Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Great pay
Don't care what you're doing as long as you do your job
Grunt-level jobs could be, and in some cases of inventive coworkers, were, done by a thirty-line script

Cons – Massively overhired and overpaid people for too little work-- squandered resources led to destruction of entire department a few months later
Advertised as contract-to-hire, no warning when contract ended that this was no longer the case

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Company got me up and running with all the supplies, software, computer and permissions I needed within a week of starting, nice break room, could make your own hours as long as you completed your work & did the minimum 40 hrs per week

Cons – Very poor communication, if you weren't in management you knew there were secret meetings going on that you were not invited to, unrealistic deadlines, management turned a blind eye to any process improvements, lots of layoffs and not many potential contracts in the pipeline, good employees left, bad managers stayed on? No training or opportunity to change positions

Advice to Senior Management – Be honest with employees, communicate, say No to unrealistic deadlines - giving a crappy product on-schedule means nothing, improve image to win new contracts

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Over the five years between 2006 - 2011, as an Engineer, I worked on 3 contracts and gain a lot of experience. My business manager was aggressive, fair and provided opportunity to shine and supported training funds for personal development. While at KRATOS, upper management did a great job with benefits (pay raises were fair in the beginning and then went flat in 2010 & 2011).

Cons – KRATOS has gone through many growing pains and depending on your current manager and contract. Like many DOD contractors, you are only viable if you are billable. With all the acquisitions, the company has had a lot of turnover, but that happens in a growing company in DOD.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep growing, but do not lose sight of the value of your employees on-site with the client.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good benefits including health care, dental and even free vision. 401K matching at 4.5% after being full vested was a bonus. Friendly employees and co-workers. Paid well, at least for my job as a government contractor. Free set of four Padres tickets every year for one game for all employees.

Cons – Lack of communication from the management. Provided no training that would have made me qualified for other positions within the company. No new work for current employees and many lay-offfs. The best employees tended to leave for other companies, leaving new people in positions such as HR and finance. Company stock at a all time low.

Advice to Senior Management – Find more work in San Diego. Expand on current work instead of buying more small companies. Keep your employees more informed about the company. Don't tell employees how well the company is doing when the stock price says otherwise.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions full-time

Pros – Steady stream of work, company is doing well financially, expanding

Cons – To begin with, the chain of command is very messed up. I had no immediate supervisor to report to, and the person that was listed as my 'boss' knew nothing about my department or line of work and only checked in on me once every couple of weeks. However, I realize that some companies work well with this type of structure. That is not my main complaint.

I was hired on a temporary basis, but about a month into my employment my higher ups started giving me very encouraging words that they had won a contract and were about to bring in a BUNCH of more workers, so I'd be a shoe-in for being brought on permanently. These words of encouragement continued throughout the duration of my employment, and they fully gave the impression that I was pretty much good as permanent.

Three months in we had a massive multi-week effort to move from our crappy warehouse building to a big fancy new custom-built building across town. They sent out a seating chart for the new building and my name was curiously missing. I assumed this was because I was currently a Temp and had them pencil me into an empty cubicle. Like everybody else in the company I did my part to pack up stuff, move stuff, unload stuff at the new building, and hook stuff up. Everybody was very excited and we couldn't wait to start our new life in a fancy new location.

On the first day we were in our new building, after I had unpacked, hooked up all of the equipment in my cubicle and started to settle in, I was informed that I was being laid off immediately.

No words to describe the sense of betrayal.

Advice to Senior Management – Employees are not tools, they are assets.

Former Employee – worked at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – the benefits were good. I don't have anything else good to say.

Cons – My department was run by people who didn't know what they were doing, and treated the people who DID know what they were doing poorly. Now, the people who did the work are laid off and the managers are still there. What could they be doing?

Advice to Senior Management – Treat the worker bees like the assets they are, and don't let managers run amuck.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions full-time for less than a year

Pros – Great front-line worker camaraderie and the ESOP is very competitive!

Cons – Compared to other Defense Contractors such as SAIC, CACI the pay is very uncompetitive and it's obvious middle management has been mandated to cut training and compensation in order to go on a acquisition spree. The pay in the D.C. area is around 20% lower than what similar firms pay. On my exit interview the Govt. side wants to know why turn-over is so high and I intend on telling them why! Since turn-over is so high, Ive been told their probably going to lose this Govt. Contract when it comes up for renewal. Greed will cost you in the long run!

Advice to Senior Management – Your Acquisition spree in lieu of taking care of your front-line workers will eventually come back to bite you! Trust me, I'm hearing the Govt. is getting tired of you sparing resources on your employees while purchasing assets which reflects your core values.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

Pros – Good co-workers
they maintain employee morale with lots of well thought out picnics, etc.
good with flex time

Cons – didn't recognize key workers and compensate them
did not manage budgets well at all

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

Pros – Large Corporation with ESPP option.

Cons – Coomunication can always improve and clear expectations can be set.

Advice to Senior Management – Value a good employee- show it.

Current Employee – been working at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

Pros – Once contract award was announced and the focus went towards the Program Director, Project Manager and the team, that allowed things to really start rolling along.
 Interaction between the different matrix professionals was usually extremely good, this allowed some of the more difficult pieces to the puzzle to align or be identified correctly.
 In very many cases communications internal were as important as the external and that became more evident with the small successes becoming much more of the bigger picture.

Cons – Many times communications with regards to folks being moved into other supporting roles on other teams as their current work was ending became a no communications situation until it was a go/no go situation, very nerve racking.
Some of the most consistent hard working folks on overhead or the business unit were just not treated well by their immediate supervisor, this sometimes made it difficult to establish good communications with the entire group. The supervisor not any of the working folks caused angst.

Advice to Senior Management – As acquisitions of smaller more diverse companies are added into the ever growing family, more attention needs to be paid to contractual diversity or the vehicles that support the company conducting business as a larger, more dynamic machine in the world of defense contracting. The days of the less than one million dollar contract should be gone and the entire company's game has to be raised to compete on a much grander scale.