I have worked for almost every A&D company.
LM Aero specifically, has the most under qualified workforce I have ever seen. The managers shouldn't even be managing their own finances, let alone have any direct reports. It's rampant with DEI and DEI hires. It's the worst in the industry from top to bottom.
Over 20 years in industry across many different functions. Across 5 defense contractors.
I once head one of our core customers refer to a major project as:
“PowerPoint Engineering”
…and they were right. The “engineers” were really great at writing brochures and PowerPoint slides. My team was there because the reality was that they couldn’t actually perform, and the leadership could no longer hide it.
After two consecutive 0% award fees, the removed program leadership, and a majority of the engineers. We had to scramble to build what they had said they were building (but couldn’t) in a very short amount of time.
What galled me was that we realized that a lot of this dysfunction was caused by the management, who wouldn’t let their people do what they were trained to do, coupled with a small, but very active group of ICs that were more interested in being management than in doing their damn jobs.
Lockheed’s answer to the solution? Kiss up, kick down. They indiscriminately got rid of a majority of the engineers on the program (including the good ones). Way too many of the bad ones were moved to other programs because they were politically connected within the company.
The leadership that caused this mess and cost the company about $180 Million? Replaced. But not fired. Oh no, they were put on the shelf for a year or so, and then you’d see their names here and there taking a larger position within the company.
They protected and rewarded the ones that caused and perpetuated the sc--w up.
And my team? And the other groups that had to rush in to fix things? Once we were done, the company tried to lay us off. Our services were no longer needed, and the programs and IRADS we came from had filled our positions in our absence to help save this contract.
Then to pour salt in the wound, the company gave awards out for the efforts performed to “right the ship”, and for doing so with such success and so quickly. The bastages gave the awards (and held a nice little ceremony at the CLE) to the chief architect and program managers who caused the 0% award fee and were no longer part of the program or associated in any way, shape, or form with the recovery.
I started sending out my resume the next day. I got lucky and managed to find a home on a program even though they only gave me 2 and a half weeks notice that they were going to lay me off. Going through that, after saving their bacon, then watching the company reward the same mo--ns that caused this catestrophe in the first place? No thanks.
So when people ask me what it’s like to work for Lockheed, I share this little story. I kept the email announcements and save the website page regarding the awards, and then show the unclass email showing how those same bozos were kicked off the program close to a year beforehand.
The older “Lockheed Martians” (their term, not mine) just shake their heads. The younger ones are usually stunned silent, and everyone else in our industry just nods and says “typical day at Lockheed”.
Does that answer your question?
A lot of Lockheed is deadhead paper-pushing, career-ending dreck that is inapplicable elsewhere. Politics and infighting are the ordure of the day. Past a certain age you'll quite likely be bounced with few employment prospects or marketable skills.
Depends on what you’re looking for. In general, Northrop is far better than LM. A lot of the smaller companies are.
Boeing? No. And that’s long before they moved their HQ (which is when things really went south for them).
Raytheon? Yikes!!!
Now if you’re into OT (Operational Technology), cybersecurity, or some other more specialized fields, Lockheed is absolutely not the place to be. We buy our talent, we don’t develop it, and we don’t have a good track record of being able to keep it. When you realize that last part, it’s a big red flag for folks in those fields.
In my personal experience, I would suggest LMC over any other defense company, but LMC also has its issues.