Thales reviews

THis llst could go on perpetually, but I will try to list the most critical issues: 1. culture: old aerospace folks who either worked for Boeing, or Parker Hannifin or other aerospacce group; this is an CON becuase this division is more commercial in nature because their product is their content delivery platform for the airplanes (the content video boxes) - so it has nothing to do with Aerospace except it was built in the same plant where they use to build the aeronautics. This division competes with Panasonice who smokes them because Panasonic understands the commerial arena. This is definitely going to hold this company back from growing. 2. Culture again: this is not a technology hip company. THey just got smart phones last year and they really do not understand the benefit of them. (i.e, they don't use then to be efficient). The Mgt team members all prefer to conduct F2F meetings so that is all they do. MY director would go to meetings all day long that were mostly update sessions or discussion sessions where nothing got done. THat is just a French thing where the management teamn likes to debate things forever and over analyze it to death. This is a big time waster for those who are use to more aggressive, lean, hands on management style that is prevalent these days. It will be very confusing to younger generation. I worked with an intern from Cal Poly - and he was a junrior. He had more technical and critical thinking skills than most of the long term employees I worked with (in the office area not manufacturing). THis company is definitely not for the creative, innovative types. 3. staff augmentation: they relied heavily on outsource staffing. That is how they got any talent and most was off-shore so they had cheap rates (but still talented); you almost feel like you were exploiting them but this seems to be common in what is left of the aerospace companies. You don't find many 'American's in the engineering teams except for the management, and the entry level folks who don't mind grunt work. 4. Salary - I hear from the engineering teams that salaries are lower than the competitive area. However, in the office positions, you have old-timers that have been there so long that they make really good money plus have 8-10 weeks vacations so they are not going to go anywhere nor do they bring in any new ideas to the table. THey just do the same think like they always do. 5. Technology - I mentioned this earlier - they have old fashiion work process that are manual and remind you of the 80's. you almost expecct to see green screen monitors and green striped computer reports. Again, it reminds me of old aerospace environment which I do happen to have a little experience with when I interned at Lockheed in the mid 80's. THis place looks and acts the same - very surreal now that it is 30 years later. THey finally are getting an ERP (SAP) system installed, but they have no clue how it will happen. It took 3 weeks to get a laptop, and a month to get me a smartphone , though the request had been in the system for over 2 weeks. I was told that it was actually quick for me. Go figure. THey had very locked down security that was very proprietary as most of it was implemented in France where it seems that they are not very hip on basic things like ENcryption. Yes, security should always be an issue, but there are plenty of fortune 100 companies who have figured it out without impeding their employees abilities to do their work. 6.. Overall: because of the manual processes, and constant meetings culture, this organizatin can not respond quickly and alienated their suppliers. Generally, everyone just develops an apathetic, tolerant view of things. If you are a go-getter, you will be miserable here like I was. No one really expects you to get things done, and if you do, you likely had to steam roll someone. THere is always too much work again because of the old fashion internal business processes. it feels very much like a government agency. The culture is also very much a good 'ol boys environment but not even a current version of it, atleast in today's hi-tech companies if you are a smart female, you get tolerated by the men, but here, you just get ignored unless you are attractive (which does help).

This company has a legacy HR system that is traditionally not very kind to junior (younger) entrants, even if you have strong skillsets. Software and DevOps skillsets can earn you a lot more in the market (especially in richer corporations) while here, they will peg your salary to what is usually offered to younger fresh grads. This also means that you will be stuck with that low bar salary - increments are generally average and wont affect your TC much. Recently I've noticed alot more younger personnel leaving for other opportunities, where they pay closer to market rate. But if money is not a concern for you and youre happy working with a generally older and traditional crowd, then this might be a good place for you. Others: - Flexi benefits of 1200 is considered low compared to some other organisations - Leaves are very low too. 18 days for the first year, and slowly incremented. In 10 years, you'll only have about 22 days leave. There are organisations that offer 30 days leave, or maybe even unlimited PTO just as a junior. - even if thales is doing very well, the bonus is quite limited, definitely not as much as that in civil service