software engineer

senior software engineer

manufacturing engineer

senior mechanical engineer

financial analyst

Textron Systems

There is a distinct office luxury amongst the 3 floors in the main building. All the hardworking yet unlucky engineers who do the hands-on and dirty work get to have an office on the ground floor or "Dungeon" where they literally slap cubicles and desks in a single enclosed and aging room. While the desk monkeys, who aren't hands-on, get a nice carpeted open office space, café stocked with a food vending service that makes you feel like a professional level worker. Although the work is manageable Textron systems is far behind the ball as to creating an attractive work space for "ALL" employees. 
Communication from the top down is still lacking. Throughout the entire project the lack of communication has: create ill preparation for production to hit target dates, documentation readiness, and on-time part delivery to customer. Company needs to be more transparent with better manager and employee communication in order to collective work to meeting our customers expectations.
Excel spreadsheets are a clutter of information that do not hold responsible parties to their assigned tasks. There is existing software that can be used to create project timelines, assign resource tasks that send email reminders and are a great way to show live progress on a project.


The work is interesting at times.  Some seasoned staff there, but mostly green engineers without enough experience to make the work flow smooth.  Things got a lot worse at Wilmington, MA when they downgraded all of the cubicles to 5 x 4 feet each.  There are not enough bathrooms to handle the number of people in the offices.  The result of the bathroom shortage is a vile and disgusting experience when you have to really use a bathroom, good luck finding one open, you might have to walk 200 or 300 yards to find something open.  There is free coffee, but sometimes it runs out or the coffee or water machines are down, which happens frequently.  Work place culture is just shy of barbaric, a lot of good people smiling in your face while they stab you in the back.  The most enjoyable part of the day is when you walk out the door each day.

Ceo and VPs as well as directors make bonuses and quarterly earnings with shares while they lay off over 150+ employees due to low performance for the programs.  Mainly due to allowing the engineers to have too much free rain so to speak as well as PMs setting deadlines that are unfathomable or attainable.  Constantly rushing to get product out the door.  Poor supplier/purchasing techniques.  Always short on parts with no sub or backup plan.   When test fail to produce results they constantly blame assembly, and so do managers.  Equipment especially in test is not up to par or is outdated and they still use, not getting results they need.  Record keeping is sloppy across entire campus, always waiting to last minute to get things together or signed off on.  Adjustments or changes to drawings or designs is always backlogged and not accurately done in reasonable fashion.   Never raises to assemblers, always meet expectations never exceed expectations.  

A normal day at TMLS involved arriving to face a situation that needed to be addressed.  The Manufacturing Engineering Team typically worked together to solve these problems, if only just to ask one another for advice.  There was minimal managerial involvement (which I prefer) until certain changes were made, but ultimately, it was a good place to work.  Overtime was "casual" and required most weeks that I was there which strained my personal life a bit, but it was a satisfying position, so it was tolerable.  The most difficult part of the job was the lay offs.  Working in government contracts, layoffs are a reality and seeing so many great people lose their livelihood over contract squabbles was difficult.  The most enjoyable part of my job was, hands down, learning.  There was not a day that went by that I did not learn something new from someone incredible.

Textron systems could be a much better company to work for if they did the following:

Completely changed their talent strategy to hiring people with actual experience. 

Promoted talented individuals into management roles rather than shuffling inexperienced LDLPs.

Better pay and benefits.  Pay is not aligned with industry or even region. Healthcare is utter garbage.

Have management listen to their employees and the feedback they receive rather than just providing lip service with zero action behind it.

The campuses are dirty, cheap and the break rooms are often dirty, moldy and gross. Perhaps if they provided a clean, nice and inviting work area people might feel appreciated. 

I started at the company in 2018 and initially struggled with the culture and role fit. I transitioned into a development program which was a turning point—it was well-structured, challenging, and offered valuable flexibility in choosing rotations. I gained exposure to different functions, which helped me better understand the aerospace and defense industry.

Mentorship was key to my early growth. DEI initiatives and leadership events in 2020-2021 showed me that many people in leadership were genuinely committed to improving the company culture. An employee's experience will depend on the department and management you work for. Although antiquated in some ways, the workplace culture is well-intentioned and the organization made efforts in the last 5 years to be more progressive and adapt to changes in the corporate landscape.

They hire you in as a pipe fitter, but you are not doing any pipe so they have to teach you what to do and how to do it on the boat. The space below the boat is very small. You can’t stand up. You have to crawl around and it is extremely hot and in the winter, it is extremely cold, they micromanage you and if you don’t learn quickly, they start writing you up then they fire you if you do not quit no one stays there each week. People were quitting. I got my friend hired and he quit one week later this place sucks the worst place I ever worked ,they stand over you all day long and watch you. The morale was very low. Nobody likes working there so they decided to give everyone hotdogs every month to boost morale ,it didn’t work. My advice do not work. There is horrible, but the benefits are great. 

Overall Textron Systems is not bad. It depends which business within the Systems unit you work for. The optimal location for the business is Hunt Valley, MD. In that location you will see 9/10's work schedule, happy hours, and more benefits of the business than any other business within Textron Systems. It is a very intense work environment, usually everyone eats at their desks and you can get overwhelmed with work very quickly. People can be very nice, but overall you will be at your desk and in your cube more than anything. Overall I feel they will get better with the work-life balance, but for now it is more work than life.

Unqualified supervisors and management lack of experience and education.  Bring people in from other umbrella companies that have no Government Property experience.  Supervisors do not know how to delegate responsibilities, no fair representation for job advancement only concerned about advancing friends. Little to no product knowledge from upper management and program management.  Too many satellite employees when job requirements demand a person physically to be on site.  Upper management is disconnected from day to day operations and employees.  Company has lost DCMA certification to handle Gov Prop numerous times due to loss and unaccounted for high dollar amount of inventory.  Programs are antiquated and warehouse operations lack any current technology.

Upper management is disconnected from the lower levels.  Multiple reorgs for unknown reasons.  Lower management mostly good but it is a bit of an old boys system.  Recent layoffs seemed to be targeted at long standing employees after "record sales" in the final quarter last year.  They do have excellent benefits but are low on the salary scale compared to competitors.  Good place to start your career for the experience but do not expect loyalty to the employees from the company.  Workplace culture is more male centric and they are struggling to find new employees due to their resistance to hybrid work.  Upper management is pushing harder and harder for 100% in office.  The lower level personnel were wonderful to work with and dedicated to the military end user of the products.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 6 salaries reported	$102,917 per year
Senior software engineer 5 salaries reported	$117,347 per year
Manufacturing engineer 1 salary reported	$86,550 per year
Senior mechanical engineer 3 salaries reported	$106,333 per year
Financial analyst 4 salaries reported	$75,625 per year

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