Sde offers Booze Allen, Raytheon, Lockhead
Got offers for SDE roles at Booze Allen, Lockheed, Raytheon and a few others. Have a lot of reasons why I am switching overall never intended to stay here. Just here for the experience. All offers are higher some by a little others by a good bit with locations significantly cheaper to live than seattle. With talks as soon as my Top Secret goes through I will have more negotiation power.
Trying to get some in site to some of these companies in areas of concern.
- Can I trust any of these companies? When they say they will reactivate my prior military clearances and not put me on the bench trying to force me into something else?
- Heard mixed things about work life balance. Is it 40-50 hour weeks r 70-90 hour weeks?
- If I don’t like my location etc is it easy to switch? Or will managers try to block you like at Amazon?
- Overall are people civil and work together r is it cut throat etc?
Any information would be great seems to be very difficult to find information from a sde perspective and not consultants etc.
Not listing TC bc it shouldn’t matter for my questions. I don’t care to live in shitty high cost of living areas with shitty work culture with horrible WLB. To squeeze every penny just so I can get on blind saying I make a bit more then someone else In a pissing contest. Mean while me and my family r miserable. I have more reasons then I care to list of why I am switching for long term goals.
comments
However your response makes me feel better. Just nerve racking making a shift without knowing anybody personally I can go to ask questions.
-Clearance will depend on team\project. There are many that will put you in for one immediately, others that won't do anything more that a public trust, and other that require you already have one.
-Wlb will depend on team\project. In 7 years, I've been on 6 different projects. I've never had to work more that 40hrs a week and took PTO whenever I wanted.
-It has always been pretty easy to switch projects, but does depend on need at a particular location. The project contract dictates everything, not the company. If you are talking about physical location, 99% of work is in the DC metro area.
-I've never had any issues with coworkers. Everyone seems to be civil, with the exception of a few. Depends on the project / team.
Other input - working in Government contracting usually means working in old, antiquated technology. This sucks big time, especially if you enjoy coding and not doing it just for a paycheck. Also, a clearance is not a golden ticket that commands a super high salary. Lots of folks in the area have them. I've had them all with a poly. Never got a pay raise or crazy offer from other companies for it. Most I know with a clearance never experienced that either.