Great place to start a research career - Security Researcher SI Government Solutions Employee Review

I have been with SI since before the acquisition by Raytheon in 2008. There are many pros that have kept me around this long and the foreseeable future: * Over the past 9 years I have had the privilege of working with some of the brightest and most interesting people I have ever met. * I get paid for the time I work - I often get lost in a problem, working on some algorithm or software analysis work and I'll loose track of time, or I'll be "in the zone" and want to keep riding that. Getting paid for the time I work over 40 has been a nice shot in the bank account. * I've never been bored. Every project I have been involved in has been interesting and challenging and has exposed me to new technologies. I don't feel trapped on any one task, I know I can (and have) move to something new if I am burned out or ready for a change. * The environment is result oriented. As long as I am getting my work done there is no issue with a flexible work schedule, or taking a break for foosball or arcade games with coworkers. * There are opportunities to try new ideas. We have internal hack-a-thons and small engineer directed research and development projects to try out and prototype ideas. * All of the projects I have worked on have interfaced directly with our customers and I have been able to see clear results benefitting national security from our efforts, often without delay, rarely do I have a feeling that what I worked on will just rot on a shelf.

As a low level software engineering group we are not always great at some of the out reach efforts. We have virtually no web presence so when I tell people I work for Raytheon-SI, typically people think of the larger Raytheon and missile systems. We also sometimes have culture clashes with the larger company which can lead to some frustrations, often little things like purchasing small items takes longer than just going to Best Buy or Amazon, but we are generally insulated from this.

They try to create the most productive environment for their employees. You can come in whenever you want - many employees prefer to work at night. There is a cafeteria stocked with tons of snacks, drinks, yogurt, fruit, etc., and free lunch every Friday. This can be bad for waistline, especially because you'll be sitting at a desk all day. They pay overtime for full time employees. The facility is right across the street from the beach and you can go there for lunch break if you want.

There seems to be an attitude that you have to have the exact skills that they want when you start and there is no way to learn those skills on the job. This is not true, as I learned a lot of about computers during my internship that I did not have formal training in. SIGovs is also largely employed with younger white men who mostly just talk about computers and video games in their free time.