Pros
This company has a world class ESOP program, at least historically speaking. The company valuation has done nothing but go up since the ESOP was created in the 80’s, which is both promising, and a little concerning. I get skeptical whenever valuation increases exponentially for extended periods of time, however currently, the ESOP is great. Many great engineers work for Burns and Mac. Like any place, there are good and bad, but I felt that most were very capable and hard working. Burns and Mac will likely give you the opportunity to work on large scale, high profile projects. Now, your role on those projects may or may not be one of great significance or importance, but, you will likely have some exposure to large projects.
Cons
I began my engineering career with Burns and Mac, and let me say, I was very excited to be with the company. I had hopes of spending my entire career there. I had high expectations to grow myself both technically and professionally, and truly wanted to become a vital member of every project that I was involved with. My goal was to not only become technically excellent, but also to learn the ins and outs of the business, and to one day become a leader within my department or the company as a whole. Starting out I hit the ground running, and, took on work at a commendable pace. I frequently received praise for my ability to learn quickly and to produce great work. Things seemed very promising. As time went on however, it became evident that individuals in the department were treated far from fairly. Our projects were very multi-disciplinary, therefore, many different engineering disciplines were involved. A clear hierarchy became evident. This hierarchy had nothing to do with age, experience, technical or managerial proficiency, but was determined strictly from the engineering discipline that you happened to be a part of. There was little to no expectation for supporting disciplines to further themselves technically or professionally. Never was I encouraged to join professional societies, attend conferences, pursue certificates or accreditations beyond the P.E., etc. Moreover, I was given no involvement in project decision making, project management training, client interaction, or business development. My position had essentially no technical or professional mentorship, and, seemed to be viewed as “overhead” from project managers. At one point, I was told by a manager that “you don’t get to have a say in the matter, you’re just supposed to just make it work.” My typical work duties consisted of tasks not that different from an engineering draftsman, often, with younger less experienced engineers directing my efforts. These engineers were no more qualified than me, but, were of a discipline higher on the hierarchy, therefore, were more often treated as assistant project managers, and received 100% of the mentorship from team leaders and project managers. Many senior support engineers were treated essentially as draftsmen, and, given no project insight beyond what was determined to be relevant to their respective role. On multiple occasions, I was directed by less experienced engineers (higher on the hierarchy of course), to begin working on a project, of which I had never even heard of. Usually, there had been a project kickoff meeting the previous week, however, none of the support staff were invited. The blatant lack of respect from project managers, and junior engineers on their way to becoming project managers, was astounding. This dynamic seemed to get worse and worse over time. Now, despite my dissatisfaction, I stayed with the company and continued to receive praise. For over a year, I expressed interest in greater project involvement, client interaction, and even expanding my role into new markets, however, no action of any sort was taken by managers. Not only was the work a dead end in terms of professional growth, but work-life balance was abysmal. The department was obsessed with operating as lean as possible, particularly regarding support engineers. Throughout my tenure with the company, work life balance went from moderately poor to completely unsustainable. Project managers were hired, and workload grew, meanwhile, no additional support staff were hired until absolutely necessary. I am a very hard worker, and genuinely worked as hard as I could to learn quickly and to hopefully advance. I embraced the workload challenge, and, hoped that it would set me apart from others. This very clearly was a mistake, as managers soon started taking advantage of my hard-working tendencies. My technical and menial workload grew and grew, and absolutely no exposure to project management or client interaction was given. To summarize, I’ll say that Burns and Mac is a highly successful company that clearly knows how to execute high level projects efficiently and profitably, BUT, to me, this alone doesn’t make it a great place to work. This company receives frequent praise for being one of the best engineering companies out there, which to me, seems to be predicated only by its financial commitment to employees (salary, ESOP, bonuses), and in no way it’s commitment to employee’s happiness. I saw first-hand, and experienced, blatant overwork and burnout, lack of opportunity, disrespect, and a disregard for individual’s opinions and considerations. Like I mentioned earlier, I was once very proud to work for this company, and, am sad to say that I am very disappointed with my experience there.
