welder

welding inspector

engineer

vehicle technician

specialist

General Dynamics Land Systems

Want to know how to make the most miserable experience possible for employees? Try a year at this company and experience how dysfunctional management can truly be. 

I was originally so excited to work here and be a part of huge projects for the US Army. That enthusiasm rapidly faded when I was presented working with some of the most incompetent engineers and especially managers in my 15 year engineering career. 

This company is a professional deadwood collector. It drives away its best employees with its draconian policies, clueless leadership, and staggering technical debt. All that is left are the incompetent or low skill engineers with no other options. 

I was hired under the pretense that I had to report on-site, but had flexibility over taking work from home days where it made sense. That was rapidly taken away just 6 months in, along with the removal of overtime pay (and we work a lot of overtime, which is quite convenient for the CEO to take away).  They also moved us all to an open-plan office with zero walls, zero privacy, and a solid 70dB of noise around you at any given time. Sometimes it feels like they did this on purpose to see how miserable they could make us and still get away with it.

Most engineers working here are not skilled, and I do not make that statement lightly. Many have been in the role for decades and got their positions via nepotism or favoritism. Many don't even understand basic engineering processes like a DFMEA or developing Use Cases for the subsystems they design and release. There is a stark lack of engineers with controls or software experience; This is largely a mechanical engineering company. The Systems Enginering team is particularly clueless. The technical and skill debt here is outstanding. People are still working via static spreadsheet markups and verbal compunction for things as important as design documentation. It feels like working in the early 2000s here.

The management however is far worse. Most managers here are clueless. They have no plan, they just constantly put out the most recent fire that threatens to get them a yellow or red mark on their reporting cards. That is true all the way up to the Chief engineer level.  A true hand-to-mouth existence for these managers. There is almost zero communication on high level planning and how that translates into working level details for the peon engineer to accomplish. There is no effort taken to understand or interpret customer requirements correctly, to improve clearly broken processes, or to improve or train the workforce. The mangers like to remind people they are superior to workers by simply vetoing well thought out trade studies or design presentations without any feedback as to why or counter points made. There is a HUGE over-reliance on verbal communication on all topics, in all areas of the company. Most managers cannot run an effective meeting to save their life; No agendas, no minutes, no follow up assignments or delegations. There are many managers whose sole job is to collect reporting information and build 'stoplight charts' that is already accomplished automatically with tools like Agile/JIRA.

Don't expect to learn anything new or grow here. You will be dragging about 5 engineers along on your coattails the entire way, and it will certainly feel like it too. 

The workplace is drab, disappointing, and soulless. Initially, I was proud to work for this company, but that sentiment quickly faded. Leadership's discussions about retaining talent seemed hollow, especially when they abruptly removed remote work and demanded a return to the office with no negotiation. This decision was not only unreasonable but also showed a complete disregard for employees’ circumstances. Management and HR were equally culpable, making empty promises and providing no updates or support to those who were most affected.

The blatant nepotism within the company is astonishing. Family members are given preferential treatment in training, opportunities, and promotions despite their lack of experience. In contrast, senior-level contractors who have families to support are left without benefits, pay raises, or recognition. This favoritism is profoundly demoralizing and infuriating. If nepotism is the company's chosen path, they should be transparent and hire only their relatives to avoid wasting external hires' time and careers.

The London location is particularly uninspiring, offering nothing to retain talent. HR's focus on hiring family members means external hires must prove themselves for years, often without adequate support from management. My skills and experience were consistently ignored by my manager, despite being well-documented. This neglect felt intentional, likely to favor family members for promotions.

The workplace culture further deteriorates with unprofessional behavior from senior staff, including ableist remarks and making farting noises during meetings. Such conduct is unacceptable, especially from those in higher-paying roles. As a contractor seeing this I couldn't believe these people were getting preferential treatment, and permanent roles with benefits; but again, this is what typical family member hiring looks like.

The company's cost-saving measures, on the most basic level; like charging for coffee, reflect a deeper issue: a total lack of investment in employee well-being. Superficial gestures like pep talks and occasional socials that favor family members do nothing to improve morale. 

I really felt my career get wasted, ignored and sabatoged by incompetent management and poor business practice here, and all this after going through such a lengthy interview process... whats the point? 

General Dynamics had a rash of employees leave in 2021-23… so much that they had an employee satisfaction survey, and scored 2-2.5/5 in multiple areas causing urgent responses in an effort to boost moral.

The changes made have been mostly in optics. Smoke and mirrors…

-change in health spending account to a flex spending account. No additional cost to GD.
-bringing in a food supplier to sell expensively priced snacks and sandwiches. Canteen Canada installed and managed at no cost to GD
-changes to sun life benefit package at no cost to GD 

Salary employees are told by HR that their wages are based off comparable companies in the same market in our area… and you’re able to make 115% of what a consultant firm values your job at across the market … what you eventually learn is that 115% is nearly impossible since compensation was restricted a few years back… 105% is reachable…  if you go above 105%, they’ll stop giving you base pay adjustments until you fall below 105% again.

 GD has a “pay for performance” program…  To reach 115%, expectation is you must work above your job role, but stay in it. Even then, finance budgets limit the number of top tier “significantly exceeds” to 2-3% and “exceeds” employees to 5-10% of staff…  Should you get a hefty 5% raise (haha), it will likely dissolve going forward. GD has only once raised the base wage of its largest group of employees by 2.5% since 2019. Even with inflation going up 13.4% in the past 4 years…  (therefore 11% reduction in 4 years based on inflation)

Other companies pay more, and give more. Management at GD is not able to financially benefit their employees like they want.

Know these things before you accept a job here. You won’t starve… but you’ll feel like you’re getting the short end of the deal as time goes on…

Especially when billion dollar contracts are regular occurrences, and stock price has never been higher…

Also note that regulations around remote work and over time are not consistent across the company, different departments, and even teams… 

GD also pays Sr specialist in Engineering straight over pay over 40 hours.  In other departments the same job title is not paid over time if extra hours are needed.



The most enjoyable part of the job are the people who work at GD.  They're great.  

Some middle level managers are chosen based on either seniority or personal relationships rather then technical skill, or management ability. Recently, many people have been sent to management training to try and improve their skills. Irregardless, those who refuse to 'get with the program' are kept in their same position after many failures because it would look bad to undo a promotion. The lack of movement for specialists has caused the responsibilities of these middle-level managers to be given to Specialists to try and keep them interested. Middle managers are list chasers.

Manager level employees are generally more experienced, which is helpful when there's an opportunity to interact with them.  At this level, the 'old boys club' becomes really obvious. If you're not at hockey with the boys on Monday night, or at 'so-and-so's' house on the weekend, you miss out on a lot.  

At the Director level, staff are so far removed from what's going on at the lower levels it's hard for them to be actively engaged in anything.  Most of their time is spent in meetings, usually focused on the bottom line.

There's lots of gossip about questionable relationships between senior management and lower levels. These are swept under the rug using department transfers and building moves.  

Everything that's done is based on end of quarter and end of year metrics.  Visits to customers or suppliers are almost unheard of, even when it's needed because it costs too much.  

Recent changes to the compensation structure allow for high potential "hi-pot" performers (there's a list) to be rewarded using merit based raises and bonuses.

There's also a list of people who they don't really know what to do with when there's not a lot of work.  These are genuinely nice people who do an ok job, and can do pretty much anything to a reasonablly ok level. They're moved all over the company. They've been chipping away at this list over the past few reductions in force.  

IT and tools are archaic.  Spending money on new systems is unheard of.

I can not recommend working at General Dynamics. The people in charge are only interested in cost saving initiatives, when they need to be focused on improving the quality of work produced and cooperation of the workforce. The IT policies are archaic and tightly controlled by the Finance department (very paradoxical in my opinion) - it is rare for projects to get approval, and the tools used are inadequate and horrifically out of date.  IT and software are viewed as a cost burden, and their budgets are crushed to the absolute minimum that they can be without crippling the business.  If you want to further your career as an IT professional, forget any kind of career path or growth - the only place to go is sideways.  If you don't get blocked by management, that is.  

They say that they are focused on innovation, but the only way they have demonstrated that is by creating a five person "innovation cell" that they locked away in a back room. It is a very siloed environment where departmental goals often conflict, and it is near impossible to find someone in another department that will cooperate with you... unless that person will directly benefit from the outcome of your project. The company has also developed a habit of doing cutbacks on an almost annual basis (likely due to their difficulty in obtaining new business) and they refuse to communicate what makes an employee a candidate for one of those cutbacks.  Recently they have started trying to improve some of their policies relating to work/life balance in a last ditch effort to try and improve morale and retain good talent, but after a decade of service it feels like too little, too late.  I decided to get out while I was still ahead, and I'm not alone.

In summary: choosing to work at GD will result in endless hours of sitting on your hands because the tools and processes are crippling, while wondering if the business is still going to be around in a few years, and if it is, whether they will choose to keep you.

Lucky prospects will find themselves in a team with young, eager colleagues who want to make a difference. Unlucky prospects will find themselves with the rest of the large engineering body, buried beneath decades of mismanagement, apathy and vitriol towards employees.

Work is often unrewarding as there is no room or time for praise or appreciation. Given the nature of how much Research & Development occurs within the engineering group there is often no satisfaction to be had with projects that never make it to production.

The negative opinion about the job security is absolutely justified. Contract positions are nothing more than cannon fodder to throw at short term man power shortages with no evaluation of the competencies of contractors or the possibility of bringing them into the fold. Salary positions are incredibly unlikely to see advancement without switching between teams and divisions, and as of late have just as much job security as contract positions. Expect to see colleagues terminated without cause, only to have their position appear on internal and external job sites within months.

They often tout their flexible work schedule, which entails punishment for using it, expectations of never leaving the facility and working atrocious amounts of overtime.

Expect management to use and abuse you while they make the same mistakes year after year.

If you want experience in creative design within a vehicle than this is the place for you. Because most of their design is done in house and the teams are broader you won't be focusing on just one item day after day. You will be part of a team focused on a subsystem allowing you to gain an understanding of system integration with an in depth understanding of your focused sub-system.

When work is slow (no contracts to bid on or design for) there are always layoffs because this company doesn't design off the shelf vehicles for the future because customers always want such customized variations of vehicles making it difficult to be able to truly settle on a design and continuously upgrade or improve upon it over the years.

However there are many situations in this industry where off the shelf designs would greatly allow for better vehicles and increased future planning. GDLS-C would greatly benefit from maintaining a future sight when designing vehicles and when things get slow.

Toxic work environment starts right from the top. It doesn’t allow anyone to be creative and make decisions for themselves. It is made up of loyal buddy club puppets. Don’t expect any meaningful support from HR. 
I’ve watched plenty of talented good people leave or fired in recent years because they cannot in good conscience turn their brain off and stay there to go along with and submit themselves to the degrading toxic work environment supported by top management. The ones who voice their differing views and opinions are targeted by HR to be let go using any means at their disposal.
Do yourself a favour and stay away from this place. You’ll become miserable real quick and hate your life because you let yourself become a victim of the golden hand-cuffs. 


What is the best part of working at the company?
There’s a lot of pride in creating world-class vehicles that help save soldiers’ lives and help them return safely to their families 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Our jobs can literally change lives for the worse if we get it wrong. It can be a high pressure place

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It has improved greatly in the last 5 years. Many LGBTQ people are now out of the closet, and there are lots of improvements. It can vary from department to department though. Company also does a lot of quiet work for charity 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
No two days are the same. We have flex time so you don’t have to arrive and clock in. Some days you work through lunch, some days you join the meditation group at lunch. In general, hard work is expected consistently

This job is only for those who do not want to learn skills or professional development! The innovation is stuck in 80’s for company in such industry. Employees who worked here over 10+ years knows that they will not get job else where due to high education and skill requirement. The management is very poor, they do not care about employees at all instead creates unnecessarily stress as they’re incompetents and most of them don’t hold bachelor degree therefore lacks leadership skills and soft skills. You literally have no say, they don’t like your opinions. Not worth being here and waste time, many are retiring due to poor treatment. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Welder 96 salaries reported	$32.47 per hour
Welding inspector 52 salaries reported	$27.83 per hour
Engineer 6 salaries reported	$86,217 per year
Vehicle technician 8 salaries reported	$35.61 per hour
Specialist 3 salaries reported	$83,667 per year

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