Argon ST does not have enough customers to weather dry spells without layoffs.
The archaic, heavy-weight software development process (recently re-branded as "agile" with very few changes) is broken and often used as a means of controlling people more than quality.
Some long-timers only share domain knowledge with those that they like that come from the right schools, which is a problem in light of the brain drain (see below). The vision, experience and knowledge of experienced engineers that come from other companies is generally not respected. Most of them and many of the best engineers have left Argon ST over the past few years. Hiring now is almost exclusively limited to college graduates.
The CM and build tools are a disaster and efforts to address these issues appear to be going in an even worse direction.
Some slackers stay on year after year and are taken care of very well - seemingly at the expense of others who work *very* hard but are not well-rewarded.
Boeing is forcing some necessary changes but a lack of vision and inertia in the old guard Argon ST culture have made these changes far more painful than they need to be.
