Pros
* Some of the coolest Aerospace & Defence work you can ever do in Canada * Flexible work/life balance - WFH options, working hours. * Friendly and supportive coworkers. * Easy to own your work and find a niche. When you read these reviews, you need to understand that MDA does a lot of different stuff, and your experience in one department can be very different from your buddy's in another. For example, I have friends who travel around the world deploying cutting-edge RF technology in different countries, and I know people who sit in a windowless room, tediously maintaining an obsolete computer program for some branch of government nobody's ever heard of. One of these is obviously more interesting than the other, and it's up to you to get onto the interesting projects. More explicitly, it is up to you, the employee, to chat up your coworkers, learn about other projects, and advocate for yourself with the right people to get transfers (and promotions) and get into the roles you want. If you do this, there are lots of options, but this advancement does not happen automatically (perhaps it should).
Cons
Career development requires you to go knock on people's doors, which excludes employees who are introverted, timid or otherwise unassertive. As a result, MDA can get really talented staff pigeon-holed into roles that don't match their skillsets. * Salary is inferior to that of my colleagues at other companies. * Promotions/raises are infrequent unless you fight for them. * Some projects have a 3:1 manager:worker ratio, like a Dilbert cartoon. *Summary:* * I like the people I work with. * My teams appreciate me for the work I do. * I could leave to look for better pay, but what I do here is just _so cool_ that I'd be bored anyplace else in Canada.
