Lockheed Martin Reviews

Cons

Too much red tap everywhere

Cons

Unfortunately, I need to come up with twenty words of cons. When in reality after 41+ years in IT, I have no cons for Lockheed Martin. They are not perfect, but highly acceptable.

Cons

The work culture is laidback to the point of being boring. Very little design work for hardware engineers leads to most of the work being sustainment/production support (or all hogged by the senior engineers), which is just not remotely engaging for talented design engineers. You will probably be doing more paperwork than engineering for a long time. Systems engineering seems to run the show and hardware feels like it's expendable, despite the increased education and demands for a good hardware engineer. If you're not fortunate enough to be placed on a highly visible and engaging project, you'll probably flounder around for a while before getting frustrated enough to leave. Politics can be frustrating. Many people seem to be in their positions by virtue of knowing the right senior manager or chief engineer, and little understanding of the tech. Often described as a 'mafia' by a lot of the engineers. Overall would not recommend for a fresh engineer trying to learn and build cool things. Maybe more senior hires will have better luck.

Cons

- Hawkish Middle and Upper Management and Heavy Corporate Atmosphere: Particularly be weary of the "Old Guard" these are your 60+ year old SWE Managers at this company. Many are out of touch with the new generation, and will put you under the table if you get in their way. There are some managers that only care about their pension and about those that do favors for them. - Questionable Ethics (please see above) despite the annual survey results that say otherwise. - Lethargic on-boarding process due to goverment restrictions: This is universal throughout the corporation and the defense industry, and gets in the way of the AGILE process. However, team-members try to mitigate it by supporting each other. - Contract switching: If you are new developer, or even experienced you are at some risk to become "loaned-out" to another team that may work in another completely different programming language or stack that you were hired for. They will try not to mention this during the interview, but it all depends on how big of a budget the manager has at the moment they hired you.

Cons

- Antiquated systems - Poorly communicated strategy post-covid - Overworked and underappreciated - New ideas not taken seriously - Less experience is rewarded over higher and more well rounded experience - Management lacks clear direction on how to provide focused feedback

Cons

Lockheed Martin was once a great place to work. I had a great career there initially and for many years to come. There was real opportunity for advancement if you had the drive to grow and change as the business and the world evolved. But time marches on and our country has changed and so has Lockheed Martin. Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion was once a noble effort to help to raise “underrepresented” people up in our society with opportunities so that everyone could have a shot at being prosperous and doing well as long as they put on the work and got some training or education or both. Now a few years ago things started to change – a DE&I tipping point if you will – where our culture war changed a key term from “equality” to “equity”. They sound almost the same like “fish” and “fishy” for example. You have to be listening very closely to even notice the swap and yet they could not be more different in meaning or practice. You see “equality” meant that regardless of race and gender and sexual or religious preference, employees who put in the effort could be treated equally both in terms of salary and position as it should be. “Equity” on the other hand meant an equal result regardless of the effort put in. This seemingly subtle swap of terms has driven LM and our country to places we did not want to ever go. It has created and now fostered an environment where certain genders and races can be treated with never-before-seen levels of sanctioned bigotry and relentless and brazen marginalization. DE&I now puts goals and quotas on hiring and promotions within certain industries based on race, gender, and sexual preference. It sounds altruistic and good on the surface though and diversity does contribute to innovation without a doubt after all. Well so does character, brilliance, skills, fairness, and freedom. So hypothetically speaking let’s say that you have arrived: You have hired and promoted thousands of employees based primarily on race and gender and put less importance on character or skills for the most part. Try to imagine how well a corporation’s or a society’s ability to think critically, manage through crisis, or be creative, or to succeed overall might be. Can you still conceive of or build great airplanes or rockets? “Inclusion” is now code for promote or hire anyone except for those fully qualified yet unlucky souls that find themselves to be in no way diverse enough in one way or another. “Diversity” is code for reverse racism. What is missing in all of this? God and His goodness are missing. He’s really still right here, all around you though if you listen to your heart closely. God will teach us that true diversity is truly great as long as it includes brotherly love and does not seek to divide. Think of humanity as a human body. The hands respect and love the feet. The ears love the eyes. What if the hand refused to protect the eyes from getting stuck by a stick? Diversity is great until it goes beyond its intention. Equality is a great achievement for a society. Equality is just and fair while equity is not. Equity is quite a different concept than equality. Equality concerns itself with opportunities, while equity concerns itself with outcomes. Diversity needs to have love in it and should not create a whole new era of bigotry and exclusion. Today in our country, employers including Lockheed Martin, are employing a new as yet unnoticed and unnamed type of bigotry to quietly and unjustly manipulate and stifle many people’s careers. This cancer will harm all people of all races and genders ultimately. We need to grow up and stop this runaway DE&I train. Let’s get back to hiring and promoting based on skills and character and treat all human beings equally and fairly.

Cons

Because of f-16 contract Greenville operations Lockheed is forced to rush and fill these painter positions they have a lot of painters only in the field for less then 5 years working as level 2 and 3 and 4 making between 30 to 50 dollars an hour. Greenville operations knows these people are not qualified but because of this huge f-16 contract have to keep these positions filled while weeding out the bad ones. The bad ones and are willing to do whatever it takes to keep those positions. Example at Greenville operations it's so bad in the paint shop. Everybody is constantly making false claims anonymously to HR. I seen somebody get written up for allegedly having a heated debate on the phone with the onsite nurse about COVID. When pulled in the office he asked to hear the recording and was told there was not one and that one of his co workers they told about conversation reported it. So just off hearsay with no evidence you can be written up once you get 8 points you can be terminated. So all it takes is a few people to decide they don't want the competition and bye bye. if and I guess what I'm saying it's like the boys and girls club if you don't make the right friends there. You'll get pushed out. But if your used to this navigating this type of situation at work this might not be a con. I'd like to add Lockheed as a whole I have nothing bad to say I support them and all they do for are country and military and corporate

Cons

It is a big organization and sometimes people do get lost under big projects. There is this serious etiquette which people dont share much of their real selves to each other. Interactions are mostly job related and on the surface.

Cons

Not much work to go around Work is not as technical as they advertise on all job descriptions Strong procrastination mentality causing projects to take multiple months to years to complete No one can be fired even if their a bad engineer that doesn't work at all Company culture is too siloed causing not much networking to happen unless its at the few company sponsored events per year

Cons

-health insurance is expensive and they only offer 1 plan which is a high deductible plan. -You will be HEAVILY micromanaged by leads that refuse to help work -VERY “clicky”. If you aren’t one of the guys that have worked there a long time and old (50+), you will be one of 3-4 working on the aircraft while the others do the easy work that the lead creates for them and isn’t even needed. The leads and old timers will literally watch you work all day and the supervisor turns a blind eye to it. It’s a huge problem. -Being a hard worker is only rewarded by doing even more work -Zero training -You will only do LO coatings at this location no matter what skill you were hired for. The old guys will fix a nut plate here and there but that’s about it. You will be a painter and and ridden hard. -Constantly cut corners on processes/break specs -Supervisor is incompetent -Job is being moved to Virginia