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Good Technical Management - Lacking Program Management

Software Engineer IV
Current Employee
Has worked at Boeing for 6 years
August 9, 2014
Annapolis Junction, Maryland
3.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Good benefits, compensation, and flexible work hours.

Technical leadership at my Boeing site is wonderful and encouraging.

I'm challenged to grow my technical ability.

Great 401K plan and pension for those of us hired before 2009.

Cons

Poor program management, so much that Boeing tolerates management screaming and yelling at employees.

Program management does not come to see us if we work in another building other than the main Boeing building.

Communication is generally ineffective between functional managers and employees. The good functional managers leave for greener pastures or get a pink slip if funding goes away.

Engineering staff usually takes over the project the right way because the functional managers seem not to be technical.

There seems to be a revolving door at the Director and VP levels, and nobody knows why certain people are removed "abruptly". Older folks who dress in beach lounge attire and sneakers are left to sit in their cubes and think about why the wind blows while other good people get axed.

Communication downward to the peons is non-existent. No real career path upward unless the senior technical program person pushes senior functional management for your upward movement.

Benefits are fading away, and medical plans are starting to take a lot more out of my pocket due to higher coinsurance rates.

Entering workday time is mandatory and becomes a pain point when you don't have internet access in another building.

Advice to Management

Share information with us peons.

Do not tolerate management yelling and cursing in the workplace for any reason. It sets a bad example.

Show some hope for upward mobility and that we are not just bodies taking a seat in another building earning the company money.

Offer more training onsite and not all the way in the bowels of Virginia, because most of us live near Annapolis Junction, Maryland (or to the north in Baltimore) and do not want to drive all the way to Springfield, Virginia in two to three hours of rush hour traffic each way.

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