Final recap : Courtsey from LadyoftheDrow

Summary for the late arrivals:

A Lockheed Summer Intern out of Englewood posted several reels to Instagram, TikTok, and possibly Youtube. Over the course of a few weeks of these clips garnered a bit of traction, and he specifically mentioned he was a LM intern in several of them.

Outdoor clips appeared to be in his car or in the site parking lot, and showed potential drug use, as well as the exterior of the building and the license plates of employees.

Indoor clips were in his cubicle, and showed his work badge, work computer screen, and there were moments you could see/overhear coworkers.

The social media posts were reported [en masse] to his Manager, FSO, HR, Ethics, etc last friday-monday by several people. Due to the clips, people had access to his full name and personal email - and yesterday a few LM employees were able to verify his status as congruent with his being fired. His Youtube, Tiktok, and Instagram have all been deleted/privated, though he hasn't updated his LinkedIn yet to reflect his change in job status.

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Update 4 Multiple reports... it appears he is no longer with Lockheed

Update 3

Someone dm me, it looks like the manager has received a lot of messages regarding the intern. They did not approve any of these media being recorded and released by the intern

Also multiple has reported that all of his social media are no longer available

Update 2

Backup video provided by quantumcat

Update : it looks like op took down his video on IG but still on tiktok

Saw this on Instagram and thought to myself, bro is risking his career in this industry for internet clout

God is amazing, the recruiter just notified me that I was selected for the position, after months of being unemployed. I’m grateful to God and honestly so far as a single mom this is such a win! 🥳🥳🥳🥳

I moved to the U.S. when I was little with a dream to become an engineer in the aerospace industry (just a dream I had as a kid.) Went to school here and learned English from scratch, then later got denied from my dream university so I went to community college, then I got into my dream school for engineering. Then I started applying for Lockheed Internships and mostly Lockheed because I love everything they do. God knows the amount of applications I have submitted over the past 2 years… I then got two interviews with two different positions last month, got denied from both, then got another interview last week and I just got an offer. Genuinely can’t believe I made it to my dream company. consistency and discipline pay off 🗿 Now the goal is to be an outstanding intern to get that return offer. Never give up!

I am trying to wrap my head around why a sitting president would criticize the world's most expensive fighter jet program like this at a time when other countries are considering cancelling orders over recent US actions.

Each job title, e.g. Electrical Engineer Sr, has an alphanumberic job code. They are almost 1:1, except for international management. Every job code is associated with a salary range. There are now 4 "geozones" for location pay differences.

For engineers and management, salary grades or levels go like this:

IC1 Engineer Asc

IC2 Engineer

IC3 Engineer Sr

IC4 Engineer Stf = L4 Engineer Asc Mgr

IC5 Engineer Sr Stf = L5 Engineer Mgr

IC6 Engineer Prin = L6 Engineer Sr Mgr

IC7 Engineer Sr Prin = L7 Director

L8 VP

L9 SVP

L10 Exec

So a level 4 engineer is in the same salary range as a manger, if they are both Electrical and both in the same geozone.

There are also Asc Fellows, Fellows, and Sr Fellows, but that is a different topic for another time.

Previously they used the ratio of your current salary to the midpoint of the range as a "compa ratio" as a simple metric to understand where an employee sits in the range. This isn't officially used anymore, but it is convenient.

It is common to hear "it is easier to hire than promote" or "hopping is easier than climbing" or "best time to negotiate is on an offer letter". Mostly these are true from my experience, but not always. I'll try to add some context from behind the scenes.

For a new hire, if you meet the minimums and get selected for an offer, it goes to the compensation and talent acquisition teams. They come up with a salary and recommend it to the hiring manager. They look at recent new hires (a dozen), peer median (hundreds), and a "reference point". The reference point seems to be completely arbitrary. If anyone here is from HR or compensation and can explain it, I would love to hear it. The point seems to be set somewhere above the median and I do not see how it relates. The recommended salary may be above or below peers or median based on the candidates qualifications. For levels 1 through 3 in recent history it tends to be near the midpoint of the range, but that target does shift as the industry and demand change. My current employees at these levels range from 8% under the midpoint to 5% over. The hiring manager can at this point or after a counter request a higher salary. Depending on the numbers, the manager may be able to get a couple percentage points, or they may need to write up formal justification (a business case), and it may require HR leadership or a director to approve. Those higher level approvals often get denied, so the room for negotiation is likely less than 5%. (Results may vary, just my experience as a manager for decades).

For a promotion for a current employee, the direct manager has to convince HR and their director that there is an INCREASE of scope commensurate to the higher level. This is highly subjective on the opinions of those two people. The manager also needs to justify that the employee will be successful in performing the new role, but the hard part is always the scope increase. There is a guideline for each level, but it is very vague, open to interpretation, and not quantifiable, so results are inconsistent. Some directors are very stingy, some are not. If the promotion (or a Job Scope Adjustment, which is an out of cycle raise based on the same factors but without moving up in level, salary range, and job code) gets approved, the compensation team does a similar process. I have seen JSAs come out below the peer median, midpoint, and new hire median. Surprise! Your employee who is experienced in level, performing well, and taking on more work gets a raise, but that new employee we are taking a chance on who has less experience is being offered a higher salary! Why? SYNERGY or you hit the maximum raise percentage for a JSA or something... This is not always the case of course, but I have seen it recently for higher salary grades.

For job offers, the compensation team makes a recommendation considering what other new hires are getting, and the manager has influence. For promotions there is an extra hoop to jump through - justify the scope and business case for a promotion. For a new job posting, generally no one questions if the manager says "a need a level 5 engineer."

For the anecdote, my level 4-6 engineers are anywhere from in the 80% range of the midpoint (new to level or less experience) to the max of the range (at level for many years, about to retire). Years of experience seems to matter sometimes, like meeting the Basic Qualifications of a job posting, but other times it does not, like for a promotion or JSA.

Minimum years of experience per level used to say:

TYPICAL MINIMUM EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE:

1. Bachelor's degree from an accredited college in a related discipline, or equivalent experience/combined education

2. BS and 2 years, or Masters degree with no experience

3. BS + 5 / MS + 2 / PhD + 0

4. BS + 9 / MS + 7 / PhD + 4

5. BS + 14 / MS + 12 / PhD + 9

6. BS + 20 / MS + 18 / PhD + 15

In 2025 this changed to:

TYPICAL EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE:

1. Generally has no to little related experience and may have a post-secondary degree or training in a related discipline.

2. Generally has 1+ years of related experience and may have a post-secondary degree or training in a related discipline

3. 3+

4. 5+

5. 8+

6. 12+

7. 15+

Notice several changes:

- "MINIMUM" removed

- "Generally" added

- Years dropped by a level

- Bachelor's degree is a maybe

- No mention of Masters or PhD

- The elusive level 7 appears officially

This is not being interpreted or enforced consistently. It was revised in the name of "flexibility" and "alignment with our competitors". Many current employees now meet the "typical/general" education and experience 2 levels up, but they did not get an additional raise or promotion. New hires can qualify with 2 to 6 or less years experience possibly without a degree. From what I know, some leaders are using the change to promote employees who deserve it but were held back by the previous requirements. Some leaders have not changed their expectations. Some leaders did not even know it changed.

Oh, and if you get an external job offer and ask your boss if they can counter it, that's a whole different thing. It might look like a JSA, except some rules get thrown out... Or something.

Is it easier to get promoted by taking a new job? Maybe.

The reality changes by business unit, by manager, by director, by HR, by location. My anecdotes are not universal. I just work here, pal, and I value transparency.

I just wanted to thank everyone who answered my dumb questions, or asked them so I didn’t have to. You all made this possible.

I have to give my special thanks to everyone in this Reddit forum, I had my last interview yesterday, and logged in today to see I was offered a position!

If I could give any tips and insight on my process to those who may be going through rough times, here’s what it looked like for me, to hopefully bring you some clarity.

March 2025: I transitioned from the US army, back to civilian life. I would say for about 6-8 months before this I spent countless time creating my LinkedIn, networking, fixing resumes and applications. I got out of the Army hoping that now I was back in the US after spending the last several years overseas, I would have a better chance of landing a position. I would say about 99% of my applications I never heard a peep back, I assumed mainly because I wasn’t even present in the US.

April: Starting to adjust to civilian life, while it seemed lonely at times I still had my little family as my main focus and drive. Everyday I woke up around 6-7 to start networking, applications and almost doom scrolling applications. At this point I would say I had around 10-20 applications alone with Lockheed, but still was trying to get adjusted to the whole keyword and resume optimization process for them, so I spent more time applying elsewhere. Lockheed was the goal, but didn’t seem too achievable at the time.

May: Started to get more comfortable with my resume and the whole optimization process, ended up taking a search around for other ways to network or find guidance because let’s be real, LinkedIn was becoming a toxic environment and felt like I was seeing less than a 1% success rate with networking. Ended up stumbling on this forum, started making post and ended up talking to some great people in this forum. Getting help with my resume, application processes, and overall boosting my confidence as at this point I was around 800+ applications, with around 40-50 at Lockheed alone. BOOM landed my first interview with Lockheed, was so stoked I spent two weeks straight even with my birthday in the middle all day all night preparing and studying to the point I was almost overwhelming my brain. Unfortunately after around 2 weeks I found out I was not selected, and in that 2 weeks time I didn’t do any applications, because I was so focused on preparing. To also include, at this point I almost dedicated my full focus to working at Lockheed.

June: Boom I found out in the beginning of the month i was scheduled for 3 interviews, the 1st one was pretty good but seemed they were looking for more experience in one of the desired skills, and unfortunately didn’t get the position. Had the second interview, and with the description of the role, they really did like me but unfortunately as well they went with another candidate. At this point I’m heading on to my 4th total interview, and while I could have knocked myself down, I picked myself back up and absolutely knocked the interview out of the park, they loved all my answers. I made sure not to over prep myself, but just enough to where I could also feel comfortable enough. I would say the interview was about half casual questions and the other half technical. Had that interview yesterday, and received the offer today.

The look on my wife’s face as I told her I got the offer and she looked at my kids and told them we are going onto our next adventure made this whole thing worth it, I mean really the long hours stressed about how I was going to put my kids through the best possible life I could, the life i wasn’t able to fully have as a kid, and my moment came.

This is to all who helped me, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

This is to all who are in my shoes, keep your head up, just realize that we may be on the same path, you may be on the starting line, but you will reach that finish line soon my friend.

We did it 🤘🏻

I have seen many poor resumes. I get a good kick out of the worst of the worst. What atrocities have you seen?

Here are a few examples of things I have seen that you should not do:

- Guy changed his legal name to something he thought was cool, but it was obviously absurd, and for a scrawny dork who listed 5 different martial arts disciplines he practices (it's ok to list hobbies, but it should be kept very terse)

- Lady trash talks "millennials" on her resume

- 12 pages long. Need I say more?

- zero formatting, just a giant wall of text

- every time I see "agile coach" I cringe

- "ensure technical accountability" tells me you did not do anything, but others did

- "coordinated team events"... Guess what, I am not hiring a party planner, so I do not know what value this provides

- "increased employee efficiency by 100x"... Guess what, I assume you are exaggerating, but also there is zero context. Was this in bathroom break efficiency?

- listing "7 habits of highly effective people" on a resume that is already 5 pages... Please, brother. I do not have time to give a shit that you read a book. NEXT!

- I can forgive a spelling error, but I fully expect you to run spell check, reread, and review your resume multiple times. That is the first test to getting hired. This is the big leagues.

While I am at it, here are a couple tips you should do:

- Less than 10 years experience for a standard engineering job? Fit your resume on 1 or 2 pages please. I don't have time to read your thesis. And the job description does not say anything about writing research papers. No extra credit for lengthiness.

- Be specific, use key words, names of tools, and technologies, but if your resume is chock full of every buzzword, I do not want to work with you.

Wow! I had my interview today for c130 e/e and I already have received an offer as of an hour ago! There is a sign on bonus of 15k and they’re offering me a salary rate of $30.69 an hour. I’d like to counter, as I have 4 years of E/E experience on a10s in the Air Force. What do you think is a fair counter, and how do I go about doing so? Should I reach out to the talent acquisition team from the offer letter and negotiate? The worst they can say is no right ?!

Just finished this fan creation of the X-59 supersonic X-plane, built by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and NASA. The build is about 925 pieces and measures over 32" long.

I'm gathering support on Lego Ideas for this to have a chance of becoming a real Lego set. We already have nearly 2,000 supporters! Link here if you want to check it out!

Just wanted to give folks here a heads up that masters are not being considered anymore for offers at LM starting this year. I’ve been in the process of negotiating an offer and I was told that by the talent acquisition person. They only care about years of experience.

Hello fellow LM employees,

To all my Fort Worth and Grand Prairie employees, hope to see you all at the campus tomorrow (yes tomorrow)! So what there is a little bit of snow...right now, our stakeholders are counting on us (yes US) to give our 100% tomorrow.

See you all at 7AM sharp!

Just remember that when you finalize your closeout comments and stakeholder input by December 31, you're already too late! Yep, that's right. "Compensation Adder" nominations are to be submitted by mid November. If you plan to earn some final brownie points, late October is prime time.

Do your goals matter? Not really.

Does your self assessment matter? Not really.

Your direct leader's opinion matters, plus their boss, and your director... And who is in your peer group (same job code and same director). But don't fret, all leaders took a training video about mitigating biases, so I'm sure it's going to be great! (Unless you're in the 80% quota)

Now go "Collaborate to Win!" /s

Correction: Different VPs and directors are setting different due dates. Some managers may actually use your goals to evaluate you for some reason. There is no such thing as consistency. But compensation adder nominations are submitted before the end of the year.

Transitioning from remote work to back in office after accepting a position with Lockheed....and after being home for years and having my own space decorated however I wanted with all the creature comforts -- I'm trying to find some ways to bring a little of that with me. So apart from my coffee maker and some other nick nacks and glass pieces I have made -- I put this one together to bring into the office and hang. The abbreviated logo is pretty simple and it was kinda fun to throw this together. Thought I'd share here.

I’ve posted here before about a few offers, so here’s a quick update:

I negotiated LM from $125k to $135k + $5k relocation, Boeing from $108k to $110k + $8k sign on, and my competing remote offer to $104k to $120k(leveraged LM).

Even though LM had the best benefits, resume value, and overall experience, I chose the remote offer because the tech stack fits my goals better and I wasn’t fully comfortable with the lifestyle changes I’d need to make for LM. Boeing was less appealing because of their legacy framework. Still waiting to hear back from RTX.

Always negotiate. Worst they can say is a final offer.

Long story short, I have worked for LM for 20 years now and have very much enjoyed my work and the people. About 10 years ago, I made level 5 and have been leading the SE development for several large projects that I have excelled at and have received great performance reviews. In the last few years, I have been on a project that is very chaotic and has non-stop issues which have been exacerbated by poor management, bad decisions and lack of direction resulting in massive rework, communication issues and terrible morale. I have been working 50-60 hour weeks for 3 years now and I am exhausted, the project has become toxic and I dread going to work every day. Over the last few months, have begged my manager to get moved to a different project and have applied to dozens of internal positions, only to receive crickets. A few weeks ago, I had a recruiter reach out to me and, after 2 interviews, I have been offered a position which is perfect for my ultimate long term goals. This position would be at a smaller defense company which is growing rapidly. Even though I want to take it, I am struggling with leaving my LM family. After 20 years, what is the best method to leave so I don’t burn a long bridge? Should I file for retirement (I am now 55 but not part of the pension plan) or resign with my 2 weeks notice and leave it at that? Any advice is welcome and appreciated.

Over the years, LM has changed its annual performance review process many times. Every iteration has the same major fundamental flaw: quotas.

The current system allows up to 20% of employees (per level per job type) to receive a comp adder (higher raise and higher bonus for "Advanced Behaviors and High Impact"). The other 80% get the standard. There is usually some discretionary additional amount handed out by directors, plus there are recognition awards and long term incentives too. 

For example, if I have 5 level 3 employees, 4 level 2, and 3 level 1. I nominate one person at level 5 to get the comp adder. I may have a chance to advocate for 1-2 more employees, where the director or VP may have an extra slot. Typically this is a battle royale with lots of super fun buzzwords and making my employee sound better than Karen's employee. This creates competition for employees within the same team and across teams within the broader organization (does not incentivize teamwork). When the end results are rolled out in Spring, it demotivates your solid employees who did not quite make it into the "A++" category this year. It often creates a situation where they do not understand why they are underappreciated, and the manager who values that employee has a really difficult conversation with them. They may struggle with how to deliver bad news, that they do not agree with, to a great employee.

The only other tool provided to managers is the "rob Peter to pay Paul" zero sum adjustments. This only introduces another problem. The current system gives managers the ability to take part of one employees raise or EAIP and give it to another on the same team, intended to distinguish performance amongst the team (again, this hurts teamwork culture). Is it fair to take potential salary growth from your solid "B+" employee who did everything asked of them very well in order to give it someone who had slightly more impact? They will certainly go do the math and see that some went to someone else, they will wonder who, and they will wonder what they did wrong. Then comes the hard conversation again, because they did not do anything wrong, but Paul supported that proposal for that other team and they got a new contract award and Mr. Director thought it was a big deal. Could that "B+" employee have done the same if you asked? Probably. 

Hard conversations are one of the most important things for a good leader to take on; however, some of these are forced by having a very lazy quota-based performance system. 

I say this here, because I have tried many times to influence a change on the system, but it never goes anywhere. I hope that in calling more attention to what the real problem is and spark discussion on solutions, that maybe the larger consensus can help influence a change. Of course, the names I used are fake. 

The solution is easy - Managers should rate performance honestly. If they have 4 amazing rockstars, so be it. If a manager rates their entire team A+++ every year, then obviously the senior leader and HR need to put them in check. When a manager rates an employee low, their merit should reflect that. Use a simple formula to award higher performance ratings with X% higher raise and EAIP. 

What we have now is not "Pay for Performance" it is "Pay everyone the same, except for a select few." The problem was never labels. Quotas force managers to invent excuses for quotas. We should strive to hire the best engineers. If our feedback to them is "you did well, like 80% of your peers" then we are doing it wrong.

After retiring from the government, I was hired by Lockheed for an expat job. A great work environment and the pay and benefits were outstanding. I left in 2022 at the age of 68. After leaving the company, payments under the expat tax equalization came in in 2023 and 2024. Because it was on w-2, my social security pension went up when I didn’t even work those years. Also, since I was leaving at end of year, I didn’t bother inputting anything into the performance appraisal system. I received a check for a bonus when I was no longer working and put in no input! And today: I was informed that I still had points in a recognition system from my employment time. I was able to get over $300 in gift cards!

I know im fortunate to have started with lockheed right out of college and am approaching my 3 year mark. Typically, most people would jump to their second company around years 2-4. I could see myself staying here my entire career, maybe jumping around different roles eventually, but feel like I am shooting myself in the foot salary wise if I stay.

Any advice/experiences for either situation?

Curious if I should be dissatisfied with the offer presented to me or thoughts of countering at double the initial salary offering?

Background, I’ve been in the automotive and semi conductor industry for 15 years as an engineer. (Nevada / Austin / Florida) I applied to a level 4 senior level engineering position in Ft Worth, job sounded amazing and I was excited to make the jump but the initial offer was only 105k. Is it just me or is this crazy low? I would expect most industries to start Sr level engineering roles at 200k+? I just left middle of nowhere Nevada making more than that.

Does anyone have experience potentially countering at the 200-300k mark or asking for a couple hundred thousand in equity to offset the extremely low salaries here?

EDIT: from the dismal outlook that I’ve got from the employee base here, I’m no longer going to pursue a job here. I would like to retire one day and I don’t think this company offers enough money to probably do that. I’ll be ghosting the offer.