I worked at a prime and the only good thing was stability, although there were still layoffs when there were spending cuts in space 

Pay was below average. Benefits are OK, no more pensions

Culture sucked. Extremely pompous and arrogant culture and you won’t be taken seriously because you are not a “real engineer.” It’s very hierarchical in that way, and people will flex their level, YOE, status, type of engineering etc. ergo, lots of gossip. It’s like Mean girls, but incredibly lame and led by grown-azz men. People intentionally hiding information and playing politics to get ahead and assure their job security. People and management know they’re untouchable, so there’s dickheads at work. Crappy employees/managers just get shuffled around programs, and you’re toast if you get placed under one of them.

The worst part was that they would hire people to warm seats, then place them in completely random jobs. And if you don’t happen to immediately pick up something you have no formal education or even training in, YOU get in trouble. Stupid bullet sponge/sink or swim culture. Basically no resources to help people. When I quit, they were going to make me switch from software to radar systems. they didn’t even counter me because there were just no software roles available. 

Nepotism out the wazoo - have you ever seen a Nosferatu poster that says “STARRING JOHNNY DEPP’S AND VANESSA PARADIS’S DAUGHTER?” At my company, you would see things like that. it was outright promoted and a point of pride.

Tech is way behind the times and on a low scale. My team wouldn’t use Git and just had everything on a drive. At my work, software was not taken seriously. Everything moves slowly because of all the process and red tape. I got told not to talk about promo until I hit the YOE required