Vantaggi
This is a technology company with a very wide range of projects ranging from electronics through software, spacecraft and space systems. Technical staff are almost never bored, are always challenged to be better, or faster, or smarter and this is a good thing for people who enjoy these challenges. Many staff have been there (Richmond) for many years and some continue to return after working elsewhere. You are not there because you are an expert, in many cases you become the expert after being assigned to a task! Climbing a learning curve quickly is a skill you learn. The scope of projects varies widely, from simple re-delivery of an existing design based on a couple of computers and software products, to complete end-to-end design and specification of a large-scale space-based remote-sensing system costing hundreds of millions. There's room for many skills here, not least of which is understanding how to manage such large projects. Contrary to some environments, the risk of failure is not foremost in your mind as you work. Technical and business managers are helpful in understanding and helping to resolve whatever issues arise and there always are issues.
Svantaggi
Some of the senior staff are focussed on solving issues or completing tasks the same way the same time with the same people. Some staff are labelled with their skills and become stuck repeating the same job over and over. Resisting this environment is a professional challenge. Despite an in-house technical training program (project management, technical management, various software and systems disciplines), the project-orientation results in almost no local expert pools, such as database, man-machine interface, or what other organizations deem advanced development skills such as simulation, preliminary development, etc. The technical bias is to repeat yesterday's solution. As a result, the wide range of technical approaches is rarely expanded beyond what skills were known to work last time round. The company is widely recognized for risk-management, and the ability to deliver on-time and on-budget. The downside to this is that, for technical staff, the risk-averse environment leads to some pretty silly technical decisions. Risk management does not require risk avoidance, and a little experimentation goes a long way to mitigate a risk. Don't try this at this workplace, however.