Pros
Raytheon does a good job of supporting work/life balance. Most employees work a 9/80 schedule which allows them to take off every other Friday and can use 'Modified Time' to arrange their schedules around doctors appointments, parent/teacher conferences, etc. without having to use PTO. Employees who are talented and aggressively pursue opportunities for growth can quickly gain increased responsibility. As an engineer straight out of college with less than 6 months on the job, I was able to be a key member on several high-profile projects because I was in the right place at the right time and wasn't afraid to step up to the challenge. I built a solid reputation as a sharp engineer and a good presenter on those projects, which lead to respect from management and a number of challenging assignments. Life is good for those engineers who can quickly prove their worth and be regarded as members of the 'A' team. If you're working on a high profile project with mostly 'A' team engineers, the team will be highly intelligent, energetic, and motivated and will have the ear of management. Raytheon IDS is going through tremendous growth right now thanks to the resurgence of the Patriot missile. Because of foreign demand for the Patriot system, Raytheon has a large backlog of work that needs to be completed in a short time frame.
Cons
First of all, although engineers who prove their intelligence to technical management are treated well, it's a whole different story for everyone else. Most of the interesting work and new opportunities fall to the 'A' team, while those on the 'B' team (ie everyone else) are left to languish on boring assignments. Engineers who fail to get noticed by leadership early in their careers are often stuck in the same role for years (or decades) or shuttle from program to program without the chance to build any subject matter expertise. Employees can get stuck on the 'B' team track for a number of reasons: they weren't in the right place at the right time to get noticed early in their careers; they're on the shy side and don't speak up about opportunities to grow their skill sets; they have a boss who is too busy to care about their development; they're really good at performing a tedious job that no one else wants to do; they are of average ability; or they are just plain incompetent. Be careful not to get stuck on the 'B' team. If you haven't had the opportunity to get noticed in your first couple years at Raytheon, you probably never will. Also, be aware of working on or leading teams that consist mostly of 'B' teamers. Raytheon never fires anybody (short of an employee sexually harassing someone or stealing from the company), so there is a fair amount of dead weight hanging around. These employees can be difficult to motivate and produce poor quality work because they know their jobs are safe no matter how poorly they perform. Raytheon is struggling to deal with all the new Patriot work it has coming in. The company has done a horrible job of keeping up with the logistics of an expanding project. For instance, the site in Andover, where most Patriot work is performed, started running out of space 8 months ago. They are just now in the slow process of acquiring more office space. Many engineers have been doubled up in cubicles for 3, 4, or even 5 months. Because of the nature of defense work, most engineering is performed in classified computers labs where computers are claimed on a first come, first served basis. The main Patriot computer lab is getting to the point where there are more users then computers and engineer are having to wait for a free computer. Most of the computer lab's Matlab licenses recently expired, so engineers have been unable to use key Matlab tools and their work has been slowed while management fights over which department should be paying for new licenses. Existing employees are feeling overwhelmed by the influx of new hires and transfers from other programs. Management is too busy to take the time to train new employees, so they are thrown in and left to fend for themselves.
