BAE Systems reviews

Awful bureaucracy at every term. You will be expected to work long hours away from home and run up large amounts on your personal credit card. The expenses department will then find every possible excuse not to pay you back. You will be expected to carry out normal company business (such as appraisals, managing your team, admin, travel to client sites etc.) in your own time whilst still billing a minimum of 40 hour per week to the client. There will no no investment whatsoever in your career. In essence, expect to be treated with disdain by BAE AI as a whole.

The name of this company may make you think it's a prestigious place to work, don't be fooled by it and the glossy online marketing along with the fancy London office which they get you to come in for your interview. BAE might itself be a good company with good engineering experience but BAE AI is just a re-branding of Detica, a consultancy company which they bought out. A lot of the good Detica people have long gone. Beware of the headline salaries advertised along with bonuses, they will often offer you less. Bonuses depend on company performance and your individual performance. Your review process is based on the connections you make and how much you suck up to the right people, someone can give you a bad review and there is very little you can do about it, your line manager seems to have little say in the process. There are a lot of internal politics within this company, a lot of ex military personnel that like to think they are the bees knees and have a culture of being obnoxious towards others. Projects are very poorly planned which has a knock on effect to you as an employee as your expected to work like a dog to suit them. This contradicts the ITIL experience they keep banging on about in the job adverts!! Work life balance is poor, once you work for them they think they own you and can ask you to do what they like. If your not happy here they will do little to make things better and a more than happy to see you leave. Management are poor, if you suck up and get on you can go a long way and that shows in the types of people who manage this place, they don't have the first clue about managing people, teams or even projects. Training is non existent even though they pay a lot of lip service to it. In fact they don't like spending money on employees development. Guildford offices are not a very nice place to work. London offices are nice but mostly hot desks, if you not in by 08:15 you don't have much chance of getting a desk, management are aware of the issue but have there heads firmly buried in the sand. If you complain you're made to feel like a trouble maker which is effectively then end of your career.