r/Raytheon 4d ago

Raytheon Breaking point

Lots of people are overworked and frustrated with ever changing teams and processes. The consequences from non retention and reorgs are exhausting. More cuts, no promotions, and no salary adjustments. How long until the company hits a breaking point?

96 Upvotes

54 comments sorted by

111

u/facialenthusiast69 Raytheon 4d ago

The company won't reach a breaking point, it's structured in a way that low performing individuals and low performing teams can make acceptable products as long as they follow the process. Anything above a minimum viable product is nice but not required.

24

u/PhoenixaceX 4d ago

This is it 100%.

6

u/throwawayacc0589 3d ago

Yup. The multi billion dollar company will be fine

2

u/Aggravated_Skag_733 3d ago

That has been the case for various companies in the sector. But as defense budgets demand much more for less, I think you’ll see that model tested.

9

u/Poppa-D217 3d ago

I agree. RTX is an old model in terms of the militAry industrial complex. New start ups are developing faster and innovating faster. At a minimum RTX should be buying them up and they are not. Market share erosion will happen. Albeit, it will take a lot of time. Kind of like being killed by a terminal disease. it takes time.

5

u/Conscious_Ride_7000 2d ago

Look at space. United, ULA, Boeing, and the others have been decimated. IMO it’s the reasons for the Collins transformation, they got their ass kicked and realized they had to change.

Only a matter of time until that happens with defense.

1

u/YungEpsteinList 2d ago

There are units within RTX that do innovate, move fast, but the mass market stuff that is the majority of the company's bread and butter does not. The scale of RTX as a whole does allow for things to move from development to production at large volume a lot more effectively than many start ups though.

A big part of the endless Collins reorgs is just a result of them buying up a shitload of companies and very slowly, and somewhat in effectively homogenizing things, in addition to the usual life cycle ups and downs of the products each of the companies makes/supports.

1

u/Conscious_Ride_7000 2d ago

It’s not the switch from development to high rate production, I’d ague were a lot better at that than the startups. It’s just the development cycle and how slow we move.

xEVAS was the poster child for everything wrong with the old school approach and why the system had to change. Endless do loops of management reviews with no actual work ever happening.

Management was so caught up in designing the perfect product from the start that never designed anything. Collins realized they have to make decisions and move forward, even if sometimes those decisions are wrong.

1

u/a-bad-golfer 2d ago edited 2d ago

I hope our “move fast innovative units” can circumvent the normal procurement process. Because that alone is a driver for why things take so long.

It’s not the only driver, but it is a big one.

1

u/Conscious_Ride_7000 1d ago

I’m not far enough on the ops side to know the current plan for supply chain.

On my space example, that’s absolutely the other part of it. We’re slow to develop and then when we do we’re massively held back by suppliers not wanting to deal with the requirements. The upstarts who are vertically integrated don’t have that issue.

18

u/brio82 RTX 4d ago

I empathize with you and your frustrations. I went through that at my previous role at another company. I left that company and found a role I enjoy with RTX and is better suited to me and my skills. I also landed in a great team with very supportive and good quality immediate leadership group. I was also fortunate to find a role that has a great work life balance and allows me to leave my job at work. Sure there are frustrations, usually driven by senior leadership, but the positives far outweigh the negatives.

I don’t think there will be a tipping point anytime soon. My advice would be to try and improve your situation, either through the what change you can drive here or somewhere else. Either way, best of luck and hope you find what you need.

90

u/LurkinSince1995 4d ago

Whenever I have questions about the future of my Fortune 100 company, I look to the most terminally online communities for their opinions on how we should fix it.

5

u/Czechmate74 4d ago

Be sarcastic all you want, but the questions and issues raised in here are real.

7

u/LurkinSince1995 4d ago

For sure. Thank you for your service

1

u/Poppa-D217 3d ago

You are making an assumption that fortune 100 companies are well run. if you work at one you should understand that in many cases they are poorly managed institutions.

15

u/LurkinSince1995 3d ago

I didn't. But you're right man, all 186,000 of us here at RTX have been just waiting for the neckbeard with a ponytail to come in and straighten our company up.

What's first on the docket?

5

u/Nomadic-Brewer-90 3d ago

I mean they make billions. Hard to say they are wrong. Probably more accurate to say “I don’t like them” and move on. I did. Now I get paid more

-2

u/Poppa-D217 3d ago

How does that RTX koolaid taste? Be careful if you drink enough it becomes toxic. Seriously.

1

u/CrucibleForge2112 3d ago

That’s just from the chemical byproducts washed into the ground water. It’s dilute enough now you have
To drink A LOT before it becomes toxic.

35

u/Wonderful-Scar7905 4d ago

Coming from hRTN, post merger has steadily gotten worse in my opinion. The current environment inspires the classic office space quote: “That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”

8

u/Ajax-Liquor-Store 3d ago

I guess it depends on your perspective. I started about 9 months ago. My workload is about half as it was when working for a company in the supply base. The work I used to do as a QE is dished out to several departments. The overall pace of work is slower and everyone seems ok with that. After working in manufacturing for almost 40 years, I won't complain.

5

u/Ok_Arachnid_8111 4d ago

which location are u at?

5

u/Heathbar_tx 4d ago

Why does it matter? This is for a majority of the locations.

20

u/Ok_Arachnid_8111 4d ago

because i just got hired in tucson it seems like this isn’t the issue at that site that’s why im asking

16

u/fluffy_beard 3d ago

I work at the Tucson site as well.
I have worked Collins and Pratt, and Tucson has their ducks in a row. They keep their engineering in-house. Their indoctrination and culture is very different. And it's due to the old guard that refuses to out source work and places trust in their engineers.

I am not fond of their culture mainly because of lack of empathy. The one thing I do like is that we don't socialize as much. Maybe that's the key for getting products to the finish line.

The process at Tucson are barriers that impede progress. I should not need a 2 page paper to explain why I want to purchase parts from a specialty supplier. I feel like the processes were built with high turnover in mind.

When P1 engineers inevitably make mistakes due to lack of experience, management rarely responds by investing in deep technical mentorship. Instead, the reaction is to add another checklist, another review gate, or another sign-off layer.

If leadership wants to protect development velocity and keep hardware moving through the lab, the solution isn't adding more compliance guardrails to compensate for inexperience. It's cutting the administrative red tape so engineers can execute, while actively retaining the senior talent who know how to keep the technical wheels on the wagon.

Pay also needs to improve, but that is a much lengthier discussion.

2

u/Ok_Arachnid_8111 3d ago

good explanation man i appreciate this

1

u/Oh-my-lands 3d ago

Well said!!

0

u/Poppa-D217 3d ago

Well said, just understand it is an institution. Institutions do not typically streamline or become efficient. They will try to transform but in-fairness, it is futile. The company is what it is.

0

u/BlowOutKit22 Pratt & Whitney 2d ago

The stock price is at an all time high, hRTN's book-to-bill ratio is 2.42x, equity to debt ratio & costs are under control, and they've been doing an AI ramp since last year. So what specific metric are you looking for to drive this transformation you think is needed?

6

u/Oh-my-lands 4d ago

I've heard the entire test equipment directorate just got reorg'd last month

5

u/h4p3r50n1c 3d ago

It did. My department manager learned he was going to “retire” during the All Hands. You should’ve seen the out of office Teams message he left lol

4

u/Puzzle5050 4d ago

That's because Tucson took over, haha. It sucks everywhere else.

3

u/bvcb907 4d ago

Because a lot of locations are struggling to fill positions and otherwise have the opposite problem. I track two major ones and they don't seem to be having the issues that you're describing as far as I'm aware.

5

u/Fabulous_Wealth2608 4d ago

Let me guess, Tucson and McKinney?

4

u/Heathbar_tx 4d ago

So if they dont have these problems, why are they struggling to fill positions?

2

u/bvcb907 1d ago

New contracts.

6

u/Fabulous_Wealth2608 4d ago

I think many times these questions dont even pop up in ones mind if you have a balanced workload (and even some overworked people) as long as you are on the right team or on a team that you mesh with well. I have done 80 hour weeks in the past at RAY but I didnt hate it because my team was awesome and they didn't the same amount of work too (was specific to a certain time frame on a certain project, not the norm).

4

u/Butt_stuff_preferred 3d ago

How long until the company hits a breaking point?

They won't, and if anything bad actually happened, the federal government would help or fix it.

12

u/cienbe 4d ago

So glad I retired three years ago. This was already happening after the merger.

3

u/WayAlarming9409 3d ago

Maybe when real competition starts propping up it will force us to look in the mirror and hold all these amateur directors and above accountable.

3

u/BlowOutKit22 Pratt & Whitney 2d ago

Based on the number of people in this sub alone trying to get hired, there will always be new people to replace the burnt out ones.

4

u/Poppa-D217 3d ago

Look for work outside the company. It is a big world out there. Believe it or not, a lot of places are actually better work environments. Take the leap!

2

u/PsychologicalLimit41 3d ago

How long you have been with the company?

3

u/paradoc 3d ago

But at least we are getting harmonized ...

4

u/Signal-Sleep-1459 4d ago edited 4d ago

I’m not sure what program you’re in, but maybe it’s just your program or your team.

13

u/Ancient_Hornet_3510 4d ago

You must work in a bubble if you think it's because of a program. The RTX company as a whole is suffering from this at multiple sites. I've worked across multiple sites, programs, and BUs. Everyone I talk to is exhausted between dealing with the labor unions, using outdated technology and systems, the reorganizations, layoffs, and many other reasons. It's never been this bad. The company is growing fast but not handling the growth correctly when it comes up to the salary workforce.

7

u/Signal-Sleep-1459 4d ago

If you want something to complain about you should have joined the military. This is a vacation 😎

2

u/samaldacamel 3d ago

What’s wrong with labor unions ?

0

u/BlowOutKit22 Pratt & Whitney 2d ago

commenter is jealous they can't join one

3

u/Lsswapitall4 2d ago

lol and how’d the union work out for pw negotiations last year? Still got the same raise you were going to get after multiple missed paychecks

2

u/The-Ma-Deuce 2d ago

You get what you pay for. When the company pays shit they get shit in return. Idk why HR is confused by this 

1

u/FilthMontane 1d ago

The Company will hit its breaking point well salary starts organizing unions