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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Reviews

Updated May 31, 2023

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Found 862 of over 1K reviews
4.2
85% Recommend to a Friend
Best Places to Work 2023
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Director Ralph Semmel
84% Approve of CEO

Found 862 of over 1K reviews

4.2
85%
Recommend to a Friend
84%
Approve of CEO
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Director Ralph Semmel
Ralph Semmel
498 Ratings

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Cons
Pros & Cons are excerpts from user reviews. They are not authored by Glassdoor.

Ratings by Demographics

This rating reflects the overall rating of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and is not affected by filters.

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  1. 5.0
    Current Employee, more than 5 years
    Featured Review

    THE ABSOLUTE BEST

    Jan 3, 2023 - Project Manager 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Second to none work family, workplace environment, critical/challenging work, job satisfaction, benefits

    Cons

    I would love to live closer to the Lab if my family wasn't already established in the Rockville area.

    Be the first to find this review helpful
  2. 5.0
    Current Employee, more than 3 years

    Great place to work

    May 13, 2023 - Administrative Assistant in Laurel, MD
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Friendly, collaborative place to work with lots of opportunities to learn and advance.

    Cons

    It is hard to get your foot in the door.

    Continue reading
    Be the first to find this review helpful
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  4. 1.0
    Former Employee, more than 3 years

    Limited Career Advancement

    May 31, 2023 - Anonymous Employee 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Benefits such as 401K and education are great.

    Cons

    I was an Operations Coordinator (OC) for AOS and was looking for future career advancement within the business side of APL. I was told by my supervisor and a senior AOS lead that it will be difficult to find the next step up as an OC. Some of the recommendations included switching departments or wait years to become a section supervisor or POM. Middle management took program managers' and project managers' needs and feedback on their OCs as bible and disregarded the OCs' requests for assistance. For example, the program/project managers will repeatedly ignore your emails, calls, inquiries but middle management will blame you for not trying "more". The lack of accountability and leadership displays from the top yet they blame lower-level employees for them. Overall: limited career advancement and poor treatment if you are not technical, pay is average, people GOSSIP, lack of remote work, and senior management do not show that they care.

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  5. 4.0
    Current Employee, more than 8 years

    Depends on what you're looking for

    Mar 12, 2023 - Software Engineer in Laurel, MD
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Very good work life balance, good benefits, nice perks, and good sense of job security. I value the highly flexible schedule. I feel like my salary is fairly competitive, and don't find myself stressed out with the amount of work I'm having to do most of the time. They seem to value having their employees continuing to learn, as is evidenced by the education benefits and large selection of training available (paid for by them).

    Cons

    After working here for over 8 years, I don't think I can really point to a project that I worked on that ultimately made a big impact anywhere. It can be very demotivating at times. At first I thought it was unique to the first group I worked for, but after being in several groups, I've come to accept that this is just how things are here. The management likes to assure us that we're doing very important work - it may be true for some projects, but I don't think I really agree with that assessment as a whole.

    Continue reading
    5 people found this review helpful
  6. 5.0
    Current Employee, less than 1 year

    Great place to work

    Mar 31, 2023 - Anonymous Employee 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Love it here. Interesting, impactful work, great people, the maker space is awesome, really supportive culture. It is easy to get too much work if you can’t say no when your plate is full, but you are allowed to say no/not right now. Benefits are really good, I’m really happy with the health care, retirement matching, short term disability paying out at 100% with no buy up, and being able to get a lot of life insurance without answering medical questions. Leave is pretty average. Salary is very competitive.

    Cons

    Only 7 payed holidays, one of which is the Friday after thanksgiving (which is nice since I get to keep that day of PTO I guess). Really weird that we don’t get all the holidays the government gets given how much work is for the government. Also only two weeks of paid parental leave, which is super weird to me since APL is really progressive/generous in most other benefits.

    1 person found this review helpful
  7. 3.0
    Former Employee, more than 3 years

    good work is good bad work is bad...and there's a lot of bad work

    Feb 4, 2023 - Research Scientist 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Great people, low pressure, good pay and benefits. The good science is GREAT! (but I didn't work on that)

    Cons

    The waste here is INSANE. The good projects like the Pluto mission are amazing of course. But what people can't see from outside is the projects where the obvious only purpose is to waste piles and piles of government money with absolutely no real goals or purpose. The problem is not from the APL side, it goes all the way up to Congress, but it's still horrible to be part of. If you don't care, great! Lots of random tasks exist here for people to do who don't care about watching millions of tax dollars set on fire for no reason, and the working conditions are better than lots of places if that's your thing.

    Continue reading
    5 people found this review helpful
  8. 1.0
    Current Employee, more than 5 years

    Manager's abuse power

    May 11, 2023 - Software Engineer in Laurel, MD
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    education benefit is great, use it and then leave as soon as you can

    Cons

    Managers will actively work against your career. They will also try to nitpick reasons to pay you less constantly. I've seen managers derail someone's work because their direct report was paid more than themselves. They will try to use passion as an indirect way to abuse your free time. If you're not careful, managers will take advantage of you, especially if you're a minority. Managers consistently root against minority employees by looking for performance faults. I don't recommend this workplace for anyone, as soon as I get my Master's I'm leaving.

    Continue reading
    3 people found this review helpful
  9. 3.0
    Current Employee, more than 1 year

    Mostly good

    May 15, 2023 - Software Engineer in Laurel, MD
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    People are friendly and helpful for the most part.

    Cons

    Too much commuting. Not enough remote.

    Continue reading
    3 people found this review helpful
  10. 4.0
    Former Employee, more than 5 years

    Great job if you don't want remote

    May 24, 2023 - Data Analyst 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Great compensation and benefits, commitment to the employees. Middle-management is really great.

    Cons

    No ability to work remotely in many areas.

    1 person found this review helpful
  11. 5.0
    Current Employee

    Great Place

    May 7, 2023 - Anonymous Employee 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Interesting work, good work life balance

    Cons

    Minimal telework options depending on projects

    Be the first to find this review helpful
Viewing 1 - 10 of 862 Reviews
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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Reviews FAQs

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has an overall rating of 4.2 out of 5, based on over 1,085 reviews left anonymously by employees. 85% of employees would recommend working at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to a friend and 78% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months.

According to anonymously submitted Glassdoor reviews, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory employees rate their compensation and benefits as 4.0 out of 5. Find out more about salaries and benefits at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. This rating has decreased by -5% over the last 12 months.

85% of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews. Employees also rated Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 4.4 out of 5 for work life balance, 4.2 for culture and values and 4.1 for career opportunities.

According to reviews on Glassdoor, employees commonly mention the pros of working at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to be coworkers, career development, benefits and the cons to be senior leadership, culture, management.

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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Careers

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Critical Contributions to Critical Challenges For more than 80 years, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has...More

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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

144 days ago

A team at Johns Hopkins APL recently studied the potential impact of climate change on communications and remote sensing systems like radars, and determined that severe changes in Earth’s climate would likely affect these technologies — for better or worse.
Shared image - Climate Change Likely to Affect Communications, Remote Sensing Technologies
Climate Change Likely to Affect Communications, Remote Sensing Technologies
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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Photos

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Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory photo of: An APL staff member studies some computer hardware
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory photo of: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory photo of: A Lab staff member manages the displays in APL's LiveLab
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory photo of: An APL staff member works on her computer.
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory photo of: APL staff members enjoy a campfire on the Lab's Central Green
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory photo of: APL staff members playing a cornhole game on the Central Green
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory photo of: APL staff members enjoying an outdoor photo booth.
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Glassdoor has 1,085 Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory reviews submitted anonymously by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is right for you.