Pros
There are some truly talented and collegial people at MITRE. Some projects can be really impactful and interesting. I used to recommend this place to people but no more.
Cons
Board being fleeced by incompetent CEO. Executive Leadership Team, especially HR, are positively tone deaf and have zero ability to lead despite a great yearning from staff to have great people to follow. The company has chosen to discriminate against older workers by cutting their vacation time by 4 days, while giving younger workers an extra day. While introducing this ridiculous cut, the VP of HR and the CEO called the move "equity". For the second time in less than 10 years, federal holidays have been cut. Employees are down to 6 days plus one floater, and they are supposed to be excited about the floater. The message these cuts send to staff include: 1) we can and will discriminate against you without fear of reprisal 2) younger less experienced/trained/competent staff have more value than older/trained/competent staff 3) people with technical skills magically know how to communicate and manage despite have no management or communication degrees. (yes, degrees, not some lame two day program from a consultant) 4) the Board values torching $$ in risky ventures over delivery steady, great quality work in support of sponsors 5) the CEO and HR SVP think it is appropriate to gaslight staff and that staff will just accept it 6) We actually have an HR VP whose only degree is an Associate’s in Travel and Tourism 7) The notion of grace (weird that we are bringing a church term into MITRE management, courtesy of a zealot former VP) and respect aren’t rampant here. There are incompetent backstabbers, managers who do not have a clue what they are doing yet pull down $250k/year, managers who allow sponsors to abuse staff, people who set staff up to fail, (“Here. Let me stick you into this position you have never had with zero training while I ignore you.”) Etc. The CEO is patronizing, out of touch with staff and FFRDCs, and generally rude.