Engineering Dream... sort of
Pros
As an edison engineer the whole company is really your playground in a sense. GE has its hands in a dizzying array of technical areas. As a fresh engineering graduate you have ~2 years to find something that you really enjoy, even if it's not exactly what you went to school for. You thus have the chance to develop technical skills in areas that you probably didn't anticipate. I know a person who studied chemical engineering in undergrad but have done most of their rotations in software development and data science. Edison's are highly regarded within the company so if you are in the program managers will try and recruit you to do a rotation on their team. There are tons of interesting areas to get experience in, including embedded controls, web development, very deep/huge number of mechanical design opportunities, manufacturing engineering, process improvement, materials development/research, acoustics engineering/testing, combustion, nuclear engineering, 3d printing, etc. Additionally, there's a requirement to get your Master's while you work if you don't already have one (They pay for it). In GE Power however you are limited to Georgia Tech or NC State. There's not really any restriction on what degree you can do within engineering but if it is very different from your undergrad or not directly tied to the business you may have to talk to management to convince them. In addition to the masters classes which you will take part time will working, there is also internal training courses for the duration of the program which teach you things that are more specific to the area of work that GE Power is involved in. Think gas turbines, rotating machinery, vibrations, controls, thermodynamics, fluid flow, combustion, electromagentism & power generation. They also have leadership trainings and things where they fly you out to different places in the world to learn from company leaders and things. The company is unbelievably global and you will be exposed to engineers from all over the world. I have worked on projects with engineers from Mexico, Switzerland, France, Brazil, England, Saudi Arabia, India and Nigeria in less than 2 years. The atlanta office culture is pretty relaxed and casual with increasing diversity from both a gender and ethnic standpoint. You get the chance to rotate to a couple of different cities while you are on program, the most popular ones are greenville SC, atlanta GA, and schenectady NY, but people also end up in Houston TX and Milwaukee WI and every now and then people end up in San Ramon CA (mostly software out there though). As an edison the company invests pretty heavily in your development and people in corporate america view the program pretty highly, you will probably be headhunted if you keep your Linkedin profile up to date. Unlimited vacation/sick days at the discretion of your manager. Depending on your team you may be able to work remotely pretty frequently. Solid 401k matching and vision benefits. Company is very actively trying to change its culture to be more with the teams and shed its "old school corporate america" vibes by making evaluations more casual and making super flexible time off policies and getting more involved in software/digital space. (this transformation will take a while) Tons of affinity groups (womens network, african american forum, asian american, veterans network, people with disabilities etc) for support and some of them do some great service in their communities and get involved with the local universities for shadow days and other mentorship. Many of the affinity groups also have global conferences in cities that are huge networking events and a lot of fun.
Cons
Doing the masters part time can be intense some times Not all teams are created equally and depending on your site/team the culture can be VERY old school. The internal training can feel pretty pointless if your job isn't strictly gas turbines/mechanical design. While GE will pay for the masters you are also required to sign a contract saying that you will stay for ~4 years after the completion of the degree otherwise you have to pay them back a portion of it (Depending on how long you stay after finishing). The pay is eh. Depending on the business climate raises and program ending may be delayed. The amount of kool-aid pumping & GE horn tooting can be a bit much/overdone. They have a big push to hire a ton of women engineers in the future (this is a great thing), but ive heard men talk about it in the company make it terribly awkward by pointing out the 1or 2 women engineers on their team it can be weird and off putting... but at least theyre trying i guess. Layoffs recently because of business climate had a lot of people leave (people still on rotational programs pretty much protected though)
