SAIC Reviews

Pros

Large number of contracts spread across many DoD customers creates a diverse work experience.

Cons

High turnover rate in the past 4-5 years and more recently in the past 1 year. A lot of the most talented employees I know have moved to other companies, perhaps b/c of a competitive market.

Pros

If you need a salary and a job they will provide. They are in some very interesting sectors of the military which can make your job very exciting.

Cons

It is all based on contract services. If the contract runs out you will be left without a job. Make sure you are always secure becuase SAIC will not provide security.

Advice to Senior Management

Put something in place to let your workers know that if a contract runs out they will be protected for a certain amount of time.

Pros

- Competitive compensation and benefits
- Smart, capable teammates
- Oppotrunities to move around within the company

Cons

- Career growth and advancement is contract-dependent

Pros

Management was very helpful in creating positive work environment and great with performance review/feedback

Cons

Large company, can get lost in the shuffle. Not a lot of workspace

Advice to Senior Management

Even though some of the contracts can be large, make an effort to know employees better

Pros

Good technical reputation. Opportunity and resources to "redeploy" when work runs out. Diverse kinds of work. Respect for a diverse workforce.

Cons

Mostly defense work in the backlog, but defense work has uncertain prospects. One of the largest defene firms in the country but still learning how to act big.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to remember the roots of SAIC - the technical work itself. While management has a primary responsibility to stockholders, it will come out well if the techies continue to be taken care of.

Pros

Benefits, some interesting work. i'm reaching here ...

Cons

Nepotism, inexperienced/Inept management, double standards. Failures such as FBI VCF and CityTime are evident as symptoms of my own division. The current regime in my division ran off the good leaders and people.

Advice to Senior Management

What's been broken can't be put back together again. Eliminate the layers of "battle buddies" running things.

Pros

Great minds and opportunities to work on projects that matter. SAIC as a company is a great place to work and for the most part a great set of people to spend a career with.

Cons

If you are not experienced in your poistion or move up through the ranks do not expect any asssitance. Whether you like it or not you will need to adapt and roll with the failures as most times your management has little or no time to train/ mentor you in the ways of your new position. This can be very difficult if its a job you have never performed. Also be aware that despite how competitive they are saying their pay methodology is. it is closely guarded and come to my discovery very suspect.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a more active role in your employees making sure they are understanding something or in need of guidance is not micro-managing. and if you are going to promote an inexpereinced worker please do so fairly with compensation that somewhat matches his/her coworkers. Discover of big gaps in pay can be the most demotivating information an employee can receive.

Pros

benefits, work life balance, vacation time

Cons

promotions, raises and other employee recognition not consistent with performance

Advice to Senior Management

cut the dead weight and award those actually doing stellar work, it can't always be about the bottomline

Pros

The work can be quite rewarding.
Some of the people you meet and work with make the difference between staying or leaving.

Cons

no longer about the employee - all about the Execs making more and more money. Bonuses have all but disappeared for the actual performer.

Advice to Senior Management

When you take care of the employee or staff, they in turn will take care of you. Forego this one principle in your career, and you will always struggle with making your numbers.

Pros

Health insurance is cheap and OK. Client site is ok when the need arises to go out and see the light of day.

Cons

I've never worked for a company so bent into tormeting employees into submission and compliance than SAIC. Like other Beltway Bandits it is a company deeply mired in a government/military mindset (of operation and profit taking) that just doesn't fit in the twenty first century. You're reminded constantly about ethics not for your sake but for theirs. Immediate supervisors and managers are very removed from you; if you have not been here for more than three years you are an outsider. Time keeping policies are stiffling, obsesive-cumpulsive and oppresive (in the last month I've had mine rejected four times for little things). It quickly becomes a dead-end job and you dread waking up each morning to face your commute, spend eight gruelling hours at your desk and pray for time to go fast so you can leave.

You're basically a cog in the machine. Period. Heck, there aren't even supplies in the kitchen or the work area I was in (i.e., basics like napkins, spoons, cups, pencils, pens). I bought my own pens, pencils and cups from the CVS down the street. What does this remind you of? The word you're thinking of starts with a 'P'. You have to use client computers, which are boarded up ('secured') so much, you can't even use SAICs own document management systems correctly.

And let's not get started on the quality of the projects you do. If you've been in a government project before you've seen it: milk the government for all the time you can, while you can. No quality, no real management of the issues that the government has, outdated ideas, you get the point.

If you get a call from an SAIC recruiter, just politely tell them to go away. The guys at HQ have it good. If you have TS/SCI clearance and I guess if you work at a really exotic location (e.g., research) you're good too. Otherwise, it is hell. Stay away.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice for SAIC leadership? SAIC is too big and has its fingers on way too many pots for its own good. Apparently this once was an employee-owned company; there is no evidence now of that ever happening. Maybe other SAIC projects are great and employees over there are happy about the work they do. But I don't think that is the case everywhere you go.

Loosen up on the bureaucracy. Be nimble and flexible. As younger people join SAIC, and quicly become dissilussioned you will start suffering and leave, again, causing no instituional growth and gaps in knowledge. Be better with technology: the web 2.0 revolution is happening right outside your door and you're holed up in your closet, crying and praying for it to go away.

Or better yet, please go away an be extinct. Like the dinosaurs you and the other Beltway Bandits are. By doing so perhaps you will save us, the taxpayers, some money.