Vantaggi
It's true there are many good aspects of working at Raytheon. They have a good benefits and have a 9/80 schedule which is great if you can take advantage of it. Overall the campus in Marlborough is nice, clean, company store run by Maria is excellent (as long as she's there), workout center with flat screen tv's, sporting leagues and all sorts of groups to join. As for the positives of the actual work, I personally enjoyed working on the program I was on and enjoyed the type of work that Raytheon does as a whole. The government contract business is interesting, but does have it's down falls. As for the people at Marlborough; There are all types. Those who work hard and are willing to lend a helping hand, those who do just enough to coast by and then those who are waiting to retire. The overall crowd at Raytheon is older and some are on the verge of retirement or at least should be. There are many seniors there that are afraid to retire. The positives about this older generation there is that you can learn from their past experiences. There are many other middle aged adults there that are extremely hard working and helpful. Those people take pride in their work and end up making the incredible deadlines that they are given to work with.
Svantaggi
Where to begin? There are many employees there that are just coasting. Eventually others have to pick up the slack. There are also many older employees that are hanging on until they can retire, but their ability to keep up with the workload and younger crowd is a major problem. Plus Raytheon hangs on to them no matter what if they've been there for 35 year and do nothing, because they have put in the time. Or so it feels. Degree's are very important at Raytheon, without an Engineering degree your doomed. It doesn't matter how hard you work, if you come in on weekends, stay late and get positive annual reviews. Also success of the program you're on doesn't matter either. Other programs could be put on hold, terminated and co-workers with more year will be shifted to your program creating a log jam. Eventually something has to give and layoffs follow. Training is poor. Raytheon wants you to do it on your own time. The technology is pretty dated. I saw many young and fresh employees come to Raytheon just to end up being bored and complaining about how they're not using anything they learned in college. Management can be distant, some are only concerned with pleasing their boss and not their employees. They do tend to play favorites at time. Some managers are not truly meant to be managing others, they are engineers and frankly don't have the people skills it takes to actually manage a section. Raytheon though forces them to become section managers for little to no financial increase and added work load. Six Sigma is a joke at Raytheon. Just get it done so you can get you annual 3.0 percent increase. People sleep at their desks ( I use to walk in on my section mgr sleeping and would tip-toe out ), sleep during code reviews, sleep during functionality testing with even the customer being right there. It's amazing and completely pathetic. They've gone completely over board on "Diversity". It is important I agree, but at some point in the past Raytheon must have been burnt by the government and now they go over and above on diversity. You can a long safe career if you fall into the right "category" at Raytheon's HR offices. These are just some of the bad aspects at Raytheon that I experienced there during my ten years and two stints with RTSC and NCS. I wouldn't recommend heading there after college.