Lots of opportunity and chaos - Propulsion Engineer Blue Origin Employee Review

4.0
1 Jan 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

By far the the best thing about Blue are the fellow engineers. There are so many brilliant people to learn from and befriend. The chaos at Blue is an opportunity. Options include: -Change career paths and learn a new skill all while being paid! Learning is the main reason this is a 4-star review. -Identify a missing element in the company and create your own department. -Start a technical focus group. -Get funding to attend a conference or obtain special training in a skills useful to the company. -Propose a new product/invention that is useful to the mission and obtain funding to develop it. -Work 40 hours a week (if you want). -A good amount of free beer and social events. In short, if you look at the company progress as a whole you may be disappointed at Blue. If you are entrepreneurial there are many opportunities to learn and experiment here on the individual level. That, and all the lifelong friends I have made, are why I recommend it.

Cons

-The company is bad at getting things done and frankly is not a world class rocket builder (right now). Lots of risk aversion and bureaucracy. -A good cohort of 'diversity warriors' distracting from the mission. -Management seems to be more interested in designing some convoluted process they can put on their resume than actually getting things done. Management does not hold people accountable or motivate (by carrot or stick) action. -There are weird power structures and arrogance. A lot of management does not listen to 'common engineers' but will heartily agree if an 'anointed one' says that same thing. -Management is mostly 'professional managers' with MBAs from the right schools or from traditional aerospace. -Lots of annoying 'cover-my-ass' big company safety training and rules. -Enterprise software is a mess. 100 different systems none of which work well or talk to each other. -Annuals raises average 3%. If you get a promotion it may only be 5%.

Explore other reviews about Blue Origin

5.0
16 Jun 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great place to work, I had a supportive manager which makes all the difference!

Cons

Only contract work is typically offered for my position and often we do not get converted.

1.0
14 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free coffee and snacks and a slice of pizza when New Glenn launched and landed. They years before Blue gave everyone a 10K bonus for the New Shepard first human flight, they have since shut the entire program down.

Cons

Too many to list. The high performers get hit the hardest. I went 8 months without out missing a day, pick up other incomplete projects. After 8 years I received zero stock options which was promised at time of hire. When I left Blue had 383 people with Director in their title and had 40 VPs. Blue even posted a picture of the Chief Engineers on their Facebook page, they had 42! I was there for 8 years and my title never changed, every year they promised a promotion but they never come. I have 2 Masters degrees my Sr Manager had an A.A in arts, once he made Sr Director he was there for 6 months and moved to Andril. The pad repairs will take a year and they will loose the FCC bandwidth which will make them obsolete.

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