A good company, but its size got in the way - Software Engineer III Boeing Employee Review

4.0
Oct 24, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great compensation, great benefits, good people with competent leadership. For a software engineer, Boeing is a good place to grow as a leader managing complexity, but technical growth is limited to very specific facets of the defense industry. The work is somewhat interesting/enjoyable, and there are opportunities to present advances to the company and industry. Social ambition (offering to manage projects, presenting, running meetings, etc) is rewarded greatly, and technical ambition is rewarded only with breakthroughs, patents, etc.

Cons

In St. Louis, the location is pretty awful - in a bad area of town and older, dreary office buildings. My biggest complaint is that the company is so large and there are so many technical problems being solved, that there is a ton of redundancy. You might be working on a solution for a year, only to find that another team has implemented something very similar. Joining the solutions may be technically or politically difficult, so then each team attempts to justify its pursuit of the solution. Technical competence is rewarded differently by different teams, and to truly stand out, I recommend joining an advanced technology organization like Phantom Works - this gives you the opportunity to work on more interesting DARPA projects and to pursue patents. While leadership is generally competent, the overall management system at Boeing is overly complex and it can be very frustrating.

Explore other reviews about Boeing

5.0
May 7, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Incredible mission, interesting work, culture is positively changing

Cons

I am “on” for work all the time

4.0
Jun 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work-life balance has been great at the Long Beach site. My coworkers are very considerate and supportive. Benefits suck as parental leave and 401k, Roth 401k, and mega backdoor Roth make it so you can really get ahead in terms of retirement building. They are trying to get better in culture and performance rather than some companies that don’t even pretend to care. During the pandemic there was no training. Now there’s some!

Cons

Base pay can be slightly lower than other companies for specific skills. Each site and each organization within each site has its own culture depending on who is the VP/executive team. There are so many executives it’s hard to get things done. Things move very slowly.

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