Looking back on a relatively long career, abruptly ended by a pandemic.
Pros
Very knowledgeable people. I usually felt like I was surrounded by people who were smarter than myself, and I learned and grew a lot from all of them. Most managers I worked for were good, several had been promoted from roles similar to mine so they knew what my job entailed. It had a culture where you could become friends with your coworkers and would hang out with them outside of work.
Cons
Where to begin? This was my first "real job" after college and just being newly married, so I didn't know any different. I was immediately put on 2nd shift as the new guy. Not ideal, but it was fine. However, when life moves on and you now have a young child and a working spouse, there was little to no flexibility for work/life balance when shift changes were required. Pay started out low and never kept up with inflation. Other reviewers on here mention that a lot, and they're not wrong. Bonuses used to be the same across the board for all employees but were usually just ok; then the CEO/Board had the brilliant idea to break out profit-sharing bonuses by business sector, so aerospace got well over 10% some years, while others got almost nothing. The resultant effect on morale was negative, as one might expect. Layoffs were frequent, and tended to be brutally executed. The whole Woodward business could easily be disrupted by the Aerospace market, the economy, and several other factors. Leadership would typically respond with "headcount reduction" with no other consideration and your entire career could be ended in a 2 minute Skype call. Ask me how I know... I was one of many who were laid off in early 2020, so perhaps this review is slightly biased. However, it's been over 2 years now, so the sting has been replaced by a lot of clarity and lessons learned. If I were to be offered the opportunity to come back, I would avoid going back to the constant stress and insulting salary with a polite "no thanks."
