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Applied Research Associates

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Good place to work if you're not support staff - Anonymous employee Applied Research Associates Employee Review

4.0
Sep 26, 2010
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Benefits are fantastic. - If you're an engineer or scientist, you are treated very well - Management is pretty flexible for time off when you need it - The HR department is very easy to work with when you need to understand something - It's a very easy place to work - Despite all the cons I listed, this place is a great place to work. My job is pretty easy for me, and my boss has approved a couple training classes for me.

Cons

- Management definitely played favorites in our department. Particularly if you were a female the boss thought was cute, which I was not. - Management can be very unclear as to objectives and very unclear as to how they want you to get something done - The way the chain of command is structured, you'll often end up with a supervisor that has no understanding of your job duties, but still has to grade your performance based on what THEY understand you did - If you're not an engineer or a scientist, you're just another support staff peon and you definitely know it. - Support staff like IT, HR, and Accounting are regularly thrown under the bus by their managers - Typically, once you're in a position at this company, that's it; there's no real room to move up and the raises (at least for my department) were just really low. - Don't listen when they tell you that you can get college assistance. You only get reimbursed for the individual classes that your boss finds relevant to your job title, so about 90% of the time, you get turned down.

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5.0
Dec 4, 2025
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CEO approval
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Pros

Work life balance Flexibility Benefits

Cons

Pay could be better but for starting salary is good enough

1
1.0
Apr 3, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay (after negotiation) is comparable to some other offers that I got from other companies

Cons

- If you want work life balance, this is NOT the place for you. You’re expected to bring in externally contracts to cover your salary. While they do allocate hours for contract proposal writing, most of the time, it’s never enough. You’ll end up working overtime and during weekends most of the time. - If you enjoy doing research, this is NOT the place for you. During my interviews, I asked how long a typical project would be, they all said it’s usually a few years. But the fact is, it all depends on the clients. If the clients say stop working on a project, you have to stop. Within the last year, a lot of their contracts got terminated, so people has to stop working and no pay. - If you enjoy doing rigorous research, this is NOT the place for you. People here tend to oversell their skills and knowledge to sell themselves to the clients or government agencies, so they could get the contracts. If they sell successfully and get the contracts, but then there is no time to really learn the necessary skills. Sloppy work has to be rushed because of the clients’ demands. - If you want sick leaves or maternity leaves, this is NOT the place for you. They do have PTO, but it’s not enough. Most people took unpaid time off for months when they had kids.

3
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