Pros
The company employs a relatively large number of contractors on a rolling basis, but they are typically given the more trivial tasks such as integration work, documentation updates etc. This means less of this dull kind of work for the permanent staff. The pay is fairly average, but higher than you’d get at a systems house, and there’s a yearly bonus if the company meet their profit targets.
Cons
Projects can run for several years, and the management can be reluctant to let staff leave prior to completion. Promotion seems to be down to luck of the draw: I’ve seen some graduates rise quickly, whilst equally gifted others have left after 4 or 5 years for a similar role before being promoted within a few months at their new company. It’s worth noting that at MBDA, a role of “Principal Engineer” is just used to denote approx ten years of time in the industry, seemingly rather than any particular technical knowledge or job grade. As of early 2018, there is a re-banding scheme underway to reduce the granularity of each “level”.