If you are lucky enough to fall into a certain clique you will do well
My program is super young like most are under 25 including the managers so of you are young you have great opportunities to succeed… if you are in the small group in your 30’s-40’s you better not have plans for going anywhere in this program.
With the managers being so young they lack a lot of experience on how to hold people accountable for their work and since the program is growing expect to have several managers in a short period of time which just causes chaos. In the last year I have had 5 managers. Well 3 legit managers and 2 others At the time were interim managers so expect to have any chances of promotion to be lost in the shuffle.
In the 16 months I have been here I have had my paycheck not submitted to payroll at least 5 times that I can think of off the top of my head abs a couple of those were for multiple weeks of pay. 2 of them were covid related and I was told it was my fault for not submitting my hours yet I was told to quarantine but they expect me to sneak on site to submit my hours? Not sure how that makes any sense but sure, my fault.
Now in terms of advancement I’ve been told there is a hiring freeze yet a lot of new people coming and going so I’m confused on that one. I wanted to pursue NDI which we are short staffed in and always waiting for so I got my certifications to qualify for the position. After applying and speaking with the manager I was told that Northrop Grumman will not bring you up in house and they only hire NDI techs with 8-10yrs
Pros4 day work weeks, incredibly cool project you work on
Senior System Engineer | San Diego, CA | Apr 18, 2016
Not a great place for Forward Looking and Proactive Engineers
For a company culture that says they innovate and are forward looking and cutting edge, I have never felt that within the company. Company leadership stresses engagement with employees, but in reality they're setting unrealistic program timelines and schedule and not utilizing standard engineering practices to save time and reduce costs.
The direct program and department leadership seem even less receptive to forward looking problem solving and solutions development within the company. Constantly presenting ideas on cost savings by introducing well known continuous improvement standards, I have always been rebuffed by management as the questions that I ask them seem to threaten their livelihood. Driving company cultural change and asking the deep question of "why" has always resulted in "it's been done this way before," leading to the concultion that no one in leadership even cares about improving the product and customer output. Things stay status quo and there's little ability to advance beyond one's current position.
NGC is a "know-it-all" leadership culture that bad-mouths those who conflict with the ineffective and unreasonable engineering practices. Instead of solving problems, they're just concerned with the bottom line and their paycheck bonuses necessary to accomplishing their EVMS targets. Those targets are based on outdated program IMSs and the unwillingness to change process to address the issues related to actual costs versus costs of contract bid.
ProsGood Benefits, Good 401k
ConsLow wages, inability to pursue one's successful promotion, few expectations ever set by leadership, ineffectual know-it-all management
Many of the jobs are bait & switch. This is understandable if you have to wait a long time to get a clearance so that you can't do the type of work you applied and interviewed for, but this still happens even after you have your clearance and have been with the company for a while. I think a part of the problem is that they are usually short of people and or the roles they need they are not getting (qualified?) applicants for--so you are kind of dropped into these open spots and that's where you're stuck.
Most work bottlenecks through a final few people, so there is a lot of downtime or no work for a lot of people and then others are always swamped. Sometimes you can volunteer for other work, but I have found that groups often don't let their people do this, so you often just end up doing busy work or nothing at all. You often have to follow up with people multiple time to get information/data that is necessary to your completing a task or project. Sometimes you never get a response.
A lot of the processes are slow, bureaucratic, which can be frustrating and may mean that some things are not resolved in time if at all. I have worked in groups where someone higher up knows they need something done a month or more in advanced and they won't mention it to the people who have to do it until a day to a few days beforehand--you'll be expected to work late/holidays/weekends to finish it in those cases. This happened a lot with that program.
There is a lot of delay in getting a
ProsEvery other Friday off, flexible schedule, job stability
Great place to work...many opportunities and stretch assignments...
I started at Northrop Aerospace in 1985 way before it became Northrop Grumman. I left in 1992 to go to the Commercial Division when the company split and the Commercial Division was acquired by Vought Aerospace. I have often said since my departure from Northrop Grumman, it was the best work environment I've had the pleasure of being a part of. Just a wonderful, awesome place to work during that time. When one speaks of "teamwork" it was in every sense of the word when I was there. Everyone was invested in your success and people had your back. I was allowed more opportunities there, when just starting out in my career, than I've had since and now I have more education (which I most I received while at Northrop Grumman) and much more experience. A typical day included being a part of creative, brainstorming meeting, attending workshops, on many occasions got to teach soft skills classes, spent countless hours on the shop floor interacting with the mechanics inquiring about what we could do (in human resources) to make their work performance/job better to From management, I learned about teamwork and doing an excellent job and not stopping until the work was done...I learned some of my greatest work ethics at the company. I didn't know it then but Northrop Grumman/Vought has been the measurement stick I've use against every other company I've worked at and so far none has measured up. From my co-workers, I learned about working together collectively to get the job done. When t
Proshappy and fun place to go to work everyday, lots of opportunity for growth, teamwork, incentives
Consi wished i never left...
4.0
Field Service Technician | Huron, SD | Oct 31, 2020
A Good Three Years While It Lasted
Highly specialized job inside Post Office sorting hub fixing and maintaining machines that searched for certain poisonous chemicals in the mail. ( I didn't work directly FOR the Post Office, though). Northrop is an outside contractor.
Safe, or so I thought for 3 years, because it couldn't be taken away by some joker off the street. I worked alone 99.9% of the time, which I truly loved. Never had to deal with drama queen co-workers. Good, because I tend to tell those kinds of people exactly what I think of them, be they management or otherwise. Cost me a few jobs in my lifetime, though I never regretted doing so. I still don't.
No one micromanaging you. I did have a manager, but he was regional and rarely stopped by. He could nitpick sometimes, but overall, I liked him. Stellar software & hardware support by engineers in those fields if you needed them.
Job ending 12/31/20 because costs had to be cut on new contract w/ Post Office. My site will be combined and run by the tech in Sioux Falls. No proof, but since I'm decades older than the guy taking it over, I'm not surprised I was the one who got the boot, even though I live far closer to both sites than he does. He also has 16 years in. I had only 3 years.
Never made even close to what I was paid at this job during all my working years. I came out of retirement for this job, and it was only the second job I ever had in my life that I truly liked. I'm pretty heartbroken at losing this job through no fault of my own. It's
ProsWorked alone. Money was GREAT. No overbearing manager breathing down your neck.
ConsCertain paperwork that had to be done occasionally, that's all, really.
-very dysfunctional and slow processes
-a pattern of very poor team management if you have new hires leaving within a month and a half month
-the worst onboarding process.
I had to wait a month from when I accepted the position to start which I have never seen in my life. and even after that month I still had to continue to fill out paperwork as recently as this week. It’s like pulling tooth and nails to gain simple access. NG is the archaic, slow and inefficient. You guys had me become your errand boy and waste time going back and back to offices to get and drop off birthday and etc cards, nowhere in my job description was that listed, I didn’t complain about th
It is dumbfounding that my first day was not simply taking my photo for my badge and then providing me all my needed accesses and laptop since they had me wait a month to start here. I did not have a laptop for almost two weeks, then after getting the loaner laptop being behind the eight ball as the rest of my coworkers were able to perform their job duties a lot better than myself as they had all of the necessary equipment and accesses needed to perform their job duties. I Finally received my permanent laptop on 10/4 which is almost a month from starting at NG. Then I did not receive the necessary SAP access until one day short of a month of starting at NG which is essential for the financial position which I had followed up around 7 times, again which shows that NG doesn’t employ the right people as nothing
Senior Software Engineer | San Diego, CA | Oct 10, 2013
Often Chaos, changing priorities, poor management, ruined career
I worked at several offices in Rancho Bernardo. When I started, there was little direction, chaos. I had successfully saw a project through to completion that had failed 4 times before me and the government loved and gave follow on money. Yet, people who had nothing to do with the project came out of the woodwork taking credit for the software that had nothing to do with it, people who were responsible for the chaos in the first place.
Additionally, my career was ruined after being put on projects that had nothing to do with the area of expertise I was hired to do. I was hired to be a java developer. There was plenty of java development work available, My boss lied to me about some work that he wanted me to work on. After I agreed, it had nothing to do with Java. Additionally that boss asked me to fudge the outcome of some software. When I reported the issue to the ethics people, my manager retaliated. I wrote over 200,000 lines of scripting code in 8 months and my boss retaliated. He said that was not enough. The company talks about ethics and reporting issues that are ethic issues yet they allow for retaliation. Subsequently I was placed on additional projects that had nothing to do with java. My idea that I brought to that subsequent project saved the project and future work for the company. Instead of a reward or bonus, I was rewarded with a layoff notice. When sequestration came and there was a reduction in force, instead of the company placing me in a Java position, th
Plusses:
* You get your own office! (or share with an office mate.)
* Smart peers, and smart managers of good will. Not something you can take for granted, though I've been lucky in my career.
* You work on satellite software, even military satellites (you need a Top Secret to get into the details). It was nice, even sometimes exciting, to support the 'mission', of contributing to the US' space force. There are some cool projects there, for sure.
* They keep their tech stack as up-to-date as is reasonable - per project.
* Nice cafeteria - $4 (or $5), for a big, plate-sized omelette :). A nice, and reasonably-priced salad bar. Overall very good.
* Did I mention that you get your own office? I admit that that got a bit isolating, though.
Minuses: They use Agile, which I hate. I do like breaking the day up with meetings, and I (grudgingly) like deadlines, but overall Agile increases pressure, and decreases your sense of autonomy. Am not a fan.
* They have a 9/80 work schedule (9 hours / day for 9 days, but with every other Friday off) which was instituted as a favor to employees. I found it wearing, though, and one manager admitted that he used the 10th 'free' day to recover from all the rest. But, I guess that would otherwise consume your Saturday.
* Not being management I didn't get to see the shifts in the big picture, and I would have liked to known how the winds were blowing, why priorities were changed. To be fair, there are meetings where you're encourag
The Good:
The working environment was very relaxed and enjoyable. My fellow employees were great people. Even my immediate managers were competent, motivational and relaxed. The benefits were good in the beginning but began to deteriorate as time went on. All in all it was an enjoyable place to work day to day.
Since the company is so big you do have a sense of job security. I always felt that if my contract fell through they would find me a place to go.
The Bad:
The structure of the company was very inefficient in almost all aspects. The company as a whole is extremely top heavy which means the non-product direct people need to be paid by contract money. So in order to pay those salaries they need to pad the contract bids with more money. This causes them to loose a bunch of contracts since the government is trying to cut costs. This sturcture also needs to make sure everyone of these managers has something to do, so they implement a matrixed management structure. This means that the person that decides your salary increase, merit rewards, etc. may only talk to you once or twice a year. As a result, the higher managers are very out of touch with what their employees are doing and they don't see us as people but more like ROI percentages.
As I left they were rolling out a new standard for salary increases. This new policy breaks people down into levels that are basically reflections of your perceived ROI. If you are in the higher ranks (mid-high m
I was in an auto accident and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). I was very lucky and recovered in half the time of the average. I returned to work, part time, in 6 months. The TBI information warned about discrimination upon returning to work and recommended having a workplace advocate. I didn't believe I needed one or had any concern as these were people I had worked with for over 10 years and considered friends. I was very wrong. Upon returning to work the situation started at being told I must still be brain damaged and proceeded over time to being told my memory was just fine and that I was just failing to perform. That was the diagnosis of the department manager. I ‘m not sure which part of his computer science degree or MBA qualified him to make judgment calls on brain injuries and recovery. But his ego has him convinced he is qualified for anyting and everything.
I tried to get help from HR multiple times and they did nothing to help or protect my rights. They did pass me from one peron to another again and again. After being laid off I consulted a lawyer and was told that I have a good case for discrimination, but the average settlement would be about X. By the time you pay the costs (lawyer and whatever), the time investment, and the ‘black mark’ I would have from NGC, accepting my severance was the ‘smartest’ path.
NGC as a company… I don’t have enough information to firmly state a positive or negative opinion. NGC TS AWS and their HR support.... they do noth
Prosperform well & never have any special needs, things will probably be fine., fit the mold & brown nose, you will be rewarded.
Consthe ‘good ole boy’ network is strong here., serious injury = loss of job.
Questions And Answers about Northrop Grumman
What would you suggest Northrop Grumman management do to prevent others from leaving?
Asked Mar 21, 2017
Aerospace and space force are a thing of the past. People care more about the largest part of the federal budget, healthcare. Divest more into healthcare.
Answered Nov 29, 2020
Break up into smaller companies to undo the past 40 years of corporate consolidation in the aerospace industry. Make no mistake, there’s a reason the pioneers of “new space” are independent venture capitalists.
Answered Apr 21, 2020
How are the working hours at Northrop Grumman?
Asked Feb 25, 2016
My experience as an engineer is you just in your 80 hours over any given two week period. At times, you may got offered "EWW" (Extended Work Week) where they will pay you for going over 80 hours (I've heard some folks have had to work at least 8 hours over it to get paid, but my experience was I got paid for every hour worked), but it was optional. YMMV.
Answered Sep 8, 2021
50 hour weeks typical. 9/80 is propaganda
Answered Jul 10, 2021
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Northrop Grumman?
Asked May 1, 2017
Make sure you are willing to conform to the rules blindly--make sure you (and the interviewer) are comfortable with toeing the company line no matter what
Answered Mar 12, 2020
Be yourself and see how you like them.
Answered Feb 29, 2020
If you were to leave Northrop Grumman, what would be the reason?
Asked Mar 23, 2017
Forced, due to mandatory vaccination.
Answered Oct 8, 2021
Bad management on b2 subcontracts in palmdale. The manager was crazy...administer psych test for new mgrs. This woman abused her people until they left
Answered Jan 14, 2020
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Northrop Grumman a better place to work?
Asked Jan 19, 2018
When training employees on software you use make sure one person trains them from beginning to end. There are too many people that have their own shortcuts and it creates confusion for new hires even if taking notes. Thank you.
Answered Jan 18, 2020
Get rid of verbally abusive functional managers and Hire new ones who are not ABUSIVE especially those at Melbourne classified site. They are getting away with their behavior because nobody is watching them. Top managers are wnderfull! Its just this side. Its hurting the company and people are leaving in droves because of this behavior
