Pros
It's better than being unemployed
Cons
NOTE: This review is specific to Mercury Systems Torrance (Formerly known as Physical Optics Corporation prior to the acquisition which was finalized in July 2021) I'll put it bluntly: Physical Optics Corporation was an SBIR mill posturing itself as an up-and-coming Defense Contractor with in-house manufacturing capabilities in order to win larger production-level contracts. This business strategy worked well enough to entice Mercury Systems to come along and acquire POC. As soon as the acquisition was finalized, most of the former POC leadership (including the CEO) jumped ship within the following months. As "Mercury Systems Torrance", the company was no longer eligible to work on the SBIR contracts which had kept it afloat, and the larger, production level contracts did not have the sufficient personnel to be successful. Naïve to this situation, Mercury Corporate took a "hands-off" approach in managing the Torrance location, claiming that they'd let us keep on doing what we already do best. In reality, this translated to Mercury Corporate taking little to no action in terms of integrating engineering teams with the tools/systems their other locations used. What Mercury Corporate DID do, however, was lay off nearly a tenth of personnel from the Torrance location, despite promising they would never do such a thing months prior. Of course, this exacerbated the situation. Additional employees began jumping ship, either in response to the acquisition, the layoffs, the lack of SBIR work, or complications from the lack of sufficient personnel on the larger programs/projects. A few months later, Mercury announced that it was switching away from a traditional PTO accrual system, to a "Flex" PTO system where hours are not accumulated, tracked, or most importantly: paid out. Rather than paying off existing PTO which employees had saved up, Mercury would mandate the legacy PTO hours (Which were functionally no different than "flex" hours available to new hires) to be used by each employee within a two year window. If the legacy hours were not used by the end of December 2023, they would simply disappear with no compensation. However, if an employee with legacy PTO on the books resigned prior to that two year window, the remaining PTO balance would be paid out in full. So you can probably guess what happened next: Employees began leaving the company at an even faster pace, now that there was a monetary incentive of cashing out PTO in order to do so. From an engineering standpoint, a floodgate of knowledge and talent walked right out the door at a quicker rate than new hires could replace them. I am not the first in this exodus, nor will I likely be the last. Suffice it to say, this workplace is a hollow shell of what it once was. The remaining upper management at Mercury Systems Torrance are now finding themselves in an increasingly untenable position as their best engineering talent continues to leave, and Mercury Corporate continues to make short-sighted decisions which forsake the general employee in exchange for bolstering their bottom line. Mercury Systems Torrance is a sinking ship, and there are so many better options in terms of places to work. I would not recommend joining this company under any circumstances.
