Pros
What I enjoy most about working as an engineer at BRP is the opportunity to be closely involved in nearly all aspects of the product lifecycle, from design through prototyping and testing, to manufacturing and assembly, to real-world service. It's immensely satisfying to be able to see a product all the way through, from idea to commercialization and use. I don't think I would have the same opportunity in a larger company, such as an automotive OEM, where each person is responsible for one small part of the whole. Also, as a materials engineer at BRP, I get to work on a wide range of materials, including steel, aluminum, plastics, rubber, coatings, etc. Every day is something new. I'm constantly presented with new and challenging problems, and need to keep learning in order to solve them.
Cons
The flip side of this is that no one can afford to be too highly specialized, because everyone in engineering is spread pretty thin. Resource and staffing levels are very lean. Our competitors have a dozen people doing the job I do; I'm a team of one. Sometimes resource issues are exacerbated by poor communication. Given how lean the organization is, bad communication is something we really can't afford, but it happens more often than it should. As information travels through the organizational structure, it inevitably gets garbled. The result is wasted time and energy. Neither of these problems is unique to BRP: nearly every company wants to be "lean" these days, and if hierarchical organizations didn't result in bad communication, there would be no market for Dilbert comics. I don't think BRP is particularly better or worse than most companies in either of these regards.
