

Get your employees more motivated to work, especially the civil servants.

Pros

Intellectually stimulating work environment, flexible hours, relaxed dress code, opportunity to work on cutting-edge space science and research and build systems that will be used on future space missions.

Cons

It's a government job and pays like a government job. Not the place to work if you need to support a family.

Advice to Senior Management

Find funding to offer interns higher salaries and you will get better candidates. Otherwise it's a great place to work.

Pros

Working for NASA has always been a dream.

Cons

Latest round of management has been here for a couple of years, and has brought in their friends. No one with any experience in house is considered for promotion. Second in command is from an outside company and has been hiring all his previous managers into high salaried positions - without competition.

Advice to Senior Management

It would be useless - anyone who has been here for any length of time is considered a "loser"