Unrealistic expectations & disconnected leadership
Pros
Truly amazing network of highly-qualified colleagues and decent systems in place to locate and connect with them. Competitive pay. Suitable benefits. Good flexibility in work hours (depending on location). Good opportunities for advancement.
Cons
Having 15+ years experience in industry, but never having worked for a publicly-traded company, I was shocked at how much employees are treated like a commodity. Billable hour goals are highest priority - over everything. PM's are saddled with an unbearable amount of management "systems" that are really not helpful to the PM, but rather give unreliable and often unfair "accountability" to the PM. Essentially, we are tying our own noose every day. Pretty demoralizing. The acquisition of URS (my former) by AECOM only doubled administrative burden and the integration has been both confusing and painful (and through it all, "keep up your bill-ability!"). I've averaged 55hrs a week since starting and at least 20 of those hours are due to unnecessary hoop-jumping. I hope to never work for a big, publicly-traded firm again. You are truly just a number in the end. Oh, and leadership is in denial about feedback, like similar received to this. Actually argued against (on internal comment board) need to address recent #7 ranking on the Yahoo Finance "Worst Places to Work" list, dismissing as "not scientific". As another poster mentioned, many recent positive reviews here are an attempt to dilute bad reviews. Symptomatic of how AECOM addresses problems - passively and ineffectually.