General Electric

Huge company, with lots of different kinds of opportunities. It's pretty amenable to people switching jobs. Great pay and benefits.

Management seems willing to make the tough decisions necessary to keep the place open and profitable, including trimming the dead weight. Most of my co-workers are very smart, rational people. Like anywhere, promotion depends on luck as well as ability.

Sometimes there is an attitude of "We are GE, we don't make mistakes." Hubris makes it a little hard to sell ideas that come from outside.

We are unionized and our labor costs are absurd. This is a headwind for everything we do, and frankly, we have to sometimes use less-than-the-best materials to keep costs down.

Remember that not all salaried people are managers. Most of our career development materials are about management stuff, and it gives the impression that individual contributors are less valued.