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General Atomics

Is this your company?

One-trick Pony - Senior Software Developer General Atomics Employee Review

2.0
20 Oct 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This company came up with and still makes predator drones, which does raise its cool factor. Also, I'm pretty sure it's the same General Atomics in Fallout 4. So, I guess some people get a kick out of being around military stuff, without actually risking their lives. Too bad that drone is becoming their one-and-only trick. Their pay is low but they do have pretty good work-life balance and they offer a pension plan. This attracts a lot of semi-retired engineers. If you are a junior engineer, this is a good start, but I would turn and burn ASAP; the old tech will hold you back. They will get you a national security clearance if that floats your boat.

Cons

* If you like cube farms and traveling to the desert and other wastelands, then apply. * Their tech is 20 years old; they still use manual testers and dev ops is a human process; i.e. there is no such thing CI/CD here. I want to say that the majority of their engineers are semi-retired and don't even know what AWS is. * Their methodology is nowhere near Agile. Their software has a ton of technical debt. They put performance and quality last. * Their project managers walk around like they're rock stars. They always complain about the quality of the software but never want to fund regression or performance testing. * There's a lot of UCSD influence here; i.e. they get a kick out of C++ and look down on web technologies and other "script kiddies". Modern UI frameworks like React or Angular are almost unheard of here.

Explore other reviews about General Atomics

5.0
28 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great work life balance and company culture

Cons

Sometimes long delays and slow periods based on government contracting

2.0
25 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

9/80 work schedule. Benefits are decent. One of the few comapnies that offer a pension in addition to 401k.

Cons

Too many management layers. Promotions seem to be based on who you know, and if you fit into the right "clique". Some promotions are being given to managers with no experience in the function. Executuve leadership appears out of touch with their employees. Example - Chaotic games have been played the last 3 years with remote and hybrid work policies.

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