Good Company - Design Engineer BKF Engineers Employee Review

Great staff, great learning experience, cool variety of projects

A lot of work, kept me extra busy

Lots of great engineers and exciting projects. Numerous opportunities to grow if you have the motivation and a supportive manager. You can have a healthy work life balance if that is a priority. One of the prominent land development and survey firms on the west coast.

Under the previous CEO, BKF fostered a fun, close-knit, and forward thinking environment. There was palpable excitement for the future of BKF. In less than 5 years under the current CEO, the company has made countless decisions that favor upper management, exploit and penny pinch the engineering core of the company, and disregard the values and integrity that BKF built over 100+ years in the industry. It saddens me because I used to call BKF the best in the business and thought I'd finish my career here. However, the current CEO is uncharismatic and not a natural-born leader. The company recently partnered with private equity. Shortly after, policies and benefits that made BKF stand out in a crowded industry have been rewritten to reduce pay, paid leave, and opportunities throughout. And through all the changes, the CEO has hidden behind a guise of transparency. Positive news is dispersed during company wide meetings while impactful policy changes trickle down through word of mouth without any formal announcement. Critical questions from colleagues are blatantly ignored by HR if the answer/response would be unfavorable to the employees.