Pros
- Young team, mostly recent graduates who are a lot of fun. This means that there is a lot of office banter and experience isn't necessary. - Fire engineering follows a pretty standard routine to comply with Building Regulations. Although this means that it is difficult to be creative at times, management are very happy to allow staff to show off their creative abilities when called for. - The annual conference is always a nice way to meet the team in other offices. JGA very generously pays for transport, accommodation and meals as part of this weekend away. - Learn-by-doing approach to training means that engineers feel useful from the very beginning. - Management have your back at all times, and will help with any issues that you are struggling with. This is the biggest advantage of the company structure, wherein all members of management have worked their way through the ranks from design engineers. - Since most staff are hired as design engineers and promoted from within, the career advancement opportunities are amazing.
Cons
- Clients/architects often do not understand that engineers have multiple projects at once, and make unreasonable deadlines. Although this is unavoidable in the construction industry, management are great at looking out for the staff when it comes to tough deadlines. - Projects often go on hold and restart with little or no warning, meaning that engineers are at times under a lot of pressure. It can be difficult at times to get assistance with this, but management are usually quick to address unreasonable deadlines and help make sure that each engineer has the resources that they need. - The strict quality control policies often slow down the issuing of projects, as everything has to be checked and approved by two separate members of staff. As all staff are often busy and under pressure themselves, there can be a bit of a backlog when it comes to checking. - Since the office is in the city centre, commuting can be very difficult at peak times. - When project deadlines are looming, it is sometimes necessary to put in overtime into the evenings or early in the morning.