Exponent Associate reviews

-Opportunities to get project management experience (which directly decides how quickly you move up in the firm) can be extremely scarce depending on your personal situation. Some upper level staff adhere to the philosophy of giving opportunities to junior staff while others keep it all to themselves to pad their own stats (and pockets). It is possible you could quickly gain experience and become a leader but it is more likely you will fight tooth and nail and get nothing which is demoralizing. -The way the company is structured naturally feeds work to the top-level staff which makes sense from a first look, but when you find out getting work or "capturing" projects is one of the top 3 metrics used to decide your advancement in the firm this quickly becomes a con. -Managers and Principle Engineers in the firm have ZERO training in leading people. The firm assumes that you are a good leader if you've managed many projects and thus brought in a large amount of money for the firm, but this has nothing to do with leading people in reality. -The overall culture is flawed. You will hear many times from senior staff that Exponent is 'a company of individuals'. This naturally breeds chaos in high pressure projects as there are many egos to feed which slows down progress. It also can result in associates being caught in between two senior staff that are feuding or decide they don't like each other and don't want to work together. If you enjoy the team aspect of engineering then I must warn you, this firm will frustrate you.

Burn and churn work environment; high turnover of very skilled and qualified employees due to burnout and bad company culture. Senior management is not trained in management skills and do not promote team work among employees , instead they push a very caustic, cut-throat dog eats dog work environment. They prefer employees to over work and clocking 60-80 hr work weeks are not uncommon. Management treats staff like they are pawns and not real people, no thought is given to personal development and career progression. They tend to hire fresh graduates/early career engineers/ scientists from big name universities and work them till they burnout and quit. This is evidenced by the extremely high turnover rate. Having a work-life balance is nearly impossible without getting threatened to be fired. If you are look for a stable career with good career progression avenues and are think of building a family soon this company is not for you, especially if you are a female employee.