New campus hires leave after a few years after finding out their compensation dramatically lags behind the industry and their peers.
Huge age gap between engineers, most have either been at the company for < 2 years or > 20 years. The middle-level is non-existent due to attrition.
Software management constantly does not see the need to invest in continuous improvement or reduction of technical debt. Projects constantly under-bid in order to meet schedule deadlines.
A toxic culture has developed due to the factors above, being promoted into management means that you have either been an employee for a certain number of years or nepotism. The skilled and talented engineers recognize this sooner or later and leave for other opportunities.
Software languages and frameworks severely outdated along with Software Engineering practices. Some skills learned here are very niche and only translate to very specific areas in defense software.
Very hard for new joiners to contribute in a meaningful way as current projects are undocumented and require too much legacy/domain knowledge. As a consequence of this, tasks seen by Principal Engineers as menial and frustrating are assigned to younger engineers which perpetuate the cycle.
