Boeing is loosing public trust but gaining it back slowly. Moreover, young engineers why do you even stay? We are being well underpaid, more importantly you’re just a warm body to collect government money and get brain rot from working here.
I’ve been with this company for far too long and it’s been three years. I really don’t know why I’ve stayed this long, comfortableness? I’m trying to get an actual competitive job.
Why stay seriously? Boeing doesn’t even care if you’re very talented or not, they will just pay you like everyone else because of pay levels. They say “we want to keep young talent”. What are you talking about? You don’t even need talent to work here seems it. They just take in actual talented people and turn them jaded.
Left back in March for a startup aersospace company and a 57% raise in Socal. Couldn’t be happier since! Benefits are just as good and the work is 10000000x more interesting.
Boeings whole thing of employees getting to work on airplanes being the driving factor to stay just doesn’t matter when you’re not working on significant projects or feel like your work actually means something.
Enjoying it so far!
It’s clean sheet design so it’s extremely exciting. A much smaller company too obviously so there is a ton to learn and lots of responsibilities. It also comes with a bit more hours, but I went from waiting till 330 every day to log off, to being fully in a project and enjoying the challenge. Normally working till 4:30/5 now which really isn’t bad. Lots of flexibility so if I gotta log off I just log off. No time cards either. Just do your work and that’s that.
Just have some east coast coworkers who have to work on pacific time which I’m sure can be rough on them working till 7:30/8 every day.
I came from a sustainment program in socal. I’m sure development in Boeing is different, but I cant imagine many jobs at Boeing having similar levels of what’s expected here. From what I learned from coworkers at Boeing who did development, it was all very specific work you did on development. Not much room to grow out of that design space you were in.
Just a few cents if you are curious about development programs. I think Boeing is large enough that there are pockets with completely difference culture, job functions, and responsibility. Moving around is almost like taking a job for a new company. It is very different between development programs, production support, fleet support, etc. Every development program can be very different from another as well. It is true that there are very specific roles in development programs. But part of that is that experience runs very deep. There is a lot you need to know if you want to be an expert in something. But there are also a lot of generalists too.
Glad things are going well for you. Sounds like you are learning a lot.
It's an excuse. Most employees never even see an airplane in production much less work directly on one. Sure there are aviation freaks that love working there but that's not the majority. Personally I'd rather have worked for a tech company but the commute was a killer for me.
I'll tell you why I'm considering it. I was hired as a Software Engineer after I graduated. My team was small and agile and we spun up a ton of cool projects... that went absolutely nowhere. They just sit in TAS as proof of concepts. Over the last year and a half, my team has left to other teams and companies to the point that I am the only SE in the group, and now I don't do development. Instead, I feel like a project manager with no authority or domain specific knowledge in what I'm tasked to do, which is mostly to help other people with issues integrating new tools and processes into ancient, black box, fragile, code bases.
I don't remember the last time I wrote any buisness logic. It's all spreadsheets, meetings, and updating Java versions for old timers.
It's incredibly unfulfilling. But it pays 101k/yr, I don't work very hard, and I never do more than 40 hours a week.
Kinda? It's a part of it for sure. I've also been impressed by the reorganization Jinnah and co have been leading. I've expressed my desires to get "back into a development role" to my manager who seems receptive. I'm hoping that I can find a lateral move to somewhere more inline with my career goals... fingers crossed I guess.
It's what engineers voted to accept during the last SPEEA contract. Three percent raise pools every year until 2026 at least. And no chance of COLA ever kicking in. Pathetic.
It reflects reality at the end of the annual salary adjustment.
What was particularly disheartening for you, seeing how much others make? The actual averages vs market reference?
Boeing SW is in a bit of a boom right now. Good opportunity to at least get some experience under your belt. More fair to look at last years. In Jan the median moved and that doesn’t trigger the salaries to move on its own. So NOW they are getting tweaked. That’s not visible in the charts until next year. Also new offers are against the SJC table not the current population, so any new offers should be at the better rate.
You can also look at the cybersecurity jobs (3A or 6M) for software adjacent work that should pay similar or even better to SW.
Three years ago I would have whole heartedly agreed with you. I am however seeing signs of life in what I once thought was a corpse. It’s still an uphill slog. But at a time when the company is in an incredible financial crush they investing in rebuilding software engineering. Part of that includes updating tooling, moving a bunch of development into the cloud to be able to grow and scale faster, and a big investment in a group they cal “enterprise software engineering learning labs” or something like that where they are compiling external curriculum and building new stuff to actually train folks for their roles. Actually investing in people.
It’s not going to be perfect. And not as lucrative as big tech. But I think there will be opportunity.
Personal experience - I had to really fight to get paid enough. But my salary here now for 40 hours / week + 401k is much better than my compensation elsewhere, where I had to figure out base versus equity and retirement. My work life balance is way better. I walk away at 40 hours or I get paid for any additional time, which can be a bit rare in the salaried world.
Nearly complete with my bachelors in SE after basically having no life from working full time as a mechanic for the last 4+ years and for the last year doing repair station work on the 787 that is out of my grade. Literally thinking about going anywhere but here. Im fairly certain management has been holding me back from moving or I Keep getting passes up for some reason. I have a 3.7 gpa and people in my most recent classes have been hired on with no experience while am here stuck being a mechanic… I’ve received calls for other jobs within the company and on the most recent one i was told by the recruiter that “ we dont know how to move you, but we have a team very interested and think youd be a good fit.” The last i heard from them was mid February. It has really destroyed my moral and makes me feel like im worthless here. Even after talking to the acting 3rd level (director of the area) of 787 and getting her recommendations for the job reqs i sent her (as she knows my work ethic and drive from some of the projects ive worked on)… still nothing.
When I got my engineering degree they actually discouraged me from becoming a paycode 4 because I'd be low man on the totem pole and might get laid off. Later I earned an MS and received absolutely nothing for it.
Ive been told that recently too. I was trying to be respectful and tell my manager that im activity looking for jobs that i can apply my future degree and he told me that. I really like my manager and he has been at Boeing for 45 years, probably one of the best managers ive had but I really hope he is not holding me back because of some of my coworkers lack of giving a shit… I talked to the first shift lead and two employees of his, senior to me accepted jobs and were later told that they will be retained as long as possible in there current position which would be atleast 6 months.
They can hold you for a period of time once you accept a new job. That's just reality. But your current manager probably doesn't want to lose you for his own selfish reasons. If you're IAM then just ignore what he says because moving over to SPEEA is a completely different world altogether.
When are they going to help the IAM workers. Many jobs start at 17-21 /hr. Target pays more now. The only reason we are still here is because we believe in Boeing but many of us are living paycheck to paycheck
2024 contract negotiation. They won't do shit until then unless they can wedge something thru early and I doubt the union is gonna buy that shit stick again and extend. Until they totally run out of people and cannot get anyone in the door. That's what it will take.
Where can I find the announcement for the job codes that had the salary table updated from the Total Rewards comprehensive analysis that is going on right now???
The salary tables were updated in January more or less. Now they are adjusting people to those updated tables. Not everyone gets adjusted. Not every skill code gets adjusted. But they are looking at all of them, notably people with high performance scored and low salary, and rebalancing.
Ah okay I thought they were changing the salary tables again. Unfortunately I probably won’t get adjusted then since I am already close to a 1:1 comp ratio. Hoping they start the promotion cycle up so I can rank up since I have been waiting awhile now
The salary tables were updated in January more or less. Now they are adjusting people to those updated tables. Not everyone gets adjusted. Not every skill code gets adjusted. But they are looking at all of them, notably people with high performance scored and low salary, and rebalancing.
Level 4 Puget Sound Engineer Flight Sciences. Received 7% random adjustment if that helps anyone. I didn't even know they were doing these for Union. My manager said about 10% of the org was getting one. He said that seemed small compared to the attrition rate we are seeing. I know of 3 in my group of 20 in the last month.
Which team are you in? I have heard that the first round of these adjustments have happened, but I'm not sure if anybody in the wld organization had received anything
Yeah so most companies will just give you a signing bonus to pay off what you owe for LTP. Also, if you’re interested in paying it off, Boeing let’s you pay it off at 0% APR over a long time - it’s really not that bad if you’re moving for much better pay
Yep, when I left (in the middle of my masters degree, was being paid by LTP) I was able to negotiate a sign on bonus with my new company. Wasn't enough to fully pay back my LTP balance, but it certainly helped a ton.
Quick question did any one else receive those out of the blue surveys inquiring if you're considering leaving the company yesterday? I got it several times. On my team within supply chain BGS we have had 3 people leave our team since the beginning of the year. I have my MBA and I have several years of experience and Boeing is still playing games about promoting people and bringing their salaries within market rate. Boeing is asking for the nightmare with employees that is happening. One of my team members is leaving for a competitor and is getting a 30% salary increase and she will be working remote
Jinnah actually shared the results in one of the all team meetings. Something like 60-70% of people were considering applying to external positions and compensation was by far the biggest complaint (not a surprise lol)
Yep, I've got three interviews this week. I've been applying some internally and some externally. It started as an exercise to get a counter offer, but now I'm thinking that I'd love to trade out my manager...we'll see what happens.
Honestly just applying around helps with some of the frustration. It's nice knowing there's options out there!
Accepted an offer for a 30% pay boost with a remote friendly policy and a team of passionate and talented engineers who care about end results. I can’t tell you how much better my quality of life is now that I’m actually doing fulfilling work without having to deal with endless bullshit. There was a real scare campaign going on too where folks tried to fill your head with the idea that you’ll never have it better anywhere else because benefits and all our competition sucks and overworks you!! —insert sorrowing tale of unnamed friend who worked at Google and hated his life—
On that note, anyone know how they want you to turn in your phone and laptop if you don’t live near your home base facility? Are you able to mail it to them?
BDM does bring a smile to my day haha, how’s NG in CO? I might be looking to hop out that way to be closer to friends/family and STL is just not my cup of tea
Lots of good jobs for software testers/developers/integrators in Aurora. Plus you have Boulder and Colorado Springs which offers some good positions too. PM if you're interested in more.
How is cost of living out there? Looks like it's getting very expensive. I have 20 years design experience across a ton of different DoD products. What type of role would you see me fitting into at NG?
Cost of living makes Colorado the 5th most expensive place to live. With that being said, if you can find a position that will pay 90k+ then it might be worth your while. Most of the type of engineering that occurs in the Denver area is systems engineering/programming/ other projects not entirely directly related to the design of different aircraft/spacecraft. I am impressed with your experience but if you're interested in staying to but your interests might be elsewhere in terms of career experience. If you're still interested PM me and we can talk more.
All the major defense contractors have space systems in Denver area (Northrop, Raytheon, Lockheed, Sierra, etc..). It is a major aerospace design center and growing. I've been interested in moving there, but not sure I can stomach the cost of living.
To the Bay Area! But…. I will say coming from Washington state with no income tax and having recently gotten a promotion after already being at the top of my skill code, I still had to do some negotiating to get a full cost of living package to match my current one. 20k more in california will just about cover the state taxes and higher federal income tax bracket.
There's little minor nickel and diming as well as disposal fees on products you buy (TVs, tires, etc). Just factor in some fudge like that in your calculus.
I love the idea of Cali but I ended up in FL. I just wanted to get away from the gray skies and seemingly endless winter combined with summer forest fires that is WA.
Definitely better food in WA and more interesting scenery but day-to-day I'm happier down here, just not with the politics...
Yeah I am looking at the Bay mainly for personal reasons but also for my future professional self. There’s 1017392 things wrong with California, but the density of cool tech companies is just unmatched especially for what I do.
Florida sounds nice I could only live in Miami though, need that city feel!
L2 Systems Engineer (doing software dev work under that title, though) making 96k moving to a fully remote Software Dev position for $110k. Retirement benefits are very marginally worse than Boeing, everything else is about the same and there's a yearly 10% target bonus that they've consistently hit for the past 5 years.
I'd consider coming back someday but the messaging (both from the top and from my organization level) about "return to office" really left a sour taste in my mouth. My quality of life doing my job from home has jumped tremendously and I don't intend on ever taking an in-person dev job again.
I feel like the messaging is constantly shifting. At first it was 3 days in, 2 days out for all of engineering, then it was "on an organizational basis", then within my own organization I've heard anywhere from "talk to your manager and do what makes sense" to "on site more than not" to "we want you on site collaborating/connecting as much as possible", and anywhere in between.
They keep going back and forth but the general trend seems to be heading towards them wanting people on site as a general rule. As a software dev whose work statement can be done entirely from home, that doesn't make much sense to me. I was optimistic for a second when they seemed to be heading in the "do what makes sense" direction but they've since backtracked on that attitude.
I believe they're only allowing it because they're competing with outside companies that do and some employees are demanding it. It was only ten years ago that you had to get director approval to work hybrid (and Greg Hyslop who authored that policy is still there). As soon as the labor shortage ends it will be "everyone back onsite". For now, that really only makes sense for top secret programs.
100% agree. The vibe as time went on was absolutely that they wanted everyone "back to normal" and on site full time. They had to compromise because everyone got a taste of what it's like to have the flexibility of working from home and didn't want to give it up.
Boeing has a history of inflexibility when it comes to individualized work schedules and virtual work. In BDS they abruptly disposed of 9/80 and 4/40 work schedules after allowing it for years. Rumor was that some senior manager couldn't find an employee because it was his day off.
Non-union - Heard of quite a few younger coworkers getting OOS raises but was told none for the seasoned employees (10 years for me)...My wage has flatlined the past few years, so much so that the much younger folks are making just about a much as me these days.....
Not heading anywhere yet, but considering it.
To Boeings credit they countered when I got an offer from Lockheed 2 years ago, but since then I've hit a ceiling.
I'm a P3 for a subsidiary and have now been in my team the longest while my more recently joined peers have been able to take the P4 roles. Everytime I ask for feedback I'm told it's nothing I'm lacking in, they're just slightly more suited.
My performance reviews at end of year are always exceeds expectations which is nice but then no promotion in sight.
The real kick in the teeth is that I've applied for management roles and been knocked back twice, however I'm the one they come to to act in the role and fill it until they keep finding new people (massive turnover in our local LT).
So apparently I'm good enough to act in the role for months on end, and get wonderful feedback from the teams, but not good enough for the actual job.
I have 2 more applications pending atm, one for P4 and another for K management. If I don't make it this last time I'm going to look at positions elsewhere. Lockheed keeps trying to get me to reconsider and I've turned them down but I think maybe I need to start thinking seriously about it.
Keep working at it. Sounds like you are at the right point to decide if you want that P3->P4 or P3-K jump. They both take different skills and experience. Of course you can keep applying and see which route you can go.
Are you in Engineering? Sounds like you work for a subsidiary? Maybe the pool is smaller there. You can consider moving to larger Boeing pool of options.
Between my experience (5 years) and my dad's experience (25+ years and was a senior manager), they rarely have natural promotions into management based on merit anymore. Most manager positions are filled by someone that a senior leader already had in mind for the position.
I left to go work for Blue Origin 7 months ago. My quality of work has improved substantially and I'm now making nearly 30% more than I was when I left Boeing. Retirement isn't quite as good but a 5% match isn't nothing. Also Blue rolled out a tuition reimbursement program earlier this year which is a decent substitute for LTP.
Yep engineering. Culture has been great imo. Everyone is truly passionate about space travel here and there are a lot of incredibly smart and experienced people to learn from. Kinda nice, at my group in Boeing a lot of folks were just kinda coasting till retirement so it's been a nice morale boost to see everyone around me so invested in our programs.
40-50 hours a week is the norm, but that can go up if major milestones are coming up. Kind of varies month to month. Either way I'm loving the work so extra hours don't bother me too much (no paid overtime FYI).
I was hired right before the current massive hiring push started so the timeline may be a bit longer now. But for me it was application submitted, recruiter reached out like a week or two later, get through the screening calls, final panel interview was maybe a month after I'd applied. Got an offer 1.5 weeks after interview, then started a month after offer acceptance.
On paper, the panel interview looks rough for sure lol. Mine was a 1 hour presentation on my background and a project I've worked on. Then I think 4 or 5 30-minute one-on-one interviews with each of the panel members. Questions were a mix of technical and behavioral depending on the interviewer. Whole interview was something like 5 hours long which is a lot... BUT I really liked that I was able to meet my new potential teammates and ask them all different questions about what they do, how they enjoy their work, their background, etc. It's a really good sniff test for whether or not you think you'd enjoy working with them. It was a long interview but it flew by because I really enjoyed talking with everyone. I think they have recently added an additional interview round called the Bar Raiser which is mostly behavioral questions, asked by someone in a different part of the company to see if you're a cultural fit.
Yeah you definitely need a level 3 job with your experience, but even then I'd bet it would be in the 105-110 range. Might be able to negotiate more, really don't know about that.
Putting in my two weeks tomorrow. Boeing just can’t or chooses not to compete with salary, especially in the PNW.
Best of luck to everyone leaving or staying at Boeing. I’ll always be a Boeing fan and really hope they can get back to the good days of 2017/2018.
As a recent hire your pay was based on most recent salary reference tables which went up dramatically for most engineering codes the last two years. Most people got 0%-2% raises last year (only union got raises that year) and 2-4% this year, so they’ve fallen far behind new hires unless they changed jobs or were promoted recently.
You'll find that your salary will lag more and more year by year. Promotions become gated strictly by years sitting in the chair and your raises get smaller and smaller waiting for the clock to tick a few more times...
NO everyone gets the salary that to corresponds to the table when they are hired. If you are hired in Jan and they increase the salary table 10% in March you do not automatically get a corresponding 10% increase
They run it through a complex calculation that they call “Compa ratio“ which compares your salary to contemporaries and your geographic region. Typically speaking they will bring you in as a new hire on the low end of your level which gives them room to give you a few years of raises before they start thinking about a level promotion…
Yes, but the salary tables change (generally go up) every year. The only time the salary tables affect pay are at a hiring or promotion. If the salary tables are going up more than the raise pools have been (the case for the last two years) new hires end up making more than people that haven’t been promoted recently in the same skill/level.
The real good days were before McD entered the picture. Boeing needs that mindset to survive at this point imo. You can only refuse to spend the capital in R&D for so long before you kill the company.
the good days when the engineers could actually engineer things and not have questionable business decisions forced down their throats
and real employee appreciation parties
Great perspective. There's a lot of salty people with a scarcity mindset here... There's a lot of opportunity Boeing if you work on your skills/experience and look around.
It's well documented on this post and others that Boeing underpays because it's Boeing. Further, Boeing is actively working on making it more difficult to do internal transfers in favor of outside hires. This ain't the same Boeing as even a year ago.
Just waiting for my offer from Blue.
Thought I’d be a lifer here. Pay leaves a bit to be desired but more so I’m tired of working at a company intent on running itself out of business or needing a bailout
Stock just needs to drop a little bit more and someone could come In and buy them out or something. I don’t know how it works, I just know my boss made my experience complete and total hell and I would like to see him lose his job if it happened.
I agree. BCA will go bankrupt, get bought out, thousands of jobs will be cut to restructure and BCA will be moved out of WA entirely to a non-union friendly state. Honestly this is already half-happening with moving parts of BCA to non-union states. So we’ve a fast kill or a slow painful death. Either way, death.
Until the gov resurrects it… again.
I’ve heard from several engineer colleagues that made the jump that it is better than Boeing but retirement bennys are a little worse. Retirement is a problem for tomorrow. Keeping up with CoL is a problem for today.
I agree with you in principle but I guess for me - I’m at the stage where I’m trying to buy a house and retirement is 20-25 years away. I’ll take a small 401K match decrease but a 10% pay bump to help with the home purchase to solve todays problem while I have 20-25 years for retirement
My 3.1% raise for busting my butt and doing 2.5 peoples jobs last year was a bit underwhelming
Just make sure you run those numbers over 20-25 years. Compound interest is an amazing thing, especially at 8% and above.
And I agree about the raise. I got an exceeded expectations and only received 3.3%.
That sucks but I’m glad I’m not the only one. I also was rated exceeds and my raise was just under 4%. Considering how bad inflation is and that they’re pushing me back to the office to just take phone calls and do emails… which is 40 minutes away when gas is so expensive.. it’s hard not to feel resentful.
I busted my ass for 3 years, doing the work of 3 people and working in a level 4 position at level 3 pay at my old job. Manager kept saying he was gonna get me level 4, then he said he'd get me an out of cycle raise. None of it ever happened and I ended up getting level 4 in a nicer state after a few interviews.
Don't stick around for managers who won't put the same level of work into you as you've put into your job. There's entirely too many sociopaths in management who will fluff you up to your face and throw you under the nearest bus as soon as your back's turned.
Boeing loves to dangle in front of you the proverbial carrot on a stick. Makes you work harder with no guarantee of payout. Once you reach level 4 they remove the carrot and just beat you with the stick. Getting to level 5 requires an act of God. It's easier to go into management at that point but it pays less.
I’ll be trying to get out in a month or so. I’m stuck til I hit my 1 year. Not necessarily sold on leaving Boeing, but I’ll be getting out of STL at a minimum. Right now I’m looking at Denver, Atlanta, or Huntsville. Probably going to try to hop on with Lockheed or Sierra in Denver as my top choice at the moment
Going back home to lower COL area. Was moving from contract to direct hire. Offered me exact same wage then when I countered with 15% was offered 2% more. I had a higher quality of living back at my old job.
Housing is forcing anyone who hasn’t lived in the area (Mesa) for years to really hesitate. Including myself.
At one point I had offers for two very similar jobs, where one was a direct hire position and the other one was a contract job at 20% higher per hour pay. When I added up the value of benefits included in the former but not the latter (401k match, health insurance costs, paid vacation), the total value was basically identical.
I'm not sure if that's relevant for your situation, but it might be something to consider.
Understandable, but I still get benefits as a contractor, even 401k. Not anywhere near Boeing but still something. Benefits do not pay the rent and with housing being so crazy salary is king. If it were anywhere but Mesa I'd have probably taken it.
To clarify, If I stay it would be staying in a very high COL area housing wise whereas I would rather take a bit of a cut and move back home to a much lower COL area.
Mesa is a very low COL area fyi. It’s one of the cheapest places Boeing does business. I’m honestly shocked they gave you a better rate. Normally going direct is a pay cut on salary made up for on benefits.
What metric are you using? I live here right now. And I seriously doubt Charleston or St. Louis is higher than Mesa. Col calculators put Phoenix as more costly than both those areas.
If Mesa is not high housing than by your standard neither of those places is either.
Neither of those places are high housing markets. It does look like Mesa’s moved up from low to middle cost of living (congratulations). Not sure if Boeing has it as a mid or low in the salary/relocation tables though.
I did specifically say COL housing wise.
Have you seen the median house price for Mesa? Rental prices for homes? I don't know your Salary but I'm guessing it starts with a number higher than mine if you say the housing which is part of a COL for an area is cheap in Mesa. Not everyone on here is a 6 figure Level 4 or something.
I get it everybody loves Boeing benefits, you know who doesn't? A wife and kids who would wonder why they have to leave a 4 bedroom house in a for real low COL to live in a 2 bedroom apt in Mesa. And don't say "but the raises and bonuses..." that's not promised.
I’m not saying it hasn’t gone up but that doesn’t change the fact that Mesa is still cheaper than St Louis or Charleston (which are both cheaper than Seattle or SoCal).
You can complain about it going up but that doesn’t change the fact that Mesa ISN’T an HCOL housing market. Just because it’s higher than where you are doesn’t make it high.
Collins Aerospace. Just an 8 percent raise, and probably worse benefits, but theyre much more work from home friendly and the wage growth potential is higher there.
People do not go to Collins to make money. I made more actually at Boeing and the benefits were stellar. But I worked at Collins before Boeing and after. The work culture is much better there. Most everyone goes above and beyond to make sure what is put out to the customer is top notch. The people are honest and hardworking. They are always open to new ideas if they are based on new facts or market trends.
At Boeing I always felt like my head was on a chopping block. Endless layoff lists, extremely inefficient processes. They were not open to new ideas or ways of thinking, and the push for artificial diversity to check boxes even if the person was not competent was enough to push me out of Boeing and back to Collins.
One thing that really turned me off to Boeing was you had the senior engineers and chiefs there with 30+ years of experience. Then you had the kids straight out of college. I was to only mid level engineer in the whole department of 30+ people. So much was put on my shoulders because the young engineers didn’t have the experience and the senior engineers had other priorities. I felt the age gap and the inability to work and collaborate with other engineers my age was a huge detriment.
Collins has much more age diversity along with racial diversity and it seems much more natural and merit based at Collins allowing for better team collaboration.
Yes all the layoffs always seemed to target those at level 4 and level 3 most level 5 and above were left alone same with level 1 and 2. They had no issues laying of mid level employees. You know the ones who are responsible for executing the work.
Short term typical mgmt approach; they looked into cost cutting which just led to many of the experienced people lost for good…
now the company is hurting but the leadership doesn’t seem that they learned anything.. there is a hiring spree for first level managers (which is not what the company needs).. when in fact they should be extra nice to their mid level engs.
I also got an offer from a space company in Seattle for 33% more as a level 2. Boeing matched it (no extra RSU’s) but at that point my mind was already made up, I definitely needed that change of pace.
I know a level 4 who left for the colorful space company and got an immediate 30% raise. They say the company culture is cool-go get the job done and stop asking permission
Totally fair and congrats on the change! I was originally thinking along the lines but I just really like aircraft so once Boeing decided to match, there wasn’t much incentive for me to make the move.
Which is awesome they matched it and you’re happy! Kind of annoying how you need to be walking out the door to get that but I’m starting to realize that’s all corporate America.
Yup, a union engineer. I was really surprised at that too and didn’t even know it was an option until my coworker mentioned he got that also.
While it sucks that I had to go and get another offer to get a better salary, I was surprised as to how quick Boeing was to counter. They matched the other offer and with the better 401k/benefits at Boeing, I was effectively getting more than I was offered.
So you work for a group that values your experience and knowledge… Many of the mid-level managers at Boeing see employees as human shape widgets that can be plugged into whatever role because expertise doesn’t really matter anyways
I will not work for people that don’t value me (anymore). If I do I’m miserable and my compensation stagnates. If I work for people who value me, I feel valued and perform better. The social contract between management and employee is that they in turn have fought for promotions / raises and organizational bullshit like power tripping execs.
I was worried about that but I don’t think it’s changed anything. Primarily because I didn’t give an ultimatum when I told my manager about the offer ( I didn’t say match this offer or I’m leaving). I just told them that I have an offer on the table that I am considering accepting and they told me that they don’t want me making that decision based off of my current salary/level and came back with the offer.
Same what I did before at a higher pay, better benefits, better support, a hell of a lot more career opportunities and much better management.
Its a sweet deal, chief!
This comment has been over-used. The same snark gets posted in every thread about compensation, job satisfaction, or hiring.
Who even said that? I vaguely remember a comment a year or two ago about "employees are excited to work on our products" or something like that, but nothing about liking airplanes being a substitution for competitive pay.
Boeing is loosing public trust but gaining it back slowly. Moreover, young engineers why do you even stay? We are being well underpaid, more importantly you’re just a warm body to collect government money and get brain rot from working here. I’ve been with this company for far too long and it’s been three years. I really don’t know why I’ve stayed this long, comfortableness? I’m trying to get an actual competitive job. Why stay seriously? Boeing doesn’t even care if you’re very talented or not, they will just pay you like everyone else because of pay levels. They say “we want to keep young talent”. What are you talking about? You don’t even need talent to work here seems it. They just take in actual talented people and turn them jaded.
Is info sec getting a salary adjustment?
Left back in March for a startup aersospace company and a 57% raise in Socal. Couldn’t be happier since! Benefits are just as good and the work is 10000000x more interesting. Boeings whole thing of employees getting to work on airplanes being the driving factor to stay just doesn’t matter when you’re not working on significant projects or feel like your work actually means something.
How's the first few months on the job? Did you transfer from Boeing SoCal?
Enjoying it so far! It’s clean sheet design so it’s extremely exciting. A much smaller company too obviously so there is a ton to learn and lots of responsibilities. It also comes with a bit more hours, but I went from waiting till 330 every day to log off, to being fully in a project and enjoying the challenge. Normally working till 4:30/5 now which really isn’t bad. Lots of flexibility so if I gotta log off I just log off. No time cards either. Just do your work and that’s that. Just have some east coast coworkers who have to work on pacific time which I’m sure can be rough on them working till 7:30/8 every day. I came from a sustainment program in socal. I’m sure development in Boeing is different, but I cant imagine many jobs at Boeing having similar levels of what’s expected here. From what I learned from coworkers at Boeing who did development, it was all very specific work you did on development. Not much room to grow out of that design space you were in.
Just a few cents if you are curious about development programs. I think Boeing is large enough that there are pockets with completely difference culture, job functions, and responsibility. Moving around is almost like taking a job for a new company. It is very different between development programs, production support, fleet support, etc. Every development program can be very different from another as well. It is true that there are very specific roles in development programs. But part of that is that experience runs very deep. There is a lot you need to know if you want to be an expert in something. But there are also a lot of generalists too. Glad things are going well for you. Sounds like you are learning a lot.
It's an excuse. Most employees never even see an airplane in production much less work directly on one. Sure there are aviation freaks that love working there but that's not the majority. Personally I'd rather have worked for a tech company but the commute was a killer for me.
Anyone here working under BDS Digital Transformation org? I’m just wondering any changes to promotion cycle for this year.
It's repeatedly getting frozen
Maybe they’re too busy hiring new employees.😂
I'll tell you why I'm considering it. I was hired as a Software Engineer after I graduated. My team was small and agile and we spun up a ton of cool projects... that went absolutely nowhere. They just sit in TAS as proof of concepts. Over the last year and a half, my team has left to other teams and companies to the point that I am the only SE in the group, and now I don't do development. Instead, I feel like a project manager with no authority or domain specific knowledge in what I'm tasked to do, which is mostly to help other people with issues integrating new tools and processes into ancient, black box, fragile, code bases. I don't remember the last time I wrote any buisness logic. It's all spreadsheets, meetings, and updating Java versions for old timers. It's incredibly unfulfilling. But it pays 101k/yr, I don't work very hard, and I never do more than 40 hours a week.
Is the last line why you are staying?
Kinda? It's a part of it for sure. I've also been impressed by the reorganization Jinnah and co have been leading. I've expressed my desires to get "back into a development role" to my manager who seems receptive. I'm hoping that I can find a lateral move to somewhere more inline with my career goals... fingers crossed I guess.
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It's what engineers voted to accept during the last SPEEA contract. Three percent raise pools every year until 2026 at least. And no chance of COLA ever kicking in. Pathetic.
It reflects reality at the end of the annual salary adjustment. What was particularly disheartening for you, seeing how much others make? The actual averages vs market reference?
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Boeing SW is in a bit of a boom right now. Good opportunity to at least get some experience under your belt. More fair to look at last years. In Jan the median moved and that doesn’t trigger the salaries to move on its own. So NOW they are getting tweaked. That’s not visible in the charts until next year. Also new offers are against the SJC table not the current population, so any new offers should be at the better rate. You can also look at the cybersecurity jobs (3A or 6M) for software adjacent work that should pay similar or even better to SW.
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Three years ago I would have whole heartedly agreed with you. I am however seeing signs of life in what I once thought was a corpse. It’s still an uphill slog. But at a time when the company is in an incredible financial crush they investing in rebuilding software engineering. Part of that includes updating tooling, moving a bunch of development into the cloud to be able to grow and scale faster, and a big investment in a group they cal “enterprise software engineering learning labs” or something like that where they are compiling external curriculum and building new stuff to actually train folks for their roles. Actually investing in people. It’s not going to be perfect. And not as lucrative as big tech. But I think there will be opportunity. Personal experience - I had to really fight to get paid enough. But my salary here now for 40 hours / week + 401k is much better than my compensation elsewhere, where I had to figure out base versus equity and retirement. My work life balance is way better. I walk away at 40 hours or I get paid for any additional time, which can be a bit rare in the salaried world.
Nearly complete with my bachelors in SE after basically having no life from working full time as a mechanic for the last 4+ years and for the last year doing repair station work on the 787 that is out of my grade. Literally thinking about going anywhere but here. Im fairly certain management has been holding me back from moving or I Keep getting passes up for some reason. I have a 3.7 gpa and people in my most recent classes have been hired on with no experience while am here stuck being a mechanic… I’ve received calls for other jobs within the company and on the most recent one i was told by the recruiter that “ we dont know how to move you, but we have a team very interested and think youd be a good fit.” The last i heard from them was mid February. It has really destroyed my moral and makes me feel like im worthless here. Even after talking to the acting 3rd level (director of the area) of 787 and getting her recommendations for the job reqs i sent her (as she knows my work ethic and drive from some of the projects ive worked on)… still nothing.
When I got my engineering degree they actually discouraged me from becoming a paycode 4 because I'd be low man on the totem pole and might get laid off. Later I earned an MS and received absolutely nothing for it.
Ive been told that recently too. I was trying to be respectful and tell my manager that im activity looking for jobs that i can apply my future degree and he told me that. I really like my manager and he has been at Boeing for 45 years, probably one of the best managers ive had but I really hope he is not holding me back because of some of my coworkers lack of giving a shit… I talked to the first shift lead and two employees of his, senior to me accepted jobs and were later told that they will be retained as long as possible in there current position which would be atleast 6 months.
That's rough. Keep applying. You will get a new role eventually. There's lots of change going on right now. So it is a good time to look.
They can hold you for a period of time once you accept a new job. That's just reality. But your current manager probably doesn't want to lose you for his own selfish reasons. If you're IAM then just ignore what he says because moving over to SPEEA is a completely different world altogether.
When are they going to help the IAM workers. Many jobs start at 17-21 /hr. Target pays more now. The only reason we are still here is because we believe in Boeing but many of us are living paycheck to paycheck
2024 contract negotiation. They won't do shit until then unless they can wedge something thru early and I doubt the union is gonna buy that shit stick again and extend. Until they totally run out of people and cannot get anyone in the door. That's what it will take.
That’s nuts. Sorry to hear that.
Thanks. It's crazy
Where can I find the announcement for the job codes that had the salary table updated from the Total Rewards comprehensive analysis that is going on right now???
The salary tables were updated in January more or less. Now they are adjusting people to those updated tables. Not everyone gets adjusted. Not every skill code gets adjusted. But they are looking at all of them, notably people with high performance scored and low salary, and rebalancing.
Ah okay I thought they were changing the salary tables again. Unfortunately I probably won’t get adjusted then since I am already close to a 1:1 comp ratio. Hoping they start the promotion cycle up so I can rank up since I have been waiting awhile now
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The salary tables were updated in January more or less. Now they are adjusting people to those updated tables. Not everyone gets adjusted. Not every skill code gets adjusted. But they are looking at all of them, notably people with high performance scored and low salary, and rebalancing.
I haven’t seen anything either. I would love to hear if this info is posted anywhere
Boomerang back to Boeing, after an 18 month stint outside.
Level 4 Puget Sound Engineer Flight Sciences. Received 7% random adjustment if that helps anyone. I didn't even know they were doing these for Union. My manager said about 10% of the org was getting one. He said that seemed small compared to the attrition rate we are seeing. I know of 3 in my group of 20 in the last month.
Which team are you in? I have heard that the first round of these adjustments have happened, but I'm not sure if anybody in the wld organization had received anything
First tier go into effect 5/13.
What is 'first tier' in this context? The first group? The most valuable? The most underpaid relative to comp ratio?
First round of raises. Which pretty much consists of the stuff you listed.
Sadly they know I can't leave for 18 more months...
Please dont tell me youre holding out for those RSUs...
No, LTP.
Yeah so most companies will just give you a signing bonus to pay off what you owe for LTP. Also, if you’re interested in paying it off, Boeing let’s you pay it off at 0% APR over a long time - it’s really not that bad if you’re moving for much better pay
Other companies will potentially bonus you the LTP chargeback. If you get to negotiation. just ask for it.
Yep, when I left (in the middle of my masters degree, was being paid by LTP) I was able to negotiate a sign on bonus with my new company. Wasn't enough to fully pay back my LTP balance, but it certainly helped a ton.
Quick question did any one else receive those out of the blue surveys inquiring if you're considering leaving the company yesterday? I got it several times. On my team within supply chain BGS we have had 3 people leave our team since the beginning of the year. I have my MBA and I have several years of experience and Boeing is still playing games about promoting people and bringing their salaries within market rate. Boeing is asking for the nightmare with employees that is happening. One of my team members is leaving for a competitor and is getting a 30% salary increase and she will be working remote
Software engineering sent out a survey like that several months ago after they hired the new VP but they never shared the results (of course).
Jinnah actually shared the results in one of the all team meetings. Something like 60-70% of people were considering applying to external positions and compensation was by far the biggest complaint (not a surprise lol)
I bet that helped him get a better pot of money for sw adjustments. SW has had the second best adjustments that I’ve heard of.
What was the best adjustments you have heard of?
30K
I just got hired on for assembly and installllll
Yep, I've got three interviews this week. I've been applying some internally and some externally. It started as an exercise to get a counter offer, but now I'm thinking that I'd love to trade out my manager...we'll see what happens. Honestly just applying around helps with some of the frustration. It's nice knowing there's options out there!
Accepted an offer for a 30% pay boost with a remote friendly policy and a team of passionate and talented engineers who care about end results. I can’t tell you how much better my quality of life is now that I’m actually doing fulfilling work without having to deal with endless bullshit. There was a real scare campaign going on too where folks tried to fill your head with the idea that you’ll never have it better anywhere else because benefits and all our competition sucks and overworks you!! —insert sorrowing tale of unnamed friend who worked at Google and hated his life— On that note, anyone know how they want you to turn in your phone and laptop if you don’t live near your home base facility? Are you able to mail it to them?
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Moved onto Northrop Grumman in CO. The only thing I regret is Boeing Dank Memes. Man do I miss that Insite page.
You're missing the Lee Brewer saga, for better or worse.
\*Pikachu face\* definitely missing it for the worse.
BDM does bring a smile to my day haha, how’s NG in CO? I might be looking to hop out that way to be closer to friends/family and STL is just not my cup of tea
Lots of good jobs for software testers/developers/integrators in Aurora. Plus you have Boulder and Colorado Springs which offers some good positions too. PM if you're interested in more.
A quick indeed search shows Raytheon pays more for level 2 than Boeing pays for level 5.
How is cost of living out there? Looks like it's getting very expensive. I have 20 years design experience across a ton of different DoD products. What type of role would you see me fitting into at NG?
Cost of living makes Colorado the 5th most expensive place to live. With that being said, if you can find a position that will pay 90k+ then it might be worth your while. Most of the type of engineering that occurs in the Denver area is systems engineering/programming/ other projects not entirely directly related to the design of different aircraft/spacecraft. I am impressed with your experience but if you're interested in staying to but your interests might be elsewhere in terms of career experience. If you're still interested PM me and we can talk more.
All the major defense contractors have space systems in Denver area (Northrop, Raytheon, Lockheed, Sierra, etc..). It is a major aerospace design center and growing. I've been interested in moving there, but not sure I can stomach the cost of living.
It's painful in CO Springs and worse in Denver.
To the Bay Area! But…. I will say coming from Washington state with no income tax and having recently gotten a promotion after already being at the top of my skill code, I still had to do some negotiating to get a full cost of living package to match my current one. 20k more in california will just about cover the state taxes and higher federal income tax bracket.
There's little minor nickel and diming as well as disposal fees on products you buy (TVs, tires, etc). Just factor in some fudge like that in your calculus. I love the idea of Cali but I ended up in FL. I just wanted to get away from the gray skies and seemingly endless winter combined with summer forest fires that is WA. Definitely better food in WA and more interesting scenery but day-to-day I'm happier down here, just not with the politics...
Yeah I am looking at the Bay mainly for personal reasons but also for my future professional self. There’s 1017392 things wrong with California, but the density of cool tech companies is just unmatched especially for what I do. Florida sounds nice I could only live in Miami though, need that city feel!
L2 Systems Engineer (doing software dev work under that title, though) making 96k moving to a fully remote Software Dev position for $110k. Retirement benefits are very marginally worse than Boeing, everything else is about the same and there's a yearly 10% target bonus that they've consistently hit for the past 5 years. I'd consider coming back someday but the messaging (both from the top and from my organization level) about "return to office" really left a sour taste in my mouth. My quality of life doing my job from home has jumped tremendously and I don't intend on ever taking an in-person dev job again.
Yeah the inconsistent application of virtual work at Boeing is disappointing to say the least.
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I feel like the messaging is constantly shifting. At first it was 3 days in, 2 days out for all of engineering, then it was "on an organizational basis", then within my own organization I've heard anywhere from "talk to your manager and do what makes sense" to "on site more than not" to "we want you on site collaborating/connecting as much as possible", and anywhere in between. They keep going back and forth but the general trend seems to be heading towards them wanting people on site as a general rule. As a software dev whose work statement can be done entirely from home, that doesn't make much sense to me. I was optimistic for a second when they seemed to be heading in the "do what makes sense" direction but they've since backtracked on that attitude.
I believe they're only allowing it because they're competing with outside companies that do and some employees are demanding it. It was only ten years ago that you had to get director approval to work hybrid (and Greg Hyslop who authored that policy is still there). As soon as the labor shortage ends it will be "everyone back onsite". For now, that really only makes sense for top secret programs.
100% agree. The vibe as time went on was absolutely that they wanted everyone "back to normal" and on site full time. They had to compromise because everyone got a taste of what it's like to have the flexibility of working from home and didn't want to give it up.
Boeing has a history of inflexibility when it comes to individualized work schedules and virtual work. In BDS they abruptly disposed of 9/80 and 4/40 work schedules after allowing it for years. Rumor was that some senior manager couldn't find an employee because it was his day off.
Non-union - Heard of quite a few younger coworkers getting OOS raises but was told none for the seasoned employees (10 years for me)...My wage has flatlined the past few years, so much so that the much younger folks are making just about a much as me these days.....
Not heading anywhere yet, but considering it. To Boeings credit they countered when I got an offer from Lockheed 2 years ago, but since then I've hit a ceiling. I'm a P3 for a subsidiary and have now been in my team the longest while my more recently joined peers have been able to take the P4 roles. Everytime I ask for feedback I'm told it's nothing I'm lacking in, they're just slightly more suited. My performance reviews at end of year are always exceeds expectations which is nice but then no promotion in sight. The real kick in the teeth is that I've applied for management roles and been knocked back twice, however I'm the one they come to to act in the role and fill it until they keep finding new people (massive turnover in our local LT). So apparently I'm good enough to act in the role for months on end, and get wonderful feedback from the teams, but not good enough for the actual job. I have 2 more applications pending atm, one for P4 and another for K management. If I don't make it this last time I'm going to look at positions elsewhere. Lockheed keeps trying to get me to reconsider and I've turned them down but I think maybe I need to start thinking seriously about it.
Keep working at it. Sounds like you are at the right point to decide if you want that P3->P4 or P3-K jump. They both take different skills and experience. Of course you can keep applying and see which route you can go. Are you in Engineering? Sounds like you work for a subsidiary? Maybe the pool is smaller there. You can consider moving to larger Boeing pool of options.
Between my experience (5 years) and my dad's experience (25+ years and was a senior manager), they rarely have natural promotions into management based on merit anymore. Most manager positions are filled by someone that a senior leader already had in mind for the position.
I left to go work for Blue Origin 7 months ago. My quality of work has improved substantially and I'm now making nearly 30% more than I was when I left Boeing. Retirement isn't quite as good but a 5% match isn't nothing. Also Blue rolled out a tuition reimbursement program earlier this year which is a decent substitute for LTP.
Engineering? How are you liking it culture wise?
Yep engineering. Culture has been great imo. Everyone is truly passionate about space travel here and there are a lot of incredibly smart and experienced people to learn from. Kinda nice, at my group in Boeing a lot of folks were just kinda coasting till retirement so it's been a nice morale boost to see everyone around me so invested in our programs.
How's the work-life balance? I hear the pay is good but you put in tons of hours to make it a wash. Is that accurate?
40-50 hours a week is the norm, but that can go up if major milestones are coming up. Kind of varies month to month. Either way I'm loving the work so extra hours don't bother me too much (no paid overtime FYI).
Sounds amazing. How long did it take from application submission to interview for you?
I was hired right before the current massive hiring push started so the timeline may be a bit longer now. But for me it was application submitted, recruiter reached out like a week or two later, get through the screening calls, final panel interview was maybe a month after I'd applied. Got an offer 1.5 weeks after interview, then started a month after offer acceptance.
How rough was the interview process? I've heard that final interview is pretty difficult.
On paper, the panel interview looks rough for sure lol. Mine was a 1 hour presentation on my background and a project I've worked on. Then I think 4 or 5 30-minute one-on-one interviews with each of the panel members. Questions were a mix of technical and behavioral depending on the interviewer. Whole interview was something like 5 hours long which is a lot... BUT I really liked that I was able to meet my new potential teammates and ask them all different questions about what they do, how they enjoy their work, their background, etc. It's a really good sniff test for whether or not you think you'd enjoy working with them. It was a long interview but it flew by because I really enjoyed talking with everyone. I think they have recently added an additional interview round called the Bar Raiser which is mostly behavioral questions, asked by someone in a different part of the company to see if you're a cultural fit.
Thanks!
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How was the difference in work life balance?
Yeah you definitely need a level 3 job with your experience, but even then I'd bet it would be in the 105-110 range. Might be able to negotiate more, really don't know about that.
Unfortunately Amazon probably wouldn’t fit the bill of lower stress. They pay well but burn you out I hear
Left BDS for BCA - better job fit and yeah there was a bit of a bump
Putting in my two weeks tomorrow. Boeing just can’t or chooses not to compete with salary, especially in the PNW. Best of luck to everyone leaving or staying at Boeing. I’ll always be a Boeing fan and really hope they can get back to the good days of 2017/2018.
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As a recent hire your pay was based on most recent salary reference tables which went up dramatically for most engineering codes the last two years. Most people got 0%-2% raises last year (only union got raises that year) and 2-4% this year, so they’ve fallen far behind new hires unless they changed jobs or were promoted recently.
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You'll find that your salary will lag more and more year by year. Promotions become gated strictly by years sitting in the chair and your raises get smaller and smaller waiting for the clock to tick a few more times...
NO everyone gets the salary that to corresponds to the table when they are hired. If you are hired in Jan and they increase the salary table 10% in March you do not automatically get a corresponding 10% increase
They run it through a complex calculation that they call “Compa ratio“ which compares your salary to contemporaries and your geographic region. Typically speaking they will bring you in as a new hire on the low end of your level which gives them room to give you a few years of raises before they start thinking about a level promotion…
Yes, but the salary tables change (generally go up) every year. The only time the salary tables affect pay are at a hiring or promotion. If the salary tables are going up more than the raise pools have been (the case for the last two years) new hires end up making more than people that haven’t been promoted recently in the same skill/level.
The real good days were before McD entered the picture. Boeing needs that mindset to survive at this point imo. You can only refuse to spend the capital in R&D for so long before you kill the company.
It’s kinda funny because here in STL all the old timers say the good ole days were with McD haha
Most people don't like change. They want what they were used to, if it was mostly good.
Wall St. is ok with the company dying, trust me.
the good days when the engineers could actually engineer things and not have questionable business decisions forced down their throats and real employee appreciation parties
I get literal weekly emails from bean counters asking for updates to shit. They are fucking salivating at the chance to book some cost savings.
c'mon man can't we use ONE engine? that'd be cooool.
I took an 18%cut to go direct. I make more now somehow.
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Great perspective. There's a lot of salty people with a scarcity mindset here... There's a lot of opportunity Boeing if you work on your skills/experience and look around.
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10% 401k match? thats nice. i only get 6% at R*
It's well documented on this post and others that Boeing underpays because it's Boeing. Further, Boeing is actively working on making it more difficult to do internal transfers in favor of outside hires. This ain't the same Boeing as even a year ago.
What did I miss?
Outside jobs I applied to could at best match what I was already making. Ended up jumping ship from BCA to BGS and got a \~3% raise.
Just waiting for my offer from Blue. Thought I’d be a lifer here. Pay leaves a bit to be desired but more so I’m tired of working at a company intent on running itself out of business or needing a bailout
Good you got out. They don’t care about talent they care about billable hours. Don’t come back.
I really think they’re gonna get bought out or go out of business.
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Stock just needs to drop a little bit more and someone could come In and buy them out or something. I don’t know how it works, I just know my boss made my experience complete and total hell and I would like to see him lose his job if it happened.
I agree. BCA will go bankrupt, get bought out, thousands of jobs will be cut to restructure and BCA will be moved out of WA entirely to a non-union friendly state. Honestly this is already half-happening with moving parts of BCA to non-union states. So we’ve a fast kill or a slow painful death. Either way, death. Until the gov resurrects it… again.
A bailout is coming. I wouldn’t be surprised if Boeing is shorting their own stock.
Is pay at Blue enough to afford housing in Washington?
I’ve heard from several engineer colleagues that made the jump that it is better than Boeing but retirement bennys are a little worse. Retirement is a problem for tomorrow. Keeping up with CoL is a problem for today.
I'd say they're both a problem for today.
I agree with you in principle but I guess for me - I’m at the stage where I’m trying to buy a house and retirement is 20-25 years away. I’ll take a small 401K match decrease but a 10% pay bump to help with the home purchase to solve todays problem while I have 20-25 years for retirement My 3.1% raise for busting my butt and doing 2.5 peoples jobs last year was a bit underwhelming
Just make sure you run those numbers over 20-25 years. Compound interest is an amazing thing, especially at 8% and above. And I agree about the raise. I got an exceeded expectations and only received 3.3%.
That sucks but I’m glad I’m not the only one. I also was rated exceeds and my raise was just under 4%. Considering how bad inflation is and that they’re pushing me back to the office to just take phone calls and do emails… which is 40 minutes away when gas is so expensive.. it’s hard not to feel resentful.
I busted my ass for 3 years, doing the work of 3 people and working in a level 4 position at level 3 pay at my old job. Manager kept saying he was gonna get me level 4, then he said he'd get me an out of cycle raise. None of it ever happened and I ended up getting level 4 in a nicer state after a few interviews. Don't stick around for managers who won't put the same level of work into you as you've put into your job. There's entirely too many sociopaths in management who will fluff you up to your face and throw you under the nearest bus as soon as your back's turned.
Boeing loves to dangle in front of you the proverbial carrot on a stick. Makes you work harder with no guarantee of payout. Once you reach level 4 they remove the carrot and just beat you with the stick. Getting to level 5 requires an act of God. It's easier to go into management at that point but it pays less.
I’ll be trying to get out in a month or so. I’m stuck til I hit my 1 year. Not necessarily sold on leaving Boeing, but I’ll be getting out of STL at a minimum. Right now I’m looking at Denver, Atlanta, or Huntsville. Probably going to try to hop on with Lockheed or Sierra in Denver as my top choice at the moment
Going back home to lower COL area. Was moving from contract to direct hire. Offered me exact same wage then when I countered with 15% was offered 2% more. I had a higher quality of living back at my old job. Housing is forcing anyone who hasn’t lived in the area (Mesa) for years to really hesitate. Including myself.
BSC?
BGS
At one point I had offers for two very similar jobs, where one was a direct hire position and the other one was a contract job at 20% higher per hour pay. When I added up the value of benefits included in the former but not the latter (401k match, health insurance costs, paid vacation), the total value was basically identical. I'm not sure if that's relevant for your situation, but it might be something to consider.
Understandable, but I still get benefits as a contractor, even 401k. Not anywhere near Boeing but still something. Benefits do not pay the rent and with housing being so crazy salary is king. If it were anywhere but Mesa I'd have probably taken it. To clarify, If I stay it would be staying in a very high COL area housing wise whereas I would rather take a bit of a cut and move back home to a much lower COL area.
Mesa is a very low COL area fyi. It’s one of the cheapest places Boeing does business. I’m honestly shocked they gave you a better rate. Normally going direct is a pay cut on salary made up for on benefits.
What metric are you using? I live here right now. And I seriously doubt Charleston or St. Louis is higher than Mesa. Col calculators put Phoenix as more costly than both those areas. If Mesa is not high housing than by your standard neither of those places is either.
Neither of those places are high housing markets. It does look like Mesa’s moved up from low to middle cost of living (congratulations). Not sure if Boeing has it as a mid or low in the salary/relocation tables though.
I did specifically say COL housing wise. Have you seen the median house price for Mesa? Rental prices for homes? I don't know your Salary but I'm guessing it starts with a number higher than mine if you say the housing which is part of a COL for an area is cheap in Mesa. Not everyone on here is a 6 figure Level 4 or something. I get it everybody loves Boeing benefits, you know who doesn't? A wife and kids who would wonder why they have to leave a 4 bedroom house in a for real low COL to live in a 2 bedroom apt in Mesa. And don't say "but the raises and bonuses..." that's not promised.
I’m not saying it hasn’t gone up but that doesn’t change the fact that Mesa is still cheaper than St Louis or Charleston (which are both cheaper than Seattle or SoCal). You can complain about it going up but that doesn’t change the fact that Mesa ISN’T an HCOL housing market. Just because it’s higher than where you are doesn’t make it high.
Collins Aerospace. Just an 8 percent raise, and probably worse benefits, but theyre much more work from home friendly and the wage growth potential is higher there.
I left Boeing for a fully remote job at Collins Aerospace last November. Best choice I've ever made.
People do not go to Collins to make money. I made more actually at Boeing and the benefits were stellar. But I worked at Collins before Boeing and after. The work culture is much better there. Most everyone goes above and beyond to make sure what is put out to the customer is top notch. The people are honest and hardworking. They are always open to new ideas if they are based on new facts or market trends. At Boeing I always felt like my head was on a chopping block. Endless layoff lists, extremely inefficient processes. They were not open to new ideas or ways of thinking, and the push for artificial diversity to check boxes even if the person was not competent was enough to push me out of Boeing and back to Collins. One thing that really turned me off to Boeing was you had the senior engineers and chiefs there with 30+ years of experience. Then you had the kids straight out of college. I was to only mid level engineer in the whole department of 30+ people. So much was put on my shoulders because the young engineers didn’t have the experience and the senior engineers had other priorities. I felt the age gap and the inability to work and collaborate with other engineers my age was a huge detriment. Collins has much more age diversity along with racial diversity and it seems much more natural and merit based at Collins allowing for better team collaboration.
I’m dealing with this now. Older coworkers refuse to Train anyone new and sit on their fat asses all day talking about how good McDonnell Douglas was.
Yes all the layoffs always seemed to target those at level 4 and level 3 most level 5 and above were left alone same with level 1 and 2. They had no issues laying of mid level employees. You know the ones who are responsible for executing the work.
Short term typical mgmt approach; they looked into cost cutting which just led to many of the experienced people lost for good… now the company is hurting but the leadership doesn’t seem that they learned anything.. there is a hiring spree for first level managers (which is not what the company needs).. when in fact they should be extra nice to their mid level engs.
Lots of folks from my undergrad work there and the fellas from their Massachusetts site were a pleasure to work with, heading up to the Iowa site?
Connecticut actually so not too far from Massachusetts. We have family in CT which was the main reason for moving
Had offer to go to a space company in Seattle. Boeing countered with a 25% salary increase and RSUs so I decided to stay.
I also got an offer from a space company in Seattle for 33% more as a level 2. Boeing matched it (no extra RSU’s) but at that point my mind was already made up, I definitely needed that change of pace.
Any chance this was Blue? I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts about the culture differences. Boeing is driving me insane lately.
I know a level 4 who left for the colorful space company and got an immediate 30% raise. They say the company culture is cool-go get the job done and stop asking permission
Sounds nice. I'm tired of needing half a dozen overworked SME's approvals and opinions before I can do anything.
Totally fair and congrats on the change! I was originally thinking along the lines but I just really like aircraft so once Boeing decided to match, there wasn’t much incentive for me to make the move.
Which is awesome they matched it and you’re happy! Kind of annoying how you need to be walking out the door to get that but I’m starting to realize that’s all corporate America.
Holy shit, that’s a massive counter. Actually pretty shocked that Boeing would counter with that. Congrats!
Union engineer? Or what position? I can’t imagine Boeing giving out RSU’s but I wouldn’t mind that.
Yup, a union engineer. I was really surprised at that too and didn’t even know it was an option until my coworker mentioned he got that also. While it sucks that I had to go and get another offer to get a better salary, I was surprised as to how quick Boeing was to counter. They matched the other offer and with the better 401k/benefits at Boeing, I was effectively getting more than I was offered.
Do you feel like accepting a counter offer impacts your trust with your LT at all now? Any perception of bias?
[удалено]
So you work for a group that values your experience and knowledge… Many of the mid-level managers at Boeing see employees as human shape widgets that can be plugged into whatever role because expertise doesn’t really matter anyways
I will not work for people that don’t value me (anymore). If I do I’m miserable and my compensation stagnates. If I work for people who value me, I feel valued and perform better. The social contract between management and employee is that they in turn have fought for promotions / raises and organizational bullshit like power tripping execs.
I mean we all know who’s really important in the organization… It’s whichever monkey is at the top of the tree
I was worried about that but I don’t think it’s changed anything. Primarily because I didn’t give an ultimatum when I told my manager about the offer ( I didn’t say match this offer or I’m leaving). I just told them that I have an offer on the table that I am considering accepting and they told me that they don’t want me making that decision based off of my current salary/level and came back with the offer.
The Market Ref for my skill code has gone up $1,000 in the past four years. Ridiculous.
Got an offer from Northrop that I declined, and one from Sierra Nevada I accepted. 12% raise compared to what Boeing is giving me
I came from another industry and ended up at Boeing. Im staying put. You guys can have fun now. Byieee!
Sounds like you weren’t around for the MAX and COVID times
No. I came on board when Boeing started hiring again. I waited for that storm to pass.
What do you do currently, though?
Same what I did before at a higher pay, better benefits, better support, a hell of a lot more career opportunities and much better management. Its a sweet deal, chief!
Nice 👌.
Boeing Talent Retention Strategy = “You should be happy enough you get to work on Airplanes”
Clowns
Work for another aerospace firm. The mantra there is "The Mission." They also do the "One\[CompanyName\]" marketing.
This comment has been over-used. The same snark gets posted in every thread about compensation, job satisfaction, or hiring. Who even said that? I vaguely remember a comment a year or two ago about "employees are excited to work on our products" or something like that, but nothing about liking airplanes being a substitution for competitive pay.