MITRE Reviews

Pros

I spent many years at two very large, well-respected government consulting firms before coming to MITRE. Several of MITRE’s positive attributes below are noted in stark contrast to my experiences at other firms. (1) Work-Life Balance – I’ve never felt pressure to work more than 40 hours per week at MITRE. People are unplugged during nights and weekends. It’s a great place to work if you have a family. At other firms,...

Cons

There is lots of talk of change within MITRE, although I feel that staff performing sponsor work would be hard-pressed to notice anything different day-to-day. However, the talk of change from MITRE’s leadership continues nonetheless and it’s stirring the pot as you can see from many recent Glassdoor reviews. Leadership has not articulated many specifics on what these changes might mean to the staff, so the rumor mill...

Advice to Management

(1) As MITRE is making changes, please do a better job of explaining your thinking in detail to the staff. Otherwise, the vacuum you leave will be filled with our own theories and possibly our insecurities (as witnessed by many recent Glassdoor reviews). We’re smart enough and will understand even if your motivations are complex. We’ve heard the same phrases, such as “good growth,” repeatedly over the past year but have...

Pros

MITRE's mission is exceptional, and most of the people I know at MITRE really believe in it. My colleagues in my local department are smart, dedicated and imaginative. The work in my organization is varied and mostly very interesting. The opportunities for part-time and flex schedules are exceptional, and the benefits remain pretty good, including the retirement plan. Work-life balance is also solid. I've stayed at MITRE...

Cons

I was skeptical about the value of Glassdoor until I read the recent reviews, which are spot-on as far as I'm concerned. Where to start? Many reviews here suggest that the company started going downhill when Al Grasso left and Jason Providakes took over; but the problem actually started with Al. On the one hand, he did good things to make the company more unified; on the other hand, he instituted a culture of glad-handing...

Advice to Management

Fire Jason Providakes and Rich Byrne. Make Pete Sherlock or Kerry Buckley the CEO. Forget the vanity projects. Shut down the portfolio effort - it's caused more problems, and introduced more management hassles, than it's solved. Stop communicating with your employees using glad-handing nonsense. And please - please - don't embarrass yourselves by having the Employee Experience Team respond to this review.

Pros

Lot of nice people. Flexibility to work on multiple projects allows employees to pick up skill sets. You can have a lot of fun and learn a lot depending on the project you're working on. Also depends on the people you're working with on your project. Lots of training opportunities. Management seems to be okay with spending money to getting people certified or furthering their education. Good work-life balance. ...

Cons

Most of the work you do amounts to a powerpoint presentation and/or a demo and no actual operational impact even if its considered impactful work by upper management. It's unfortunate that for a large number of projects out there, its more important for you to charge your hours than it is to actual contribute meaningful work. Instead of getting fired for not doing your work, you get kicked off the project once they...

Advice to Management

Promote people based on actual skills, not because it is time to do so. Hire people with real industry experience and put them on projects where they can truly make an impact. Get rid of group leaders. Most barely have insight into what you do or lack the skills to understand what you're working on. Managers should only manage, not also work on projects. Often times, employees are "forgotten" since managers only...

Pros

Retirement package is good but used to be better

Cons

Company is going through a huge business transformation that is impacting every part of business operations. Outside consultants and Directors from across the company are making decisions that impact departments and processes they know nothing about. CEO keeps referring to good growth and I haven’t met someone that can explain what that means

Pros

Benefits, Facilities, Peers, Sponsors. Great opportunities for Millennials.

Cons

Commute is terrible, Management does not appear to care about the employees well-being; they care more about getting everything done in a speedy fashion and worry about the content later. Some projects take time and thought to produce a quality product.

Advice to Management

Start caring about the employees who work for MITRE and less about self-promoting yourselves. We need stability and not another organizational change. The recent organizational announcement is another example to prove that Senior management doesn't know what it is doing. We should not be guessing at how to run a $2B organization.

Pros

Flexible work schedule, freedom to learn and research new technology

Cons

Stagnant org structure, dubious promotion track

Advice to Management

Fix bonuses and incentives for software engineers and developers; increase salaries

Pros

Exceptional work-life balance if you happen to work on a relaxed task and have flexible project leaders that allow it Endless cool project opportunities IF you are ambitious and able network enough to seek them out McLean campus is undergoing renovations that can make MITRE a fun environment to work in Cafeteria is incredibly convenient

Cons

Incredibly poor management at every level - executives couldn't be more out of touch. An extreme lack of transparency exists across the management hierarchy and as a result, the company is run very inconsistently. For every ambitious individual you meet, there are about ten more who are content delivering the bare minimum or less. This is not to say that MITRE lacks talent, just expect to go well out of your way to...

Advice to Management

Mass hiring initiative was a mistake. Manage the company consistently - no more lip service.

Pros

Fair employment practices; Low Stress for the most part; Great Benefits. Embrace of Work/Life balance by most management. Stable employer. Important work for national benefit.

Cons

Highly stratified, with many layers of management. Frequently little chance for advancement, with poor guidance on promotion requirements. Not the place for fast trackers nor risk-takers.