Pros
MITRE is a good place to work if you are fortunate enough to land in the software Dev area. There are opportunities for hard workers coming from engineering backgrounds other than software to begin a software path, but you have to work pretty hard to demonstrate yourself. Starting out you will be a professional PowerPoint engineer and have to write a lot of documents/deliverables that will be added to the ever growing pile of documents unread by the FAA or whoever your sponsor is. The details in these reports and the pure mathematical/physical science backing these documents or white papers is astonishing, in a good way. I worked with the smartest people of my life while here, both book smart and real world application smart. At a certain point you will realize that this is a place where it is better to show up after a few years of "expertise" at other companies. Sarcasm on expertise because I witnessed a few government lifer employees with the TS clearance and blah blah but we're probably the worst coders I have ever seen, yet they were in charge of some important responsibilities. If you start your career here, it is very likely that you will be severely undervalued because hey, they "created" you. No matter how much overtime you perform there will always be that top heavy management structure above you. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have a team leader directly above you that values your work and speaks on behalf of you to upper layers of management. If you do not have this you will be invisible. I pushed myself out there cautiously many times in hopes of becoming more noticed, since I would rarely receive positive feedback. I worked my behind off and was a completely self taught best practice syntax software snob, and proud. When I left MITRE started approaching Booz Allen reviews, where you could work 60-70 hours a week for a month, then request a half day or two on a Friday and the sky was falling. In the end, great exposure to technology, great opportunities to thrust yourself into different software areas (back end, front end, big data, etc, etc), but you will one day realize that you are severely undervalued given the quality of work coming out of your office. This isn't a bad thing, because there are many hungry companies looking for people like this that will immediately jump your pay by 30% if you are a good negotiator and know your market value. Place to retire. Get out into the private sectors after you have gobbled up all the exposure for 4-5 years and start your six figure career path. Making 100k+ a year after serving time here is easier than you would think, I make more now than people directly above me did at MITRE, and will continue to do so forever.
Cons
No bonuses, raises are usually only on cycle (end of year), unless you have worked crazy hours and get an off cycle raise in the summer. Level 2/3 employees are very undervalued if they are not celebrated by team leaders. Promotions above level 3 seem to take place only within a small brotherhood. MITRE values graduate level education. Systems engineering degrees from Johns Hopkins or George Mason seem to only service the "appearance" of better work quality, however this just means more deliverables (papers) that are added to the unread pile. The people at MITRE doing the real work are the ones with solid coding skills, and a background in mathematics, aerospace, or physics. There are concepts out there that are proven to benefit the sponsor (FAA) but progress is a slow roll of a ball up the hill for 10 years, not even joking. Imagine endless meetings, simulations, papers, deliverables, etc on a project for 10 years. If the FAA were privatized it would be more like 1 year, 2 tops. Raises will at most be 3% per YEAR. That's what you get for working at a non profit. However, there is 7.5% salary marching on a 2% contribution. So your IRA rollover after its all over will be in good shape. No culture. I talked to some management layer people a few times on activities outside of work. Each time I had the distinct feeling that I should guard what I say. It just seemed like all people in management cared about was work. I feel sorry for their wives. Other management that came from industry had way more personality, however it was obvious after awhile that they only displayed a fraction of their personalities while at work. When I left the career development reports were growing to an alarming government rate. HR was on a binge to get people to do quarterly updates on progress. It was constant, and unrealistic. Most of my software projects were so deeply involved that they were 6 months to 1 year in length. I would literally get funny looks when my leader wondered why things were not completed yet, even though I gave weekly updates and everything was thumbs up for months, until the quarterly review. The of lower management to impress upper management on the work of the umderlings was unreal. And for what benefit? This is government politics at its finest, impress only yourselves when no one else gives a damn, and never stepping back and asking, why do I care about this? You will become lost in the non existent culture. Hope that your leader is very tech savvy, not just someone promoted from within that hasn't the experience. Either that or someone that is a great leader, and celebrates his/her minions to upper management. If you are not outgoing, you will have zero relationship with management beyond your direct supervisor.
