Raytheon Reviews in Los Angeles, CA Area

Pros

Good technology and processes in this company

Cons

Potential for growth is not very good.

Advice to Senior Management

Get new business

Pros

Decent benefits.
9-80 work schedule option.
Flexible paid time off (PTO)
Education reimbursement for engineering masters and MBA programs

Cons

Large corporate structure slows career advancement.
Line management most interested in process generation and re-organization.
Performance compensation based upon quotas instead of actual employee performance.
Emphasize "work life balance" and 9-80 work schedule, but off Friday meetings are often scheduled, weekend work and long hours are expected along with uncompensated overtime.

Advice to Senior Management

Analyze successful programs instead of forcing corrective actions developed from large program failures.

Pros

Leading edge, state of the art technology. Flexible working environment. In El Segundo so near the beach and near lots of amenities. Basketball at lunch time. Liberal use of computers (everyone has internet at their desk except those in classified areas). Free Sparkletts water. There's almost always a free lunch in some conference room (leftovers from noon time meetings). Lots of programs so lots of different stuff to work on (except now). Beautiful landscaped main facility, clean. The restrooms and grounds are in really good shape for example. Most people at Raytheon work a 9/80 work schedule.

Cons

I don't want to write this as a dislike, more of a slightly disturbing observation. Like the Doors song "People are Strange", There is some sort of weird culture at Raytheon El Segundo in that people avoid eye contact in the hall ways. Everyone seems to be in a guarded insular stance. You rarely hear people laughing. I don't know if it is Raytheon, or Southern California, or commuting, or the 2011 economy but most Raytheon employees are not cheerful, they're almost morose or depressed. Nobody ever talks about their home life. You never hear of after work or weekend outings. People really keep to themselves. We realize the work we do is important and a lot of it is extremely classified but the mood is way too serious in casual interaction. I don't get it.
Benefits: Starting in 2010 Raytheon 401(k) only provides a 3% company match (4% after 5 years). Boeing for example provides 6% and Northrop provides 4%. The PPO is very costly, like $5500 per year for a family. The worst thing of all (this sounds trivial but it isn't), Raytheon uses Lotus Notes instead of Outlook. LN absolutely sucks (there's even a website out there called "I hate lotus notes").
Due to mergers, there are still several "Raytheons" each with its own culture and management chains. For example, Raytheon El Segundo managers don't talk to Raytheon Fullerton managers. This is not good if you are interested in switching locations for example. It's like there are two different companies.
Finally, because Raytheon is in El Segundo, family housing is either extremely expensive or very far away. You can't have everything: quality, close by, affordable. Pick two. If it is affordable it and close it is "the hood". If it is affordable and high quality it is far away. If it is close and high quality, then it is expensive. The 405 freeway is almost an invisible line between the expensive, South Bay housing and the rough neighborhoods east of the 405. Many people commute in 50 miles on vanpools from Ventura County, the Inland Empire, and Orange County but as mentioned above, Raytheon is really cool on working hours so people come in early or late to beat traffic.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of Lotus Notes and the non user friendly time card system.
Unify the company (one Raytheon) so that employees from El Segundo can seamlessly flow between Fullerton and El Segundo for example. Get the departments and sections at each facility familiar with each other.

Pros

Best place to work; good management.

Cons

Get rid of dead weight employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to recognize hard workers.

Pros

Flexible work hours. Good benefits, pay, and 401k contribution.

Cons

Lack of innovation and creativity. The work environment is very plain. Culture in the company is all about collecting a paycheck. The company acts like they care about trust, respect, and diversity but these don't seem to be enforced where it matters. Managers aren't evaluated from upper management or employees.

Advice to Senior Management

There needs to be checks and balances for department managers. Its hard working under a manager that lacks communication or knowledge of the industry. The company has a horrible retention rate for the younger generation for obvious reasons. The average age at the company is well above 40. So, there are plenty of people fearful of change. This means that if you are interested in driving innovation and creativity...prepare for hurdles. Even if you try and notify human resources of the issues they just try to do damage control instead of really looking into the issues. Its a hard environment to work in for someone that cares about more than just a paycheck. It will eventually bring you down.

Pros

Different opportunities are available, work life balance, friendly people

Cons

Incompetent people at higher level and get pay more than competent hard working people, company doesn't reward workers.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to realize who are the good people and compensate them accordingly or they will leave.

Pros

Some opportunity, salraies are OK.

Cons

raises are hard to get. Too structured, too much time card stuff

Advice to Senior Management

Need more freedom to be creative.

Pros

Benefits are about it. and decent pay.

Cons

Management doesn't really do anything.
Everyone there seems like highly overpaid paperweights.
Kind of wonder how this company stays in business.

Advice to Senior Management

Get new management.

Pros

great people, Great environment, flexible schedule, 9/80 schedule, average pay, great learning experiecne along with the great holiday hours. are awesome.

Cons

The pay is less than average, sometimes the work is challenging and sometimes its not. overall it's ok to work for. The employee does not feel rewarded as to there are no bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more, and spend more time with employee about what they want. Quite playing politics and promote those who desrve it.

Pros

No need work hard as long as you can play political game. 9/10.

Cons

Useless technologies, constant delay schedule since we are burning tax dollar. Management always blame employees for their mistake.

Advice to Senior Management

Please don't punish employee for your mistakes.