Pros
You may think, upon first getting hired, that you will be following in the footsteps of the great nuclear minds like Oppenheimer, Fermi and Rickover, but no, you should instead think "Homer Simpson". This place survives for one reason: they have the license from the NRC and any other company capable of building these things, does not. Plain and simple. If there was the slightest whiff of competition, they would fold their tent in 10 minutes. Run by managers, and I use the term loosely, that have no qualification other than outlasting everyone else. Being qualified in a field is not required - people who do not rock the boat are valued far beyond actual knowledge. I have no issue with the actual machinists and guys that do the labor- they do know what they are doing and do it well. The entire problem with this company is the management. To be fair, these guys somehow have managed to con the government into a billable hours contract- so the more people they can throw at something, the more they can charge. There is no incentive to work smarter and mandatory overtime is the rule- all in the name of billable hours. They talk a big game online, and try to make it like they are on the cutting edge but no one will ever deviate from any process because they have no idea what will happen. This is the place for you if you like to sit around for years doing a few small things and telling everyone how busy you are - they are all busy doing nothing at BWXT. They do pay well so when these nobodies get into these management positions, they guard them well. You will have to wait for someone to die to get that job.
Cons
It is all cons here- you will be working for some know-nothing who most likely has their entire family working there, and fishes with someone higher up in the food chain. They rarely hire from outside and when they do, those people tend to be gone relatively soon- they simply cannot wrap their minds around the insanity that passes for normal here. The government really needs to do a top to bottom audit of the place- I would venture that the govt can cut their costs in half if they ever took a hard look.
