Boeing

Some of the best benefits across the board in any industry, from 401k to tuition reimbursement, and steady employment for the most part, as long as you perform basic expectations tied to your role.

It gives flexibility to grow personally, but only certain groups will actually allow you to grow professionally, either from a technical or non-technical standpoint. Flexible work schedule for most sites.

Both engineering and program senior leadership lack technical depth. The company is set up cross-functionally on paper, with program and engineering leaders reporting to different executives. However, both sides of the house still push for cost and schedule over all else (except for safety when it is immediately apparent). There isn't true backup on the engineering and technical front. The leaders lack technical depth to ask the right questions and guide hardware development vision.

Leaders just want short-term results and lack true long-term vision. This leads to half-baked, lackluster engineering solutions that require significant updates because project leads don't listen to the technical input. This is exemplified by the major projects seen in the news, but it permeates throughout smaller projects as well.

These issues then cause more schedule delays, which the PMO and executives blame engineers for being slow and inept. In fact, they didn't want to hear it in the first place, leading to a toxic work cycle for those looking for a technical place to grow and succeed. Trying to come up with the best technical solution and technical due diligence is seen as "wasting time and money."

When leaders say they are there to help and provide resources, they just call daily or weekly meetings for updates and to ask when it's going to be done and what's taking so long. They don't give real resources to drive closure to the problem at hand, nor the freedom for engineers to develop the best solutions, only enough time, money, and pressure for band-aid solutions. Given so many leaders pride themselves on being both business and tech savvy, it's a surprise they fall for the sunken cost fallacy so easily.

Most technically capable employees see this culture and are leaving in droves to competitors. Those who are left behind are those who can tell a good story but can't build or design the hardware Boeing was previously known for, resulting in a bloated, slow-moving company with mediocre products.

Reflect and ask yourself: How are you really contributing to the technical success and solutions, instead of always asking what's the impact to the schedule first? Schedules are important, but they don't mean anything if the hardware you deliver is useless. If your leaders are saying technical due diligence is a waste of time, your leaders are in the wrong business.