Boeing reviews

At least in the commercial airplane side of the business, they apparently don't write IT software anymore. Management seems to believe that Boeing functional analysts + Boeing project managers + non-Boeing off-shore developers is the path to quality applications, despite all evidence to the contrary. If I was a software developer starting out, I would never choose this as a destination. And, oh yeah, there's a near constant threat of cutbacks and layoffs.

In St. Louis, the location is pretty awful - in a bad area of town and older, dreary office buildings. My biggest complaint is that the company is so large and there are so many technical problems being solved, that there is a ton of redundancy. You might be working on a solution for a year, only to find that another team has implemented something very similar. Joining the solutions may be technically or politically difficult, so then each team attempts to justify its pursuit of the solution. Technical competence is rewarded differently by different teams, and to truly stand out, I recommend joining an advanced technology organization like Phantom Works - this gives you the opportunity to work on more interesting DARPA projects and to pursue patents. While leadership is generally competent, the overall management system at Boeing is overly complex and it can be very frustrating.