Boeing

Good benefits, opportunities (sometimes), international company with respected brand name, travel, reasonably good work/life balance for many employees.

As a new and relatively younger engineering manager, I am quickly gaining good work experience and exposure to the broader business. New managers are thrown into the fire, and there is no hand-holding, which comes with pros and cons. In my experience, the first-line managers make the majority of important operational business decisions and are solely responsible for trying to set culture and engagement within the company.

Bureaucratic, unmotivated union employee force; low market pay for managers; slow, uncoordinated; too much engineering outsourcing.

Boeing suffers from an aging workforce, propelled by the union which protects the senior population at the expense of the company and the younger workforce. Unfortunately, this produces a number of tenured, long-time employees that no longer have motivation, lack engagement, and skew the compensation profiles, which ultimately leads to a culture that cannot compete with modern companies. There may well be many opportunities for younger employees in the next decade, but Boeing has to figure out how to keep them around in a competitive employment market, while also navigating through ongoing cost initiatives (layoffs, reduction in raises/benefits, ...) that disproportionately affect the younger population.

The company is too bureaucratic, which directly affects the long-term ability to compete. Inordinate policies around supplier management, finance, and most everything else create an enormous support organization that costs the company and sucks the life out of everyday work for those that are actually contributing to creating airplanes.

I also think Boeing struggles with coordination among its many different business units and organizations. One arm seemingly does not know what the other is doing, as though the company is too big for its own good. Contributing to this are the number of outdated critical business tools and a seemingly refusal to modernize.

Having been an engineer and now an engineering manager, I can say Boeing has problems with how it values its first-level managers. The position has financial disincentives (up to 5% more pay at the expense of loss of overtime and loss of union incentives) while being a considerably more stressful, difficult, and unrecognized position with a worsening work/life balance. Boeing's engineering managers are considerably underpaid compared to market rate relative to Boeing's engineers, as demonstrated by the fact that Boeing recognizes a level 4 engineer as equivalent to an engineering manager. Most engineers do not want to be an engineering manager for good reason, and Boeing should realize this is directly affecting the type of managers they will be able to get and keep.

Decide if you want your management positions to be desirable, or recognize you are not attempting to get your best and brightest into leadership positions.

When looking for places to cut for long-term competitiveness, look to the support organizations that are overstaffed and create bureaucracy to protect their own jobs.

Bring more engineering back within the company. Why are suppliers making everything on our airplanes?