Pros
I was lucky to be able to start and finish my apprenticeship at rocketlab. I was trained by some of the best techs in New Zealand and their skills are amazing. Rocket Lab is great to have on your CV I fortunately got to work on R&D projects during my time at rocketlab, and I feel that everybody gets to work on these exciting projects regularly which keeps it interesting. Even standard production work is made interesting by constant improvements to the launch vehicle. Engineering support setup is incredible, iPad apps such as flame and redmine are super helpful and great for tracking non conformity, and making improvements. Everybody you meet at Rocket Lab is super interesting and very good at what they do, when they aren’t being overloaded….
Cons
Pay. Every year is a massive muck around when it comes to pay reviews. For example, this year reviews were started in feb, and we were told we would have our pay rises by April, I finished at the very end of April and nobody had had their pay rise, and I hear they have only just got their pay rise, but are still waiting on back pay…. It’s now end of May… If it’s anything like previous years, the raises will be far below expected… Burnout is common. Employees at Rocket Lab are expected to be the “best of the best”. To get noticed in a place like RL, this means you have to work to the breaking point, and past it. Even if you just want to get through a normal day you will have more than enough to keep you stressed, and this is seen in critical areas of production teams. High turnover. Fresh employees love it for the first 6 months, but after that you can see them start to go downhill quickly… I don’t know many people who make it past 3 years at RL. By the time they leave they are exhausted and sick of the BS that comes with working here. It’s really a shame to see awesome people so broken.