software engineer

system engineer

senior cnc machinist

information systems security officer

systems administrator

Kratos Defense

If you are thinking about working for this company, and you have a lot of experience within aviation I would think twice about your decision.

This company is young, has lots of engineers, and doesn't fully understand making aviation products yet. Most practices used by this company are out of date, and they refuse to listen to those with tremendous experience. It felt as if a lot of folks within engineering/management felt that they had something to prove, but with no backing on anything pushed.

If you roll in with experience you will be pushed around as if you have little to none. Many supervisors and leads are incompetent or have no experience within the realm of leadership. Lots of people have little experience making aviation products, timelines are haphazard, and poorly communicated. Very little processes have been sorted out, and technicians are held at the mercy of those processes. Myself and other team members were consistently put on a negative spotlight for following the companies own practices and processes as if we were being witch hunted. More times than not reality was ignored and a false version of events put in its place to soften a blow, or CYA.

If you want to improve anything it will be hit with a lot of red tape. The proverbial "they" will have to approve it. Often times you will not hear anything about it even with following up.

Working environment: attitudes suck. There are tribes of people who will find it out for you. Some leads and supervisors are also in on this, or rather refuse to deal with it. The work load comes in waves, and if you slip on anything you will have the book dropped on you hard, but only if you aren't with the "IN" crowd.

Communication: it's not here. Day one things, times lines, lack of support, lack of teamwork, issues, new practices or processes, or the truly good things people do are not communicated. The roll-out approach here is down right terrible.

Growth: It is hard to grow in this company unless you tell the right people what they want to hear. There is also nothing in place for growth within any career field. We were consistently told that there is something in place, but it too was not communicated well nor decisive. There is a lot of run-around on the topic of promotion. This certainly has contributed to a number of people leaving the company.

Summary: I met some great people here, and I also met some down right terrible people. Those that had nothing to give took a lot, and those with a lot to give get treated poorly. If you have a lot of experience this company will start to detract you from that experience and put less than desirable practices in its place. Please choose wisely about working here if you can accept what has been stated.

I worked for the Co for less than a year. Prior to being hired, it had taken 2 years for the position to be approved.
I found the culture to be fairly out of touch with current processes and availability of work tools and hesitant to try new ways of working. Still using SharePoint, not using Teams messaging, too much email, and zero quality learning and development historically. They were starving for growth and development. In my short time with Kratos I worked on many projects and launched several courses and programs. Feedback was wonderful and I was building relationships across the Co. I was able to secure budget for an external leadership development vendor and for some work on the dull, PPT compliance courses, took my first trip to OKC and then 2 days later my brand new position was eliminated. I was told over the phone while remote on a Friday and given no notice. Effective immediately. My office was packed up for me and I had to go pick it all up. A week later several more Sr. Managers were laid off as well as materials managers and others.

I feel financial/budget strategy was poor and despite very expensive holiday parties being approved, the headcount cuts didn't really make much sense since the Co. was doing well and stock price was continuing to rise.

Employees and leaders went from zero growth and development to all kinds of options, workshops, LMS, and more, to zero again. It's sad that the needs of the employees and leaders ended up not meaning very much in the end. Profit before people. And the profit margin is so thin anyway given they're a defense contractor.

The people I got to work with were smart and open to coaching for the most part. The senior leaders have lots of opportunities to be much more engaged with their team members and each other. It's an extremely siloed, blame-game culture. Toxic emails, negativity all around and not much risk-taking in a modern world. Very antiquated as mentioned earlier, unfortunately.
I enjoyed my time at Kratos and all of the people I worked with. I was blown away and devestated hearing my position was being eliminated after getting an Exceeds Expectations on my PA and a raise.

If you don't make the drones or sell the drones you're always at risk of being cut. 

Awesome product miserable work environment. Within days of starting with Kratos the firings became apparent. The VP was recently fired, stockroom employees and every position in between, literally, people in every department were fired and others flat out walked away from their position. Are they that poor at making hiring decisions??? No. They are simply a venomous company to work for. I've never seen so many people fired from a company. It is not the people being let go it is the company making poor decisions, in most cases.

I've been in the job force for decades and never before in my career have I seen such overturn within a company. Never before have I seen so many people fired for seemingly no reason. In most cases from what I discovered these firings were personal, not professional. If you are not loved for any reason they will push you out. Early on I was called into HR to report on another employee. I described exactly what I saw, which is to say what I saw was not out of line or not professional. I saw nothing wrong. A week later the guy was fired proving they let you go for personal reasons regardless.

The place is horribly managed, lacks modern tools to do your job and in the rare instance when a new tool is acquired they still want you to use their old, archaic tools from the 90s because there is absolutely no forward thinking or real process improvement.

If you like stress, employees who turn on you and back stab you, teammates who throw you under the buss, horrible management who rejects sound suggestions, yelling, chaos, favoritism, low-level employees who sway senior management, if you are slightly sadistic and over-all enjoy a toxic and venomous environment, then by all means this is the place for you.

If, however, you want to work in an understanding and supportive environment, one who works with you not against you and a place you can feel comfortable in, then please look elsewhere.

The majority of the employees are great; the majority of the management and leads are just plain rotten. Even if you seemingly fit in there trust me it is not worth it.

I didn't work there long, but during my stint there, encountered snickers and sneers, things being said about you to other employees but in an ambiguous way, and let us not forget how expendable you are!
What ever you do, do not confront anyone that you hear with your own ears saying derogatory things about you). They will start crying and call you intimidating. Then the Kevin Walden (c.i.o.) will hear said employee there whimpering about it...but never hearing what this employee said to warrant their now hurt feelings and you will be let go without explanation. Don't you just love the at-will California state?
Also, NEVER believe the managers when they say they your job is secure. Though this is what they tell you to your face, they're already looking online for your replacement. There are at least hundreds of terminations a DAY! So that should give you an indication of how valued you are. (The majority of them are involuntary)
So my advice to anyone considering this company, you will experience bullying, you will be lied to by people who come off as sincere, and the egos there are easily bruised. So you basically have to grit and bear it for at least 6 months until you gain the experience, but after that RUN!!!!!!

This location is new to the company and has seen lots of changes over the years. As mentioned by other reviews there has been an ebb and flow of management and engineering (good and bad).
The last few years have seen positive improvements, growth, wage increases, and culture change.
We specialize in proto-duction and there are obstacles with that line of work that takes a team to overcome them.
 Most of the engineering team has learned to trust the technicians knowledge and experience when updating manuals. It has made a night and day impact in several areas. There are a few holdouts but they wont last long with the new management team leading the change. 
-Don't expect to get a huge wage increase your first 6 months, that doesn't happen anywhere. We do reward hard work, work ethic, the willingness to learn when review time comes up.
Be honest if you make a mistake, own your work, and ask questions! Don't be afraid to say "I don't know". 

We can train anyone with the ability to learn and a good attitude.
We can't train work ethic or character, that is on the person to bring on their own.
 

A typical day at work for a technical writer or program analyst was to meet with the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to document procedures to write technical manuals. The biggest trouble was dealing with Microsoft Word (MS Word) and the many troubles that can come with style formats in large documents. There was always a senior technical writer who had already been dealt the blows of MS Word to the point one could see the battle scars on the forward of these senior warriors. All worked together to get the job done as efficiently as possible so deadlines could be met. Our Operational Manager would surprise us with lunches and other quirks to make it fun to work there. The hardest part of the job was dealing with MS Word. The job of working with technicians and engineers creating technical manuals introduced a whole new world to me. Trained as a nuclear submariner, it was enjoyable to see the surface side of the not only the U.S. Navy, but to the other Department of Defense (DOD) branches.

Working for a smaller Security Integrator has been a benefit and a challenge, in that one has to wear a few more hats in order for any process to be labeled as complete. My day to day is extremely diverse and multifaceted as I provide technical assistance to our sales and junior engineering staff, manage our in-house Union Labor pool, provide technical and management assistance to our service department, aid in the “On-Boarding” process of new personnel and perform all of the IT duties for the office while conjointly managing all of the Midwest security projects for Kratos.

I am more involved in the accounting aspects within my position as we are asked to forecast months in advance as to what our revenue projections will be per project. I will breakdown each project to calculate material deliveries, labor sourcing and scheduling and project timelines in order to provide an accurate revenue analysis for each month.

The assistance provided by management and the camaraderie of my colleagues has made it an enjoyable place to work.

After 6 months I had enough. The organization fails to make security a priority. They are more concerned about protecting their checkbook than protecting the information, assets, and personnel who work there. The lack of management buy in to security sets anyone working in the security field up for failure. They recognize that they lack security knowledge but when it is explained they choose to resist and operate under the mindset that change will cost too much money and therefore any recommendations are wrong or impossible to execute. That mindset starts at the VP level and trickles down to most of the mid-management 'leaders'  Also, Security should not fall under the contracts department. Especially since no one in that department has any understanding of security. 

Kratos Training and Technology is a wonderful place to work.  Very professional.  
I love my supervisor and co-workers, always an open door and willing to listen.
A typical day at my position is processing invoices to be sent to our corporate office, processing expense reports, answering email, ordering office supplies (if needed), assisting other employees with any task they may have.  
There isn't a hard part of my job and if there was I would take whatever time needed to master it.
The most enjoyable part of my job is the people, I work with a wonderful group of people.
I've learned a great deal at Kratos, mostly computer technique in Microsoft Office.  I have a few years of office experience and I'm dependable and responsible to I don't need muchif any management.

Kratos simulation and training division is a good place to work if you are a full time employee and even better if you are in an overhead role. However, there is a high attrition rate for the people that work in contracts.  The company will let people go often, therefore be prepared to see this happen and prepare to leave when you perceive your job slows done. I have seen workers with 15 years of experience let go with no fault of their own due to budget constraints.  The company may seem large but each division operates individually. 

The work is very interesting and the involvement in large projects gives a lot of satisfaction. The experience you will gain is rewarding. 

Otherwise you work with great folks, but the management is incompetent specifically at the Vice-president level.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 34 salaries reported	$131,579 per year
System engineer 14 salaries reported	$134,286 per year
Senior cnc machinist 19 salaries reported	$34.50 per hour
Information systems security officer 15 salaries reported	$109,861 per year
Systems administrator 8 salaries reported	$101,188 per year

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