Pros
Work life balance is still a thing with no micromanagement. Finally resending illegal (per the judicial system) vaccination mandates in May. At MITRE, after your initial hire, your career is your destiny. You can pick your sponsor and work but if your sponsor goes away it's on you to find another job.
Cons
Pulling every play from the MBA / Honeywell handbook. They can't legally discriminate on age to cut costs, so they implement policies to discourage older people to stay longer term. Tenure based paid time off was recently cut. Short-term sick time is part of PTO, and recent vacation days were cut; well until they found it was illegal. MITRE only gets select federal holidays and doesn't bank them for the December holidays like other FFRDC's. Benefits are no longer great, just acceptable. This would be fine except the pay is below par. Leadership is delusional and says they have the best out of all FFRDC's; we have the worst. Tried to cover up layoffs that were sent out by email. They were supposed to put everyone under a hush clause, but instead got an email to "log in to workday and accept your termination". Line management had no part in this decision or choosing who to terminate. Forced furloughs this fall for certain staff. Patronizing CEO calls and now a CEO Podcast that is even worse. Raises are normalized. Upwards of 70% of people are grouped as average regardless of performance. To break out above average, it's how much attention you give upper management and help them pad their review. "Grace and Respect" is weaponized at MITRE and used to silence anyone, including terminating whistleblowers or those with a moral compass that points true. This organization, despite what they say, is highly political; and not internal office politics.