Sandia National Laboratories Employee Reviews about "management"

Pros

Professional company. Lots of opportunities for advancement and growth. Good benefits package and paid time off. Enjoy working here for many years to come.

Cons

Management can sometimes be closed minded and not open to new ideas. Hard to implement changes within the daily systems.

Pros

Many opportunities to work on a variety of challenging problems with excellent colleagues. The compensation in Albuquerque is high relative to the cost of living.

Cons

Albuquerque is geographically isolated, and the culture is often intolerant of women and racial diversity. The compensation in Livermore CA is low relative to the cost of living. Management flat out refused to allow an internal diversity panel that included staff to review the metrics of hiring, performance review, pay, promotion, or retention by gender or race. Management did approve planting a diversity tree to celebrate our bravery in asking for the information. I feel sad that employees had to file a class action lawsuit claiming gender discrimination to access compensation data by gender.

Pros

A company that really has the potential to make a difference, particularly with regard to National Security Great job diversity. Once you get in the door you can have many careers without ever leaving the company. Exceptional work/life balance.

Cons

Benefits have been on a continuous decline through the years. I have not compared benefits to other companies so they may be comparable but they are certainly not what they used to be. Hard work and superior accomplishments do not necessarily translate to high performance ratings. I suppose this is true of many companies especially bureaucracies. I was told that if I want to get paid for my performance I need to sell cars for a living. Too much emphasis on CRT by upper management and not enough emphasis on Science. I have seen people called out for their 'white privilege' by fellow staff members during CRT training. Too bureaucratic - used to have a 'Can Do' attitude but not anymore. If you want to work for an company that puts the politics of diversity and inclusion above all else this is the place for you. If you truly respect and value other people based on the content of their character but you do not embrace viewpoints that you may not agree with, you may find yourself in a toxic work environment for you.

Pros

Values staff , motivated to retain employees. Management is focused on providing the nation with top level talent to address the nations security objectives

Cons

Most management in very senior, which has its draw backs. Lacks innovation in its thinking of how to encourage younger staff. Lots of bureaucracy.

Pros

SNL WAS a premier engineering laboratory. The sister lab to Los Alamos. The benefits are good (401k, medical, yoga classes, work from home). If you are an engineer this is a great place to start your career. It looks good on the resume. Don’t end it here. After 3 years you are vested in the 401k. Take the money and run. HR gets point for bring you in below market value, whatever they offer you ask for more. They will cave!

Cons

NTESS took over the operation of SNL. It has been a disaster, worthless politically correct training, critical race theory, more make work than is conceivable. A total waste of tax payer dollars. If SNL was operated the this way during WW2 we would all be speaking German and Japanese now. Try and get something done. Impossible. Offer a different view point or a critical engineering judgement and you’ll be branded a “rogue engineer”. The merit/performance review process is 50% subjective personality by management. Bake cookies. Never complain about ANYTHING. Stay your 3 years. Get your 401k and go to real engineering company that will add 30-50% to your salary. Sure your first few years you might get a good raise, but it is a zero sum game. If you are in a group with all stellar people expect, “well you are new here so we can’t give you a good raise”. Someone is always the sacrificial lamb. Also expect management to tell you to work on your fridays off and your weekends for free. Finally albuquerque is a crime ridden rathole. Don’t even think about sending your kids to the public school system (rated last in the the USA). House price SEEM average if you want to deal with gunfire. Upscale neighborhoods are expensive.

Pros

There are smart people at Sandia

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.

Pros

Work is interesting. Pay is great for the local Cost of Living.

Cons

Management is disconnected from work being performed so problems requiring management intervention often go unaddressed long enough to spoil the culture/project/motivation/etc.