Pros
- The people are incredible. (And by people, I mean anyone below middle-management and a few very rare diamonds within the management team.) I've honestly never met such a passionate group of individuals. The respect people have for one another is out of this world and they cannot do enough for you. I have made life long friends from multiple departments and was consistently blown away by their talent. - Looks awesome on the CV - I would not be doing the job I do now without a solid stint at McLaren Racing. (I was able to progress BUT this was purely due to my own persistence and proactivity and was also before there was a changing of the guard in senior leadership in 2018/19. It's now impossible unless you're their mate.) - You can catch a glimpse of the drivers every now and again. - 2 general admission UK Grand Prix tickets.
Cons
- Career stagnation - No one actively encourages progression because that makes you more expensive and a threat to other people. They'd rather take you for granted time and time again, tell you "there's no money", and then hire someone £10-15k more expensive to replace you when you've left. - They love, love, loveeee hiring people with a fancy job title who won't lift a finger and then swoops in to take the glory when the team that actually did the work produce something truly remarkable. - Promotions outside of Engineering are rare - Expect to do your job + the job of 3 other people for below average pay and an insulting end of year bonus. Expect also to be promised progression opportunities so that you hang on just that little while longer, only for it never to materialise. - 1-2% annual payrises & poor bonuses (again, non-Engineering & non-management). People in non-technical roles, e.g. HR, finance, purchasing, travel, are on a points-based bonus (£10/point) which if you consider performance over the last few years equates to very little. Especially when you burn yourself into the ground for the privilege. Consider that these teams of people have very little direct impact on the actual performance of the car, it was highly unmotivating. Meanwhile, engineers (who actually design the thing), receive 20-25% salary increases when they threaten to leave and ridiculous bonuses, even when you come 9th in the championship (e.g. 2017). - Senior Leadership - Most of them would throw you under a bus if it meant saving their own skin. The C-suite have zero interest in the little people and certainly won't make time to speak with you. Unless it's for a PR opportunity. - Knowledge sharing doesn't exist. Development means you might learn something your manager knows and then they're not so special anymore. You're special all the time you know more that someone else, and then you become disposable. Fyi, this isn't actually the case and it makes the team stronger, but it's the mindset people are in because that's how the leadership behave.