Can be pretty unpleasant at BA level. - Research Analyst RTI International Employee Review

3.0
Jul 13, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pretty good pay for what you do. Good benefits. Not expected (at BA level) to work over 40 hours per week (see one exception in Cons). Nice campus. Lots of little perks.

Cons

Lack of investment in "junior staff". Lack of respect for non-graduate degree holders -- see previous sentence. Can be very difficult to manage workload unless you have one primary supervisor. I have several supervisors and all expect you to drop everything to address their needs. Staff is expected to donate time for staff meetings.

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5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

RTI has a good mission

Cons

Adaptation to sudden federal funding loss.

3.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Remote work and reasonable working hours

Cons

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.

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