United Launch Alliance Reviews

Pros

Get to work at the Launch Site. Operational environment. Minimum of politics you would find at a headquarters.

Cons

More favoritism to heritage Lockheed vs. Boeing. Company is more like an extension of Lockheed than a merger of Lockheed and Boeing. Limited vertical mobility at Launch sites.

Advice to Senior Management

Work on retaining personnel between 5 and 20 years. You can't do everything with all new college grads. You need to keep some of the old hands to teach the new guys. Layoffs have eliminated the younger more aggressive hourly personnel in favor of older less aggressive hourly workers who have the greatest seniority. More experienced expensive engineers have been cut while keeping the younger crowd. Now have bad combination of old techs and young engineers. Need more of a mix of hourly and salaried.

Pros

- The knowledge that, at some level, the company IS doing valuable things
- Fair compensation (salary and benefits)
- Most everyone is friendly (or at least respectful)
- Beautiful building in a wonderful city and state

Cons

The work in my department (cost estimating) was extremely redundant. I think that my department, as well as many other of the "business" departments need massive layoffs- perhaps even scrapping entire departments. First-level management is not interested in training the new hires, giving them consistent work or even acknowledging their existence in some cases (one guy I knew didn't have a desk on his first day and his manager forgot that he was starting then). The review process is a total joke- pretty much the equivalent of "grade inflation" in the post-college world. Of course, how can you be reviewed correctly if your manager doesn't know what you're doing? You can't blame them entirely, though; how are people supposed to manufacture work for you to do when, in complete truthfulness- there is absolutely NO REASON for you to be working there?

Advice to Senior Management

Bring in the "Bobs" and get lean(er). If I were a doctor for corporations, I would say ULA's body-mass-index is around 40, and they need to go on a strict diet of engineers (should be the base of their food pyramid) and part-time businesspeople. Cost estimators, finance analysts, etc.- USE SPARINGLY.

Pros

The comaraderie of the people involved in the launch business. Even though we know that management is floundering we produce exceptionally unique and robust products to help support, protect, and maintain the US standard of living we all love.

Cons

Senior management needs to realize that the moral of the workforce is extremely poor at the moment. The poor management decisions are laughed about throughout the ranks and are not producing a cohesive workforce.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to have any chance to complete with SpaceX you need to move Corporate offices, Engr, and alll other support groups to Decatur, AL. That will eliminate 60% of the dead weght in the company. Next you need to eliminate the kingdom hierarchy in Decatur.

Pros

Exciting industry to work in. Good training opportunities in the area of process improvment. Potential to grow into a world class company, once the leadership decides to put aside the old way of doing business.

Cons

Heavy politics and paranoia. Most managers are ready to blame every issue on "incompetent staff" or poor training, but not willing to take the responsibility to do anything about it.

Extremely high level of nepotism and "good ol' boy" network.

Advice to Senior Management

Outside of your friends and family, the majority of the employees doing the day to day work were hired because of what they know and what they can do. Give them the tools that they need, let them do their jobs and listen to the people who "turn the wrenches" because they know more about what it takes to get the job done than the managers who demonstrate the Peter Principle so strongly.

Pros

Benefits, stability, great location, fair compensation.

Cons

large, inflexible culture, slow growth and advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your new engineer employees with technical challenges and do not simply allow for knowledge hording.

Pros

Great benefits:
3 week vacation
flexible 9/80 schedule
401k matching
low-cost health care
great location
work load is very managable
tuition reimbursement
annual bonus.. almost guaranteed..
no OT required.. (99% of OT is by choice)
Paid overtime

Cons

Impossible to get a promotion.
Lower pay rate than average financial analyst (~20% less)
Avg employee age in the high 40's.. who are against change and young people.
VERY top heavy. manager to regular employee ratio approx 40/60.. this should be corrected soon through layoffs.
CEO has clearly stated that all employees are free to leave the company if they are not satisfied.
employees over 45 are waiting for retirement.
employees under 35 are waiting for the economy to improve to leave this company.
It is a sad sight.

Advice to Senior Management

there is a reason why all older workers are staying, and the younger ones are leaving. The management needs to cater to the younger employees. Look at the salary distribution and work performance. The younger employee are doing more complicated work than their older average counterparts. Yet, the younger employees are paid 50% less for no apparent reason/difference.
Restructure the compensation system now for security later.

Pros

- great 401K plan (fully vested day 1)
- good employee perks (free tickets to sporting events, food, entertainment)
- good vacation schedules, generally good benefits

Cons

- Many managers come from one of two member companies either lockheed or boeing and they bring all the baggage you'd expect from such ole companies. (slow to change, buddy system management structure, TPS reports, etc)
- Constant shakeups in leadership and restructuring plans are more than birthing pains for a new company, they show a lack in control of operations/planning.
- I've worked for many defense contractors and subsidiaries during my career and this place is the most unstable outfit by far. It's the first place i have ever felt the need to review publicly

Advice to Senior Management

A culture of honesty is important to information age workers. People who posses talent in their field should be rewarded for hard work, long hours, and dedication that goes past the work-a-day mentality. Young employees need more chances for advancement as talent wont wait for a sluggish institution to catch up in today's information economy.

Pros

It's interesting to work on rockets. I had an opportunity to delve into software a bit, which I was thankful for.

Cons

They're really disorganized. When I was put to work, I had absolutely nothing to do. When I started working, things were really boring.

Advice to Senior Management

You could start by taking away the bureaucratic reports that management is demanding. Also, quit laying people off; it made the place horrible to work for.

Pros

Working in the rocket industry is very interesting. It's fun to see your "work" launch. Great place to get a little experience in engineering.

Cons

Not a lot of room for advancement. Being a new company, the executive leadership is still trying to figure everything out.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to create more opportunities for the younger engineers to advance at ULA. ULA is not a place where good mentoring takes place.

Pros

There's a lot of personel gratification being a member of the launch team. The work is highly techicnal and always intresting.

Cons

Working in the space industry there's a lot of competition for government and comercial contracts. The possibulity of lay offs is always present.

Advice to Senior Management

Upper management needs to try to get to know the lower level workforce better. sometimes you need to look outside your inner circle for advise.