Pros
Flexible work schedule - can come in late, leave for appointments, swap time worked on weekends for regular workweek. Telecommuting - some people can work from home a couple of days a week, or more 9/80 Fridays - work 9 hours/day Monday-Thursday, work 8 hours one Friday, get every other Friday off. This is like getting 3 day weekends ever other week. Combine with 1 day PTO for a four day weekend. Respect - Usually feels like people trust each other to get their work done and there is a certain feeling of independence and autonomy. Very good benefits - wide array of medical insurance options available from HMO to PPO to HSA, great medical and life insurance options as well. Match 100% of upto 4% salary going into 401k. Stability - there is a very good chance that once you get hired you will have a job for the rest of your life. If work runs out, they usually can keep you employed for several months while they find you something else to work on. Depending on where you are, you may have to move, however. Travel - depending on the project you work, you may have opportunities for international and national travel.
Cons
Compensation - seems a little bit low for Software Engineers compared to places like Google and Microsoft. Our bonuses are very small and we get no equity. Advancement - mostly seniority based since there are a lot of old-timers who have been with the company for a long time. Flat hierarchy reduces number of management or leadership type of positions. Incentives - monetary incentives to work harder and to be innovative are very weak and almost laughable. No stock options and only the upper levels of management get meaningful bonuses. Bureaucracy - lots of politics and brown nosing depending on which projects you work on. This is unavoidable in a very large company like Raytheon. Education - internal training focuses on process, government regulation, and ethics. Raytheon seems to be behind the curve on advancements in cutting edge technology. Change comes about slowly in a large defense company. Also, they don't have very good benefits for helping you get advanced degrees. Skills - many people suffer from loss of skills in the technical field. Some people get stuck working with proprietary programming languages that hinders their ability to get a job at another company. However, the brightest people usually get to work with the more difficult, and more marketable, programming languages. It is also easy to get stuck working on a multi-year, even decades long, project where your skill set can become out-dated.
