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Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

Is this your company?

Mixed bag of Chocolate and I do hate coconut and almonds, but love caramel. - Assembler Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Employee Review

3.0
Oct 3, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They are pretty much the biggest employer outside of institutions. There is for a lack of a better word 'two training departments'. There is how we would like to perceive how things are done and how they are actually performed. Office culture: I am a blue collar employee so my perspective is from the standpoint of working in two identical departments on opposite shifts. There seems a lot more comradely on swing shift. But less backstabbing on day shift no matter the department though not to say there are not individuals that will abuse others while they fail to do work or would rather complain that people want to follow best practices or yell at you for 'Do as I say not as I do'.

Cons

Some times it feels that they take advantage of being so large for a small area of employment opportunities, but they are getting better especially with some of the newer management they have. Promotions: as long as you work in Custom Encloser, you are under 5 foot blonde, or may be a slight jerk. (Mixing and matching these qualities help). Values: Some days better then others sometimes I feel that assemblers care more about quality AND understand human error better then management. ESOP really reminds me of ENRON or a pyramid scheme.

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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