Flexible schedules, but limited advancement options - Engineer Technician RTI International Employee Review

Flexible is flexible so flexible

Driving is also driving to and from

Remote work and reasonable working hours

If you're a PhD who enjoys research and hopes to use empirical research skills at a research institute, you'll likely be disappointed as I was. Projects in my business unit were largely implementation projects that required very little creativity or data analysis. I was told by my manager that empirical-research projects are harder to come by and when those opportunities do arise, everyone wants them. Even then, project directors are very unwilling (in my experience) to let you branch out to other projects. Using any overhead time to work on your own research is also discouraged, so I ended up working on manuscripts in my personal time. And there's no funding to attend conferences either. On top of all of this, constant layoffs create an aura of uncertainty and the feeling that you're lucky to even be there even when compensation for similar roles in private sector is far better.