Sandia National Laboratories Reviews

Cons

The one main downside is the lack of a pension. This becomes evident when NNSA management uses that carrot to entice Sandians to quite and take a job with them.

Cons

Steep Learning Curve Upon Entry

Cons

PostDoc doesn't necessarily set you up for a ready transition outside of academia

Cons

Pay and benefits are no longer competitive after Honeywell took over management as NTESS. Employee review system is the same old Honeywell 9-block system with quotas for each block. Leadership instructed managers to rate people in the lower blocks - "can't all be rated as good performers".

Cons

work not consistent
slower pace
hard to get things done

Cons

When I started working at Sandia, five years ago, there were many young enthusiastic developers who really want to make positive difference. The management killed the momentum and most of the developers left Sandia or switch orgs. The management is used to old ways when they expect to be treated like Gods who know everything and whose decisions cannot be questioned.

Do not work on any big project at Sandia because the management keeps putting warm bodies, people who do nothing except talking. That way they extract more tax payers money, and it is good on their performance review. It slows down productive employees, but the management always have excuse "That is how we do business around here". Once multiple employees point out that someone is not pulling his/her weight, the managers still expect someone at the lower level to deal with. The managers are responsible for staffing , hiring and firing employees, so they should deal with low performers.

Large portion of senior employees play friendship card with the managers. They do not contribute as much as they would like you believe. If you disagree with them, they will definitely report you to your manager, and you get bad performance review. Managers will trust them no matter what. It is so bad that most younger employees do not dare to express their opinions. If you point to an obvious risk, you will be labeled as enemy and your manager will talk to you. You will be accused of defeatism and not cultivating Sandia values. They will find a way to phrase something bad about you. Popular back stab is "It is the way you said it".

Culture conflict between young developers and dinosaurs managers and their extensions is so deep. I have been told about the same problem from many different orgs within Sandia. There is no democracy any longer. Keep your mouth shut is the best everyone can do till they forge friendships with managers. Managers only react if least ten developers start complaining together about same thing. And they only take action because they get scared everyone will quit or move somewhere else within Sandia. Managers at Sandia are never hired from outside. They are always long time insiders, so the culture never changes. What they do wrong, they cannot see it.

Do not work on any project that is in collaborative lab space. Sandia has stack ranking system for performance reviews. Many hi tech companies are abandoning stack ranking. It is killing Facebook. In collaborative work space, in order to secure positive performance feedback, employees forge friendships which means they talk and talk a lot, go together to lunches. There are many that do not work much but the friendship is what counts at the end. At work you have to always act like you love Sandia and you are extra patriotic. If you do not, someone will make sure your managers knows about it.

Facilities do not fix anything and if you are lucky it takes them months for very small, very simple things. By now, six times they totally ignored my tickets.

There is no diversity at Sandia. Female workforce is the only diversity. One out of hundred employees is Asian. 97% is all white male.

Cons

Sandia is slowly changing but is a bit old-school. Slow to adopt cloud based solutions, remote workers, and collaboration platforms. Promotions and opportunities heavily influenced by "who you know". There is also somewhat of a caste system in place in regards to whether you work in the research areas, or the support areas, with the former being prestigious, and the latter seen as a commodity.

Cons

poor salaries, little growth opportunity

Cons

Very political conduct and rules do not apply to all. Lots of inequality between employees including favoritism and blackballing.

Cons

Long drive to get anywhere outside of Abq, pay is below industry standard, promotion can be slow