Boeing

The company overall has a good compensation package with respect to other aerospace companies, and the benefits (even though they've gone through cuts) are still great. Depending where you're at, you could have a very lax schedule including 9/80 and working from home (although they are starting to crack down on that). If you're an airplane enthusiast, you could end up working on some cool projects and even flying to supplier sites (with great benefits) on the company dime.

Where do I start?

If you're a young, motivated Millennial that wants to move up fast and have the opportunity to progress and contribute at a fast pace, don't bother.

This is a sloth-like company whose logo might as well be "we've always done it that way". Most people here are at or beyond retirement age and are literally counting the down the hours. People are overall very unhappy, cynical, and resigned after working here 20+ years and seeing the company continuously cut down on benefits.

Management is a joke. Actually, most engineers end up sitting around comparing management to Dilbert cartoons.

Most have Dilbert cartoon snippets cut out and posted around their cubicles.

Essentially, all management does is go to meetings to figure out what other management wants them to do. The entire thing is fascinating to watch because most are in there just staring at their BlackBerries. When done, they will return to tell their engineers what they need to do and when they need to do it by.

If not, they will look very bad to the 6+ layers of management above them.

If you're lucky, a big 'if', you'll actually get a chance to do some exciting engineering work. However, you will most likely be a giant paper pusher, updating spreadsheets, online databases, and answering emails and churn about your "status" on a particular item.

This could easily become 50%+ of your life here.

You are not an engineer; you are a Microsoft Office, PowerPoint, Excel expert!

Bureaucracy is comparable to the U.S. government. They might take tips from them, I think.

And if you have an issue, well, this isn't an open culture. Boeing is a very, very passive-aggressive culture. No one here speaks about the issue; they just talk around the issue, so conflict resolution is non-existent.

Then again, I speak purely of the engineering environment. Other areas could be better or worse.

Management needs to shrink (as in fewer kingdoms) and actually "care" about people, displaying some minor leadership skills. The company needs to begin shifting towards a collaborative culture versus a top-down culture.