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    Thales Reviews

    Updated June 22, 2017
    713 reviews

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    Full-time Part-time
    3.4
    Star Star Star Star Star
    Rating Trends Rating Trends
    Recommend to a friend
    Approve of CEO
    Thales Chairman and CEO Patrice Caine
    Patrice Caine
    134 Ratings

    713 Employee Reviews

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    Pros
    Cons

    • Working on Bids will kill your work life balance (in 13 reviews)

    • Some senior management have no incentive to move (in 20 reviews)

    More Pros and Cons
    1. Featured Review

      Helpful (1)

      "working at Thales (Irvine, CA)"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Irvine, CA
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Irvine, CA
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at Thales full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      Global company that invests back in the company, they take care of employees with excellent benefits, fair pay, and will move you around within the company if you want, or if your group has a downturn, they will try to relocate you.

      Cons

      Work has slowed, need to win more business, raises/salaries could be better.

      Advice to Management

      Results suffer slightly at the cost of image, put more focus into software fixes and bid management

    2. "Vice President/General Manager"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Vice President/General Manager in Aurora, IL
      Current Employee - Vice President/General Manager in Aurora, IL
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook

      I have been working at Thales full-time (More than 10 years)

      Pros

      Thales work culture is open and empowering with great benefits. The 9/80 work schedule is wonderful as every other weekend is 3 days long. Projects are cutting edge in the area of augmented reality which is booming. Thales Visionix products are flying on many US and foreign military platforms with great results. Its personally satisfying to speak with our customers as they really like the equipment and use it every day. As a result sales are growing as is the staff. The Thales Group provides ample opportunities for career growth both here in the US and internationally. By far the best place I have ever worked.

      Cons

      I have no complaints at this time.

      3. Join the Thales team
      See Our Latest Jobs

    3. Helpful (3)

      "OK Place to work at"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Irvine, CA
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Irvine, CA
      Recommends
      Negative Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at Thales full-time

      Pros

      Very nice coworkers. Most people are very dedicated to doing a good job.

      Cons

      Management is not at all honest. There is a great deal of favoritism. Quite a few lazy, incompetent people are kept around even though their projects have been a total disaster. . HR is very impersonal and unresponsive

      Advice to Management

      honesty and transparency are key to success.

    4. Helpful (2)

      "Engineer"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Irvine, CA
      Current Employee - Anonymous Employee in Irvine, CA
      Doesn't Recommend
      Negative Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at Thales full-time (More than a year)

      Pros

      Great people, good pay & benefits. Generous vacation time.

      Cons

      Massively wasteful processes. Massive inertia to change. Trench-warfare bureaucracy enforced by middle managers while Directors & VPs do nothing. Extra layers of "VP's" who don't work for the President but get paid like VP's. New 7-figure executive positions being created while they cut costs by eliminating $20/hr value-adding positions. Aging business model probably entering its extinction phase.

      Advice to Management

      Stop creating new Director and "VP" positions to retain managers who didn't succeed. Let them go. Take an interest in the competitiveness-crushing processes your middle managers enforce, and why they don't improve. Your people could improve them in days if you backed them up and removed obstacles. Fire every director and above responsible for the SAP implementation which cost millions, resulted in sustained sub-80% on-time delivery, bitter customers and industry partners, and created supply chain blind spots that still haunt us--all without improving a single business metric 18 months later.

    5. Helpful (2)

      "Recent negative changes"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Engineer in Aurora, IL
      Former Employee - Engineer in Aurora, IL
      Doesn't Recommend

      I worked at Thales full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      Smart employees
      Good equipmemt and resources
      Global parent company
      Exciting products and oportunity
      Capability of global travel
      Work with military aircraft

      Cons

      Overworked, underbudgeted, and oversold
      Lack of transparency
      Little internal advanacement
      Long hours with low pay
      Old building in a bad location

      Advice to Management

      Hire more engineers to reduce the unpaid overtime

    6. Helpful (1)

      "Administrative Assistant"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Administrative Assistant in Clarksburg, MD
      Former Employee - Administrative Assistant in Clarksburg, MD
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook

      I worked at Thales full-time (More than 10 years)

      Pros

      Work environment and job tools meet expectations; job responsibilities are clearly stated; Employees are team oriented and strive to meet goals. The latest economy for gov. contracts has affected the overall success

      Cons

      The latest economy for gov. contracts has affected the overall success and it has had several reduction in force.

      Advice to Management

      Review and Improve Business Development/Sales

    7. Helpful (4)

      "Desperate to be #1"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Engineer in Irvine, CA
      Current Employee - Engineer in Irvine, CA
      Doesn't Recommend
      Negative Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at Thales full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      Benefits package and nothing else.

      Cons

      Poor, Dishonest, And Cold-hearted management who will do anything to try to be #1 in the business. No accountability. Lots of nepotism. No ethics.

      Advice to Management

      Thales is losing a LOT of talent. Stop listening to the wrong people who are lazy and have no value.

    8. Helpful (6)

      "Work here if you just want a paycheck"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Senior Software Engineer in Irvine, CA
      Former Employee - Senior Software Engineer in Irvine, CA
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I worked at Thales full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      This place has great benefits like 4% fully vested matching 401K and 1 month pto. Their systems are pretty complex so you have a great opportunity to learn different technologies. Most people are very nice.

      Cons

      Really bad company culture. Unfortunately Thales is composed of people who have been working there for 7+ years and they have really let themselves go knowledge wise. They have no further drive to improve themselves or the systems. It seems a lot of these guys are just dead weight and only go work here to collect a paycheck. They aren't the best at coding, nor are they making an effort any longer to get better. You will have to deal with extremely buggy code and a lot of finger pointing as to who is at fault. If you are happy just collecting a paycheck and have no further drive to improve yourself, this is the place to be at. Or if you are a new grad, this is a good place to start, but don't stay here too long or you will think this is how the whole industry is like.

      Even with all the great benefits this place has a high turnover because a lot of people get sick of the same problems that never get resolved.

      So many meetings. I spent 4 hours a day in meetings most of the time. Most meetings are completely pointless and everyone is late to them.

      Very poor planning. 6 months out of the year you have very light work and don't know what to do with yourself. Then the other 6 months you are pushed hard to complete almost impossible deadlines and forced to work overtime. I have only experienced this at Thales.

      Advice to Management

      Get organized.

    9. "Thales Avionics, IFEC"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Shipping and Receiving Associate in Seattle, WA
      Former Employee - Shipping and Receiving Associate in Seattle, WA
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I worked at Thales full-time (More than 10 years)

      Pros

      Best benefits you'll find anywhere

      Cons

      Relocating sites too often....to the other side of the country

      Advice to Management

      Move the IFEC back to Seattle

    10. "benefits"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Programmer Analyst in Clarksburg, MD
      Current Employee - Programmer Analyst in Clarksburg, MD
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Thales full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      very good benefits... much better than standard

      Cons

      very good place work overall

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