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Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

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Great benefits, Depending on group work can be dry - Associate Software Engineer Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Employee Review

4.0
Jan 28, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Huge amount of benefits working at SEL: health clinic, gym, 401K, Employee Stock Ownership Program. Work is very steady. Every Friday the entire company comes together to eat lunch, and presentations are given about what is happening in the company as a whole. Great work life balance.

Cons

This depends on the group that you work in, but the work that you actually do potentially could be very dry. I worked in software and developed xml drivers for relays, which was mostly tedious work. Also there's a lot of churn with different groups, so projects usually end up taking way longer than anticipated. SEL is a big company, so there's a lot of bureaucracy that you have to face when trying to advocate for a change in process or a new project. SEL loves process, and favors that over adopting modern technologies. If you're a software engineer that wants to work on software that uses some hot new framework or library, SEL most likely won't be a good fit. Their flagship software product called QuickSet is a 20 year old Delphi application. Almost every project I've worked on involves maintenance work. On the spectrum of "cool, hip startup" to "enterprise corporation" SEL is a lot more on the corporation side.

Explore other reviews about Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

5.0
Jul 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Plenty of friendly faces to work with.

Cons

Reluctant to hire certain places sometimes.

4.0
Apr 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Right job for some people. If you buy into the koolaid and are passionate about the power industry this can be an incredible job for you. The benefits are pretty great. I really enjoyed my coworkers, all of them feel human and are earnest. You can live quite cheaply in Pullman. There is an incredible amount of job security. SEL boasts they've never done a layoff. Additionally their ESOP distribution is generous - though it takes 6 years to fully vest. There is a lot of things I really admire about the company and the culture.

Cons

Comp is lower side. A lot of people are hired out of college and have only ever worked at SEL so sometimes I feel like there is a bit of an echo chamber. Small town. I really struggled with the initial allocation of 12 days PTO. 17 after 2 years is much easier. As a SWE, the company feels very catered to their power engineers. Company is very traditional in its values, people wear suits to work. Seems like the timeline for promotion is quite slow for SWE compared to other companies. I see a lot of friction when lower level engineers trying to advocate for changes; though I do think that the conversations with leadership happen in good faith.

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