Northrop Grumman Reviews in Denver, CO Area

Pros

Good work/life balance (typically 40 hour weeks)
Decent benefits (health, dental, 401k)
Reasonable salary
Good educational reimbursement
Flexible hours / time off

Cons

Mix of quality and not-so-quality people
Depending on the program, sometimes outdated technology is used
More meetings / time overhead than smaller companies
Periodic layoffs (10% or so)

Advice to Senior Management

Work harder at acquiring new business (this is important)
Focus on keeping good employees happy
Encourage use of newer technologies

Pros

It's hard to beat the pay and benefits, which is true of most large government contractors. They are extremely flexible with hours and work-life balance.

Cons

They understandably "follow the money" of government agencies. As such, I don't find that innovation and change are encouraged.

Advice to Senior Management

As with most companies that are so geographically spread out, management is quite detached from what's really going on with programs and what the true employee morale is. If you visit a local campus, provide a charge number so that employees don't have to use up their family time to come hear you talk.

Pros

Flexible work schedule (work 4/10's and love having every Friday off).
Good people to work with.
Decent pay and benefits.
Projects have been exciting/interesting.

Cons

Poor/non-existent software engineering processes on engineering size , and on the management/administrative side way too much bureaucracy.
slow, risk-adverse, reactive management, very top-heavy.
Question sales team's ability to win contract's/new work.
Will not pay you to attend 'optional' management meetings; calls them 'flex time' events: cheaper to buy pizza for 50 than pay 50 engineer's salaries.

Advice to Senior Management

improve development processes, including setting attainable time schedule's.
Invest in new business areas, and look forward, stop being reactionary.
Thin out middle management, way too many people directing projects.

Pros

Good Benefits, job security, Lots of smart people.

Cons

The work is the same from project to project.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the benefits comparable. Stop taking benefits away.

Pros

It's a big company. You have opportunities to live in a variety of places, do a variety of jobs with a variety of people.

Cons

It's a big company. It moves like a battle ship, nothing happens quickly and change is accepted slowly.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to keep the communications open.

Pros

Several locations and programs allows you to choose from a diverse and exciting set of technical areas in which to work, Northrop offers good raises to young, high performing engineers and a good 401k match.

Cons

It all depends on which program you work on. Some are very slow and bureaucratic and do not have easy internet access - a nightmare for a young engineers who want to stay current. If you are not careful, you could become obsolete if you stay on a program like this.

Do not expect many perks. No profit sharing, stock options, or bonuses unless you are an executive. No free coffee, drinks, etc. Northrop doesn't like these 'overhead' costs.

Offices and facilities I have seen are very bland, sterile, and do not encourage creativity and innovation; this is not a place where I could easily work overtime.

Advice to Senior Management

Make Northrop a more enjoyable, fun place to work to attract, and most importantly, retain, the best and brightest talent.

Pros

Facinating domain and fun work to do when there's code to be writen.

Cons

Very heavy process engineering. Some times it's required, but some times it would be nice to get somewhere a little faster.

Advice to Senior Management

It would be nice to get more work in Denver from anywhere we can.

Pros

Decent pay and average benefits. If you're looking for a good, average company, Northrop Grumman is fair. They have several sectors; so, if you wanted to, you could find a job somewhere. You just may have to look for a few months to find the one that matches exactly what you're looking for.

Cons

You can be the best worker at a site, but still get treated like the worst. They try to treat everyone the same, I guess because of lawsuits and all of this ethics training, but some workers need to be told they're slacking. They need to reward the hardest workers better in order to keep the best.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn how to treat your employees. Without employees to manage, you would have no company. If you keep treatin everyone like assembly-line worker bees (ie. you must work your butt off without any praise or compensation) you will lose the top talented people.

Pros

You are playing a big part in supporting our troop and our country. Really stimulating work environment if you can get off of the big projects.

Cons

Management lacks foresight in terms of business development and capital investment. Unless you get lucky, you job involves more paperwork than code work and nothing really seems to get done. There are a few really interesting projects, but for the most part it's upper management trying to make their bonuses at the expense of real productivity. They also charge for everything they offer as a "benefit". The Holiday party, $20; want to go to the company picnic, $30; Need caffeine to get through the day, we'll give you a shot glass for a quarter; We're holding a staff meeting but you'll have to volunteer your time if you'd like to attend.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop nickel and diming the employees. Everybody enjoys working more when they feel like the company is paying them back. Maybe pay for the sodas, or actually sponsor a picnic. Just stop making us feel like you can't afford to keep us happy when we're the ones who build your products.

Pros

Guaranteed that your job won't be sent off-shore

Cons

Having a security clearance seems to hamper your life

Advice to Senior Management

TRAINING TRAINING TRAINING!