What is the hiring process like at Raytheon?

Although my experience with their hiring process was extensive and involved rigorous multistage interviews, my colleagues attest that they were hired out of college without so much as coding interviews. If your university has an RTX pipeline its an exceptional first job.

Annual bonuses and raises as well as promotions depend solely on whether or not your section head bothers to advicate for you. If you get a lazy or inattentive SH, your career will stagnate.

- Simple interview -Fast hiring process - Flexible hours

- In person - Slow internal processes - Long contracts

I'm not sure anymore. I've been here 22 years and hardly recognize the company any more. I don't see a lot of happy interns or new hires. People seem to just be here until something better comes along. The company froze our pensions (I was one of the last hiring classes that had a Raytheon defined benefit pension) in 2022 opening the gates of free agency for folks like me who have significant experience yet plenty of runway left on our careers.

After the UTC takeover, it's seemingly been all cons for mid-career and senior employees. There are few perks any more (no company funded get togethers, no lunches provided at section meetings, no spot awards, etc). Corporate profits remain high while workers are patted on the back with merit increases that don't even cover cost of living increases. For those of us getting high enough to move into executive functions, they keep stretching out our salary bands to keep us in the individual contributor ranks with paltry merit increases and crap bonuses. All the while, the "Golden Children", i.e. the selected few, get promoted quickly and pulled along into high salary, high bonus roles sitting atop the work us grunts do every day. Raytheon is now a business unit of RTX. Our defense business floats some of the mess created by the other business units (the Pratt & Whitney engine debacle of 2023 comes strongly to mind).

Exceptional individual teams: Each team I worked with at Raytheon was filled with talented and dedicated individuals. The expertise and passion within each team were undeniable. Strong learning and development opportunities: Raytheon offers a variety of training programs and resources for personal and professional growth. I learned a lot during my time at the company. Competitive benefits: Raytheon provides a comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plans, and paid time off.

Lack of clear vision and direction: The company's overall vision and direction were often unclear, making it difficult for employees to understand their roles and contributions to the bigger picture. Siloed structure: Communication and collaboration across different teams were challenging due to the company's siloed structure. Information sharing was often limited, and it felt like each team was operating in its own bubble. Challenges for new hires: Integrating into the company as a new hire was difficult due to the complex organizational structure and lack of onboarding support. It felt like I was thrown into the deep end without a life jacket. Limited opportunities for innovation: The siloed structure and lack of cross-functional collaboration stifled innovation and creativity. It felt like new ideas were often lost in the bureaucracy.

- Great work-life balance! If you work in a classified environment, your work stays at work and keeping work separate from home is easy. Also PTO is use-it-or-lose-it which is great in my opinion, and I've never had trouble scheduling it/getting it approved. Flexible schedules and part time work can easily be done as well. - Probably only worked 1 or 2 weekend days in 6 years of being there. - Mostly a laid-back work environment, but depends on the program. - Social events bring people together. - Pretty easy to make friends and coworkers that actually care about you. - Slow work pace, which could be a con for some. There's a lot of red tape in processes. - Plenty of opportunities within the company for many different jobs that include travel to site and even some remote work.

- Many unnecessary layers of management/organization. - Company will never pay software engineers at industry-standard software engineer rates; they will only ever pay you what their competition (other defense companies) pays their employees, which is low in comparison. - Overall individualistic work qualities are not rewarded. Promotions and raises seem completely random as if chosen out of a hat at times. Personally, my relationships and experiences with my managers has been really good and my good work felt noticed by them and feedback was good, but that didn't seem to play a role in the compensation advancement process overall due to the complicated multi-layered management scheme. - Lots of red process tape (as mentioned in part of a pro is a laid back work pace).

When you get to the actual engineering work, it's fun

I never got "more interesting work" and repeatedly was on the hiring team for younger, less experienced engineers making 15-20k more than me. Our program cycled through toxic program managers and chief engineers that would go on to be promoted

Better pay than other options, not awful interview process.

Low raises, not a great culture.

Plenty of opportunity to move around the company

Little mentoring available as a new hire.

Intense interview process and knowledge coworkers

Can’t get very involved in the work unless you have a clearance

Stable work with a lot job openings due to increases in awarded government contracts. Due to how government contracts are charged, you can get paid for all overtime hours at your normal hourly rate if more than 6 overtime hours have been worked during a work week. A 9/80 schedule is used which means every other Friday is a day off from work. The MOD time program allows flexibility for employees to run errands/go to the doctor/pick up kids and make up the missed time later. From my experience I have never had to request PTO, I would tell me functional and team leads my PTO plans a couple of weeks ahead of time and come up with a plan for task coverage. The work culture is good within the department with managers protecting individual contributors from downward pressure from program management. The is a lot of opportunities for people to pursue technical or managerial/leadership opportunities within the department.

Yearly salary increases are on average 2-3%. High performers can get increases up to 5%, low performers can get as little as a 0-1% increase. Promotions are almost non-existent, with employees needing to push hard on leadership to get promoted. The alternative is to apply to other internal positions for promotions and to be willing to move Raytheon sites. There is so much work to do that everyone is working multiple projects and is very busy all the time. Management is putting a lot of effort to hiring new personnel to manage the department and employee workloads.