Red Five Security Reviews

To start, the pay is not good for the DC metro area, and is not a livable wage unless you graduated school with zero debt, you have a few roommates, or live at home. You will need the $100 commuter benefits because you will not be able to live near the office. Red Five has always viewed their analysts as just passing through. This used to be fine when they had a talented management team of ex military and intel officers who were eager to train the next generation and be mentors, but that is no longer the case. Management is young and inexperienced. They have little help to offer in your role, since the CEO is the only person allowed to make any decisions. The one or two managers who are more experienced are often ignored. But they do their best. As has been stated in other reviews, Red Five execs and managers play favorites. People who are terrible at their jobs and never really catch on to how this work is done are often rewarded and promoted if they suck up to management and never question anything. That should be a motto at Red Five, never question anything. Don't be inquisitive. The CEO is always right. The work will seem exciting at first, but will soon get very tedious and annoying. The main client wants you to do the work as if you are a computer. Do more work, cut the time down, write fewer words, do less research. Working here will only teach you the basics of open-source research and report writing. It is very structured to one specific client, and on a daily basis you only use their internal tools, so you won't leave Red Five will any real hard skills. Management is not allowed to be a reference at your next job, and your coworkers are not allowed to be either. So you better make friends and contacts outside of Red Five if you want to be able to put references down for your next job or security clearance (luckily there is a lot of turnover, so eventually you'll be able to use someone). Red Five will only confirm you work here and on what starting/ending date. This is apparently standard for some security places, but can be annoying when you are trying to leave and Red Five employees are the only people you know in the area. There were multiple "layoffs" last year blamed on the client that saw a good number of employees cut loose, but they happened so quickly and randomly with nonsensical reasoning that it seems that was probably a lie. To be fair, I'm sure a lot of the bigger issues at Red Five are client related, because the client has all the leverage here. But executives are such bad communicators, and seem to hide the truth about the inner workings of it all so often that everything just comes across as a lie. With an executive and board group made up of boomers and gen X, and the majority of the work force (middle managers and analysts) being millennials and zoomers, there is a constant "the adults and the kids" vibe. A lot of "don't complain about this company, things are worse at other companies" and "this is how it's always been done" and "this pay is fair compared to similar roles in the area." Red Five wants to keep the status quo and has no interest in doing something differently from how it has "always been done". I'm sure plenty of companies in this space, and in general, are like this. But when you're working at a company with under 50 people, it is pretty hard to ignore.

Long commute given in office requirements.