Configuration Data Administrator - Configuration Data Administrator Composite Engineering Inc Employee Review

- Interesting projects to work on - Well intentioned co-workers and management (you'll see this shortly in the Cons too) - Some cutting edge technology (and some dull technology) - Kratos Corporate is looking for the UAV group to deliver (lots of R&D money and political support) * Note other comments about being run by a tyrant were from an earlier management regime time. 2013/2014/2015 there was a big change when CEi was bought by Kratos, the founders left the company, and there were a bunch of layoffs.

- Small company playing with the large DOD companies, we often find ourselves out of depth (agreeing to contracts with not enough time or money to execute, planning, etc). - Corporate infrastructure is clunky and holds things back (proposal process, purchasing, IT, configuration management, etc). Generally, the company has not invested in enterprise level process tools to streamline day-to-day business functions (instead it has compounded problems by weakly merging acquired companies together and then added more bureaucracy on top). - Communication up and down the management chain. - Well intenetioned co-workers and management (short sighted decisions and stove piped teams make for dysfunction)

They make interesting niche products. They know how to manufacture with composites. Manufacturing is their strength. Being such a small company allows one to see many areas and move around to different fields. Every part of the company is close together.

This small company is trying to play in a big company arena as a DOD contractor but is failing in many regards. Much of this can be traced back to its top-down dictatorial management style. Employees and employee input are not valued. They are willing to throw one of their own under the bus to get out of a tight spot. This leads to very low moral and high turn-over. I have watched some of the finest engineering talent walk out the door. Partial successes are over-sold. This comes back to bite the company over and over when it is time to perform. Very telling is the internal motto amongst employees: "Over-commit and Under-perform". The company has not learned how to apply sound engineering principles and to plan programs realistically.