I do not wish to seem bitter. These are genuine self reflections on the company and my experience. Where to begin here? -Maintenance This company is penny wise and pound foolish. Critical facilities are no maintained because it "costs too much," yet we have clients ready to dump millions to use that facility, but we cannot do $300K fix said facility? -Hiring You will likely be lied to about your job role. I was allegedly hired to do simulations. I was trained in all of my multiple engineering degree to do complex numerical simulation. However, since on boarding, I am essentially the engineering version of a paralegal. This seems very patronizing and does not fill me with self worth that I am actually contributing to the company and more that I am a "warm body" to fill an office desk. -Your Manager At most companies, you will be hired because you have a unique skill or experience that is a value add to the company. That is not the case here. This company has a "continuous growth" hiring model to impress share holder. What that means is that you "manager" needs to hire someone to make "senior manager" when they are up for promotion. Because of this you "manager" doesn't need you (beyond a salary increase) and doesn't care if you work for him/her/them/etc. -Safety This company could care less if you are killed on the job or not. I have worked in many extremely dangerous places in my life. Machine shops, rail yards, steel mills, lumber yards and logging camps. These places are inherently dangerous, but most of this is very well mitigated by equipment, practices and PPE. I have seem people at this company working with cancer causing chemicals and substances with zero protection (Most companies would require hazmat suits). Every case of heat stroke (because this is Phoenix) has been effectively swept under the rug. "Just get it done" is a phrase that you may hear a lot. -Career Opportunities They don't really exist here. The goal is to wait for you manager to retire, leave for a better job, or die. At which point you are going to inherit their clients. But that is not the case! You will likely see that said clients will be stolen from you by other similarly qualified senior management, rather than have you advance to replace the person that you worked with you entire career. -Work/Life Balance I generally do not believe in this. However, I have seen this company destroy several marriages just do to the work load. Your spouse will cheat on you because you are working 60-80 hour a week on a "super special secret project" (or so you have been told). Or the alternative is that you will find that one week is 120 hours and the next three weeks are 10 hours. At least General Dynamics will pay the same, and only make you work 40 every week. -Your Skill Level You are a PhD graduate. You can work for NASA or a Formula 1 team or be the captain of a nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine. So, why would you waste you time being a gofer? Maybe this job makes sense if you have already done one (or all) of these things. If you are a new grad, you are better than this company! Go do something that will change the world, and come back to the lawfare industry later. -Lawfare I had to touch on this. Exponent would not have clients, if their clients didn't kill their clients. Your job is to now prove that the engineering that just got a guy killed is aye okay!! Grain of salt: you will also see lots of Darwin Award winners. But it doesn't feel great to lord over someones death either way. For me, I have always be very much a big fan of working with the auto industry. But honestly, if you want that, just go to an OEM. And, true, maybe you will just be the "brake guy," but you will feel so much more rewarded when you see that Camaro roll down the street, thinking to yourself "yeah, I designed that !" They pay better anyways.
