Northrop Grumman reviews

This company apparently has terrible management. One manager (not my direct manager) directly asked me to work for free. He asked me to work on something on my own time since he did not have the budget for it. Being part-time on-call, I felt compelled to oblige him in the hopes that it would lead to permanent employment. My immediate manager appropriated a budget that I was awarded for a project I had conceptualized. This individual took every dime of that budget, such that I could not even pay myself to manage the project. The funding was granted by those in authority high above us, yet there was nothing I could do. I expressed my concern three times to this manager. He actually said, "I don't mean to cannibalize your budget, but ..." Yet that is exactly what he was doing. After assuring me that that funding would be based on my needs, he sent me an email, at home, mind you, with a list of everything he had procured, and it consumed the entire budget. The creative director, while always friendly to me, had two large dogs following her around wherever she went. Yes, just like the show The Office, but these were giant poodles. Being part-time on-call, I did not have my own office. I began in a large community cubicle space, and I was then moved into a two-person cube. Problems with noise led me to ask for permission to move into a vacant office nearby. I figured that, given my experience and the fact that I was leading a project, I should have my own office. There was just one problem, however. The office was actually used by the creative director's dogs. Unfortunately for me, I was less important than the poodles. This is actually the point at which I left the company. Perhaps revealing my own naivety, I never imagined such things happening at a company like Northrop Grumman. I considered sticking around, in the hopes of advancing or opening other doors, but in our weekly meetings, on more than one occasion, management made it clear that there was no room for advancement at this particular location. In summary, great people, poor management. I have no evidence that this reality is systemic. The feeling I got was that, in a hiring market, they can choose anyone they want to work there and they will have no problem finding individuals who will tolerate a reality such as I described. If you are ambitious and have self-respect then make sure you ask appropriate questions when interviewing.

Each sector of the corporation operates independently with seemingly zero synergy. The legacy Information System sector was the cheapest sector of the corporation that offered woeful compensation package. IS was the only sector that stopped pension and other retirement programme to supplement 401K. Therefore any legacy IS employees in the current corporate structure will have to make do with working with colleagues that collect much more handsome salaries and retirement package. Transfer between projects is a simple change of job locations and description because salary raise is never a possibility. Work-life balance is non-existent for ground-level employees. Managers cannot be bothered to say 'thank you' when one works through the night to deliver something to make deadline and overtime work is never paid. Anyone foolish enough to demonstrate loyalty and dedication is rewarded with an universally given 3 for average for annual performance rating. As with annual salary raises, anything above 2.5% should be considered a gift from God. There is hope however because favouritism is rampant. Anyone lucky enough to secure a senior manager's affection or has connection with high-level leadership can walk the easy paths paved with rose petals. The company spends a lot of money on employee development but only if employee has a company computer to access the resources. For everyone else that uses only project computers hopes and dreams is the only available option. For anyone that hopes to join because Northrop Grumman was the maker of the F-14 Tomcat and the B-2 Spirit, look elsewhere. Those glory days are long gone and never again.