Management is going downhill. Not the same CDM it used to be. - Environmental Engineer CDM Smith Employee Review

2.0
Sep 12, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Decent pay and compansation package Knowledge share Professional conferences participation Never had problems with expense reimbursement including overhead expenses

Cons

1. CDM is not lack of technically sound engineers and resources, unfortunately, lots of projects still failed even when the projects had enough budget and time to execute. Budgets are always low or burned faster than anyone knows. In no doubt, this is in large part due to the poor project planning and/or management. 2. When project suffers from deadline and budget problems, employees have to either sacrifice work-life balance by working overtime without pay or risk becoming the PM's scapegoat and getting a bad annual review. 3. At CDM, project quality management is just a joke: as long as you finished the project within budget and deadline you are gold. Let the clients and operators worry about the problems later. 4. Lots of senior level engineers like playing blaming games and creating fame for themselves to secure their jobs and get promoted. Don't know if they were born that way or became that way after being with CDM for too long (being forced by the environment). 5. Some company 'gurus' in certain specialty areas are too busy to do any real project work: going to conferences and traveling around the country to attend meetings seem to be a lot more fun that sitting at the desk every day.

Explore other reviews about CDM Smith

5.0
Apr 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of training and opportunities

Cons

Company structure can be confusing

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CDM Smith Response
3w
Thank you for taking the time to leave us a 5-star review! It was great to have you as an employee and wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
2.0
Jun 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible hybrid schedule is very nice and starting salary is high for early career engineers.

Cons

The main people running the company are not engineers and you can tell. They are all focused on utilization with rates often set at 97% or higher. This had led to my supervisor asking/telling me to not charge company required trainings. As an early engineer it really feels like they don't want to invest in me and only care about their bottom line. If you are an early career structural engineer you will also not get any meaningful work until you've been with the company for at least 5 years. The senior engineers do not trust you and will only give you grunt work.

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