Pros
9/80 schedule. If you get to work early enough you can find a paved parking spot.
Cons
The most difficult part of writing this review is knowing that it will reflect poorly on us who currently work at Applied Aerospace. It’s shameful to tell somebody you work in Aerospace only for them to check Glassdoor, see a nice 3.1 rating with the most pleasant reviews, and then see you making less than interns at other companies. Also, it begs the question, who in their right mind would look through the reviews and then think to themselves, “wow, this is where I want to spend my career”. Obviously, I’m not in the right mind, as I currently work here, and I read through the Glassdoor reviews prior to applying so take my review with a pinch of salt. Wages: They tout a 4% raise as “excellent”, and only for stellar employees. It wouldn’t be a problem if the starting wage wasn’t 25% lower than almost any surrounding engineering company. It’s really disheartening to see job postings advertised for entry level engineers, $10,000+ above what you currently make. The current system does not appropriately award motivated individuals. Sure, you’re a standout star and work your butt off, but sorry, no promotions available because our managers have not retired yet! What we can do instead is a 4% raise, a whole 1% better than your peers who sat there all year with a thumb up their butt. Management is not incompetent, they understand how to motivate both the program managers and employees on the floor. They offer a performance-based bonus to the managers and offer overtime to the workers. Then they just expect engineers to magically be motivated to push hard for the manager’s bonus. Sure, there’s a bonus for engineers, it starts at 1% of your salary with a chance for it to be raised to 2% if you’re on the CEO’s nice list but it’s nowhere close to what management gets. Unemployment is at all-time lows, and it seems like fresh hires don’t last long before jumping ship to a better paying company. Management tries to stop it, but they still test how much they can get away with before it starts really hurting them. They give engineers a small raise whenever somebody leaves but it still doesn’t bring us close to market rate. As far as the rest of the benefits, health insurance is just OK with a decently low monthly cost but relatively poor coverage. 401k match exists, but nothing to write home about. 3 weeks of vacation but no sick leave and they force you to take a week off for yearend shutdown (consider it just 2 weeks then), vision and dental are paid for and offer decent coverage. Work Life: Program managers didn’t get to where they are now without being financially savvy. They understand the more money they bring in, the more money they get to keep! They’ll see a staffing need in their monthly reports and they just won’t care to address it until somebody starts breaking down or threatening to quit. Remember, its their bonus on the line! The three types of engineers who end up staying long term at Applied Aerospace are: the geriatrics waiting for retirement, incompetent engineers who are lucky to even have a job, or engineers who worked hard to find a spouse who serves as the breadwinner. I would like to find myself in the lattermost category but I neither have the looks nor the paycheck to woo somebody of that caliber. Growth: Company is very conservative. You could look at this as a positive. Work will be steady and similar to what currently goes on. No innovative, ground breaking work. “Best value supplier, lowest paid workers!” Standard path: Associate Engineer (Year 0 – Year 2) > Engineer (Year 2 – Year 5) > Sr. Engineer (Year 6-7+) > Associate Program Manager (??? When somebody retires? And you’re at minimum a Sr. Engineer)