Sandia Reviews

Pros

good pay, work/life balance, love the people.

Cons

too many rules that don't make sense. The paper-pushers have way too much power.

Pros

Good benefits and reasonable pay. Pension for grandfathered employees but new employees are not eligible though a good 401k plan replaces it. Flexible work schedule with 9/80, lots of vacation and personal leave time.

Cons

Merit review process is designed more for "analytic" than "heursitic" work. Specifically, Sandia is largely a research organization. As such, employees are independent with a diverse portfolio of talents. Never-the-less, employees are ranked 1 to N (within all technical staff) where ranking is directly related to promotion and raises.

Pros

A lot of really bright people work at Sandia, and most of them are level headed. Salary is great compared to other companies I could work at in the Albuquerque area.

Cons

Performance review is straight out of Dilbert cartoons. It's a yearly ritual, and has close to zero benefit for anyone. This was my first year and it was very depressing to realize how in the dark my manager was about my work, and how little he was doing to try and understand it. Also, unlike other labs (i.e., LANL and LLNL), Sandia managers have little to nothing to do with technical work, so it's hard to tell what they do with their time.

Pros

- Options for flexible work hours - 9/80 schedule, flextime
- For a postdoc, salary is good, you don't have to teach undergrads, your PI looks after the funding, and you can work on research with clear industrial applications (I think this situates me well for my next job)
- Engineering and science research organizations work together well - I don't feel there is competition, it feels like we are complementary
- Workplace activities: I make use of onsite Toastmasters, gym, training and development
- For researchers, it seems like there are a lot of avenues to pursue interesting research that meets DOE needs.

Cons

- Salaries seem to be at the mercy of Congress. A 2-yr salary freeze for the DOE complex was announced shortly after I arrived.
- Funding levels and project budgets are at the mercy of Congress and DOE
- Cumbersome safety/health bureaucracy: I get that it's necessary so we can set a good example as consumers of taxpayer dollars, but some thing, like procedures for disposal of lab waste, are not well thought out.
- Cumbersome information security bureaucracy: I get that it's necessary, but the rules are numerous and complex enough that few fully understand them.
- Information is highly compartmentalized - I get that it's necessary, but this is challenging for someone like me who is motivated by seeing how my work contributes to the mission and fits into the big picture

Advice to Senior Management

Do everything you can to set a good example of positivity and high morale. I have detected a note of negativity among staff members in response to things like salary freezes, extra safety/health procedures, etc, and when managers joiin in the grumbling, it just seems demotivating, especially to new hires. Managers should set the tone by not standing for such negativity.

Pros

- 9/80
- High start salary
- Flexible work hours
- Easy to climb if you're not stupid
- They don't fire anyone at the Labs
- Easy to switch projects

Cons

- Younger folks leaving Labs for better places (good talent is leaving)
- People not getting picked up by other companies are staying
- Company pays huge start salaries, crappy raises (1-2%) no matter what you do
- People are all about titles at the Labs, but technical quality is real bad in recent hires
- People game the system for promotions, switch groups, it's about "who you know" to get places
- GPA is everything to get in

Advice to Senior Management

Read about your competition:

- Interview technically
- Fire the weak people
- So many managers at the Labs, so little are actually competent
- Stove-piped crazy
- Staffing and hiring process is a mess, recruiting seems like they are trying but have no support, travel is good
- Actually have a reason for the good talent to continue working harder
- Figure a way to keep talent from leaving the Labs (everyone sees this job as stepping stone when they're new now)

Pros

State-of-the-art facilities, brilliant people, unique research opportunities

Cons

not a communal atmosphere, there is a lot of "office-use-only", so there are few individuals that you can discuss interesting ideas with

Pros

Sandia employs some of the brightest and most capable scientists in the nation. I enjoy working at Sandia because I am not only encouraged to expand my own knowledge, but am given resources for doing so, including the opportunity to work with bright and helpful people.

Cons

Sandia is a secure work environment and working there requires a lot of paperwork and security checks. It can be a bit of an inconvenience.

Pros

Job security/Top caliber technical staff and facilities/unique national security missions and impact/still generous benefits packages/excellent career growth opportunities to move around the corporation/above average compensation

Cons

limited work locations (CA and NM)/no profit sharing option/some government related overhead requirements/occasional government funding silliness (like government budget impasses that put research programs into temporary stasis for purely political reasons)

Advice to Senior Management

Consider allowing the staff to consult in their field during non-work hours - this is a standard activity at LLL and LANL

Pros

Within CS, the real hot spots are scientific computing and ICADS. If you're applying to those jobs, you'll grow immensely.

Cons

You could find yourself in general unfocused IT if you're not careful. Working on various projects at the same time where the ultimate usefulness of the software is very weak.

Advice to Senior Management

Software engineers have a target on their heads right now from outside employers. You'll have to come up with new ways to fight them off.

Pros

they offer flexible work hours for employees.

Cons

benefits declined dramatically in the last 10 years. not much incentives to stay with the company. sandia started to hire less competent folks.