Lockheed Martin reviews

-Direct managers are spread out, so you may have one manager in Texas and another in Georgia, and you work in California. This is highly discouraging because your managers only judge you on what is on a piece of paper. -Promotions are so few and far between it is depressing. It is constantly brought up as an issue to management and they always shrug their shoulders and act like its not a big deal. -Then, the few times they do promote, it doesn't make any sense at all. They'll promote someone with 2 years at the company with less education over somebody who works their tail off for 6 years with more education. This produces a lot of tension and turmoil and people end up leaving because the morale is so low. -They had a bad evaluation system to begin with when I got here. So, being Lockheed, they replaced it with an even worse, more subjective evaluation system called LM Commit. It is horrible and it makes people wish for the old evaluation system back. -Like most corporations these days, they try to get you to do more with less. As the older generation retires, they expect you to take over their jobs, which is fine, but they don't compensate you for any of the extra work you take on. -Raises are horrible. Average 1-3 percent a year, and if you are the absolute cream of the crop, maybe 5 percent. This may be average for this economy as whole right now, but it really is shameful for a company that is the number one defense company in the world with a stock just under $200. You would think they might open up the wallet a little to keep employees from leaving since they got rid of pensions but no, Lockheed is happy to give you dirt devil or a backpack before they ever give you a decent cost of living raise. -Management has got their head so far up in the clouds they rarely have time to address employee concerns on projects. Most are dismissive, condescending, and act like they could care less about the status of your projects. -This is coming from an employee who had a generally good first 3 years at the company. The lack of growth, promotion opportunities, and overall apathy has made this place toxic.

As a company, Lockheed can be brutal on incompetence and failures. By this, as a technical professional, your ideas, knowledge and abilities will constantly be questioned by peers and managers. Everyday to show up for work, you have to prove yourself all over again. If you can not defend your technical knowledge successfully you will be marginalized and most likely leave the company. The mark of death by the technical professionals is to be called a "non-technical." If you can not shake this label, then everything you say will fall on polite but deaf ears. The culture is harsh on anyone that do not strive for professional excellence. If this happens, your best hope is to find a position in management. As for managers, failure to meet extremely challenging objectives or satisfy even the most difficult customers is dealt with harshly. In many cases it can be the end of your career at Lockheed Martin. It only takes one failure to be tagged unworthy of leadership and part of the "de-railed" class of managers that float around seeking redemption. Your only chance of recovery is a guardian angel in the executive ranks that has clout. Otherwise, start looking for new opportunities or resolve your career ambitions to your current role in the company. As a result of this cultural attitude, Lockheed is a very conservative, risk adverse company. Which leads to the Lockheed "innovation misconception." Although, Lockheed is great for innovative problem solvers it is not much fun for creative, intuitive, or artistic thinkers. Unless you can back up your creative ideas with irrefutable detailed facts & figures; then, decision-makers will most likely dismiss you and your ideas. If you persists with your "brilliant ideas" they may label you as an "eccentric." Most successful revolutionary innovations at Lockheed occur when the ideas are developed under the radar and revealed as proof of concepts; or, with approved IRAD funding. However, if you expend company resources under the radar and fail to deliver a successful innovation; then, you've just signed your career death certificate at this company. Lets face it, Lockheed is more an engineering company and less a design studio or R&D firm. They solve complex problems they do not set out to create novel technologies. So don't be confused by the innovation propaganda. If you want true creative innovation, consider GE, Battelle Memorial labs, Apple, IDEO, etc. If you want to solve complex problems, then consider Lockheed.