Boeing

• Good compensation and paid overtime
• Great health benefits and 401K match
• Plenty of career development opportunities
• Feeling of community
• Good work/life balance
• Interesting work projects

• Typical big company stuff: 2 weeks and 6 manager approvals to get a new, $5 stapler (though that's a slight exaggeration); difficult to collaborate with colleagues in other business units due to budget charging constraints; lots of red tape.

• Engineers in Washington state must join the union. That's a state mandate, not a Boeing one, but it is still something a prospective employee should be aware of.

• My previous organization moved to different Boeing sites in the Seattle area 4 times in a 6-year span. One of those moves was completely across town, and my commute went from 15 to 50 miles each way. When I finally escaped that 3 hours of commuting per day and found a position back within 15 miles, it wasn't long before an announcement was made that my new organization was being moved to Seal Beach, CA. Each of these moves places a great deal of stress on the employees and their families, therefore morale, productivity, and quality suffer. Furthermore, with each of these moves, I saw many quality engineers retire or find work at other companies. Some of these engineers were experts in their field, and it was a big loss to the organization.

Don't stop investing in future technologies. We need to stay ahead of the competition in product performance and operating cost.

Stop moving groups across town and across the country. It lowers team morale, hinders productivity, and results in large amounts of attrition, often by very knowledgeable and experienced individuals.