Raytheon Reviews in Los Angeles, CA Area

Pros

Great people
Good ethics overall
More emphasis on work life balance lately

Cons

Business is terrible - waves of layoffs
Stressful work environment due to constant contract deadlines

Advice to Senior Management

The SAP PRISM system was a fiasco
Raytheon Six Sigma is a Power Point dog and pony show. R6S is worse than useless since it takes up time and talent that could be better spent elsewhere
Bill Swanson is an excellent CEO, especially compared to Dan Burnham (previous CEO)

Pros

Great benefits package, good salaries (good, not great), profit sharing, yearly bonuses, flexible work time, stock matching, 401K package has lots of investment options, parking garage is free & plentiful, corporate culture is relatively easy to understand, 3 weeks initial PTO - goes to 4 weeks after 5 years with the company, & 5 weeks after 15 years.

Cons

Promotions are at a complete standstill in certain areas & departments, geographical splits of departments means favoritism of home offices, inability to predict future work beyond six month window leads to large work shortages, fears of layoffs, targeted firings, targeted layoffs, good old boy network of senior program managers, sexist behavior towards women managers & leadership, cronyism is evident amongst departments, hero-shithead rollercoaster means you never know how your year is going to turn out, performance reviews focus on wrong objectives, section heads/line management pay too much attention to program managers & not engineers, security clearances take forever to get, secret, top secret, etc., line management hold grudges & engage in multi-year vendettas during annual performance reviews, rankings, & salary raises.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop letting HR abuse your employees, stop letting management drive off all the young talent by placing their careers in stasis, ultimately leading to people leaving in droves for greener pastures, stop the brain drain by insisting that junior engineers work on projects with senior engineers to be mentored in skill sets necessary for the next generation, stop bringing back retirees as consultants, stop allowing project managers to save money by utilizing senior engineers only, move people around to break up political networks, stop the favoritism evident in promotions, stop pushing the bar so high that people can't get promoted, foster a culture of increased design, design skills, cross-disciplinary skills, get rid of the stringent entry requirements for some programs involving rotating assignments, business degrees for engineers, or continuing education. Stop getting rid of all of your administrative assistants, they perform valuable functions for the engineers.

Pros

Relaxed atmosphere and low level of accountability

Cons

Restrictive imagination implementation and old style thinking

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of driftwood

Pros

People, location, work hours, parking, security, food, facilities, offices, work out area, employee discounts, employee benefits, interesting projects, fast paced sometimes

Cons

Slow at times, some of the work required security access, hierarchy was sometimes too stiff for creative thought, not a clear career ladder

Pros

Leading technologies and Top Pay

Cons

management and operational philosophies are old school. If you have had experience at a progressive company it will be extremly hard to asimilate here.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn and practice Trust & Respect

Pros

Raytheon has some very interesting projects to work on if you can wait a year or so for security clearances to start coming in. The work can be highly technical and there are opportunities to publish or patent ideas, which the company rewards monetarily.

Cons

The downside is that because the projects are classified, groups within the company are isolated and the opportunities for expanding your network are limited. Promotions seem to occur automatically every other year until you become an E3 or E4 then it becomes competitive with other people in your group and even if you are filling the role of an E5 or E6, you will not be promoted unless there are fewer people at that level in your section and you are outperforming them.

Advice to Senior Management

When workers are getting high performance reviews and are filling the roles of higher positions, they need to be promoted even if this is true of several people in the same section. Otherwise employees will quickly become discontent.

Pros

Nice place to work. People are respectful.

Cons

Big age gap. Promotion is hard to get. Work is limited when there is no work to spread around.

Pros

benefits and pay is ok
great place to start your career
casual

Cons

A def culture problem in El Segundo, too many levels of mid and upper level management making incompetent decisions, turnover, old school and lack creativity in the good ole boy network(s).
Unfortunately, favortism, nepotism and rule by an iron fist in some depts still apply here.
Recognition or promotion only applies if your nose isnt where its supposed to be.
Respect... talk, talk, talk, and no...some just keep on talking.
Ethics...more talk and not enough real behavior modification.
Profit metrics and who gets the RBI are the key drivers for programs. Any room for customer?
Another poster commented on lack of eye contact or recognition in the hallways, what, do i dress funny? not up to your standard to at least acknowledge ones very existance?
The wasted tax payer money and failed X-Lounge playroom, (the Google Experiment) has the same people "playing" while the rest of us working stiffs are ruled by militant management who are just looking for the opportunity to catch anyone "goofing off".
Now that the GAO money well is running dry, the products are suffering, the people are suffering..but corp profits, RBI's and cash are up!, so many of you are sitting on a overhead charge.
If you are assigned to a successful program, good luck, someone higher up will def cram their way up onto your turf and steal your success thunder, thats the Raytheon Way of doing business.
Stressful.....the number of ambulances/fire dept visits, sudden deaths and illnesses, must be having an affect on the bottom line, higher insurance premiums and OSHA recordables.
Lastly, young people, begin your career here, take as much knowledge as you can and move on to another where you will be valued, respected and treated like you are human, unless you like to be mean, "mean people are more successful than nice people"--so the story goes. The older crowd is unfortunately stuck waiting to claim payout for their years, if they survive that is.

Advice to Senior Management

help change the culture, you only live once in this lifetime, "cant take it with you" ya know
maybe on-site certified industrial psychologists?

Pros

Work life balance and the flexible schedule

Cons

Salary level is not competitive

Advice to Senior Management

Have all the managers go through soft skill trainings.

Pros

When there is work it is fun, but lately there hasn't been much (con). Flexible schedule is great. Location is great. Dress is very casual. Limited opportunity for tuition reimbursement.

Cons

I transferred from Raytheon Missile Systems and absolutely enjoeyed Raytheon until I came to El Segundo (Space and Airborne Systems). Work is slow and unstable and people are quick to stab you in the back. Learning opportunities are limited unless you are willing to work for free. Processes have flooded this place so getting work done is nearly impossible. Work is not tailored to skillsets. Some managers are awefull and tend to be those responsible for career development. NO INOVATION CULTURE. This company was founded on innovation and management has driven it out of the company. Young talent is quickly leaving the company after only a few years.

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of laying off the bottom of the ladder, maybe consider laying off the incompetent managers. Reduce processes and create a better culter for innovation.