I have an ex co-worker who has slithered his way into a job at the corporate level. I say slithered because he does very little in the way of real work. I know because I was also once in a similar job. All they do is talk "initiatives" all day as if they know something, but most don't have any real skill (no, talking over others in a meeting about methods to address "current priorities" isn't work). Some have engineering degrees, but couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag.
I left corporate some time ago and took a job as a DE (where I started in the company 15 years ago). It is HARD work. It is real work. I am close to the product, and I support our customers directly. I have many late nights with loads to do and not enough time.
I found out last week that I will be getting the axe in July.
What really burns me isn't that I don't understand this is an industry-wide problem, and that we will have to take a hit, and it isn't that I don't get that we were already in a pickle with the MAX and will have to take a hit...it's that people who I KNOW do VERY LITTLE compared to me are being held onto, simply because they appear to be working on things the company will need in the future, yet who I know aren't really contributing ANY value to the bottom line. Again, I speak from experience.
Boeing's organizational intelligence is still highly stupid overall, because its management is generally lazy when it comes to honest assessments of employees. It is highly affected by all manner of cognitive bias in this regard. It doesn't sort and sift based on true need, but rather tends to simply use the shortcut that if your job title claims to be important to the future, it must be. Never is any due diligence done by any higher ups to determine if that's really true. You end up with people at corporate who simply think it's a big game, and they have learned how to play it. They talk themselves up all day and pretend to have "special" skills they really don't (but again, no one is going to call them on it). Entire organizations rename themselves to cash in on trends by looking important - nevermind that they contribute nothing of value to the whole. Then, they get themselves assigned to "special initiatives" like "Design Practices" (a feeble attempt at culture change due to the MAX accidents) so they can appear important to the future by cranking out reams of useless PowerPoint presentations all day, yet if you asked them to do any real work of any consequence whatsoever, they would try like hell to pawn it off on someone else, or they would crumble. It's pathetic!
It's probably like this wherever you go to some extent. There will always be a-holes at the top, who are actually bottom feeders in disguise as hard working people, but at Boeing it's rampant.
In a way I'm happy though, as I won't be coming back, even if its offered. In a way, I hope this ship sinks completely, and the company goes under. At least it may k–l off some of the rats.