SAIC Reviews

Pros

Salary is good for the area, but only if you belong to the "good ole boy's" group.

Cons

If you have not worked for SAIC or know someone who works for SAIC you are considered an outsider. You will get no where in your profession. Manager's don't teach they just collect their paychecks and any employee benefits left over at the end of the year.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat Everyone as an employee not a social friend. This goes for Upper Management within Corporate.

Pros

Salary was higher than the average

Cons

You are only as good as the contract once the contract is over you are gone. Unless you are one of their chosen people. Good old boys mentality. Not what you know it is who you know. Lot of ass kissing required especially to their customers. The mamangement is awol when you have a conflict with the client. You are as the engineer a sitting duck management will throw you in front of the bus inn hearth beat. HR Sucks they have the worst HR in the US. They never there if you need them to ask about your benefits etc. But they are very quick to point out if there is any discrepacy in your records or application etc. I would never work for them or recommend them to any of my friends.

Advice to Senior Management

Be there for your people as you all say that SAIC is the people they have live up to that stop the hypocracy. Dont let the customer abuse your employees. So you can win recompetes.

Pros

Big company benefits
Sometimes great friendly teams
"We are smart people solving tough problems"

Cons

There isnt a lot of formal mentoring and the yearly reviews can be pretty routine drills rather than helpful planning sessions

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work and keep the workers in mind...we are the commodity.

Pros

Good group of smart people.

Almost everyone I have worked with and met is a decent person you could be be friends with.

Depending on your division, SAIC is pretty good providing training.

SAIC is pretty good to engineers and software developers, if you don't have an engineering degree, your chances to advance are more limited.

Cons

Since SAIC went public, treatment of employees has gotten worse. I have gotten some good raises in the past, pretty much everyone gets the canned 3% now and no bonuses except for managers and above.

Our operation is extremely political. If you are not in the clique, you are going nowhere. Senior managers in our operation are incompetent. They are not interested in doing commercial work, only DoD.

Advice to Senior Management

Diversify your business. So many smart people at SAIC could be utilized to help the entire country out of the economic toilet and the company would benefit. Take a look at our stock and see the fantastic job they've done.

Pros

For the DC area, the mass transit reimbursement program.

Cons

Terrible communication and coordination between SAIC teams within programs. They promise the moon in proposals with no ability to deliver (I have seen this both as an employee at SAIC and in working with SAIC in other enterprise environments). They frontload staff on contract startup with little coordination on program responsibilities or job duties, causing duplication in effort, employee confusion and customer confusion (again, I have seen this twice on two major programs).

Advice to Senior Management

Quit worrying about building kingdoms and satisfying egos and start worrying about the actual work that needs to be done.

Pros

The opportunities to do different things within the organization are unlimited if you can get in with the right organization and get to know the right people. The CEO is the best...Very approachable and eats lunch at times with employees randomly in the cafeteria. The company hires some really bright individuals

Cons

One manager to another - sometimes messages get lost in transition. Hard to establish a culture when you never meet your team. The freedom of organizations led to a lack of processes in which we were developing on the fly. You have to have a role or project that provides highly visibility to get noticed

Advice to Senior Management

Implement the use of true templates and meet the team at some point to outline the company culture

Pros

Good pay/nice benefits. Caring, dedicated direct supervisors.

Cons

Constant reorganization. Massive 42,000 employee company with little connection back to the "mother ship". Once and done attitude in the way direct employees are treated. When your contact is over, you are finished! No paid bench and no severance.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize your money is earned by the Direct employees that interface with your clients. Work harder on career paths for high-performing employees and reduce undue cost burden of corporate overhead.

Pros

nice people to work with.

Cons

narrow job market. too close related to defense and govt sectors

Advice to Senior Management

broaden out business into commercial industry.

Pros

Wide range of capabilities and opportunities (if you can break into the cliques)

Cons

Lack of training, lack of corporate community (series of divisions/operations), claim that people are the most important asset but actions don't confirm the words.

Pros

Sharing of knowledge
Work and life balance

Cons

A lot of employees were underpaid
Leadership wasn't trustworthy

Advice to Senior Management

Take better care of your employees