1. Poor Company culture: Being such a big organization [by the Structural industry standards], you would expect them to have a more unique identity and a well-defined culture that separates them. However, it feels like everyone from the higher-ups to engineers is just trying to compete and outperform their "greatest rival" MKA. That feels like the sole purpose of their life. You will hear them taking shots and making fun of MKA at every chance they get. However, KPFF, Seattle isn't promoting anything that is different from the "MKA culture". It is just a culture of work, more work, and competition [which is exhausting after a few years].
2. No access to supervisors: I understand one is expected to be skilled enough to work independently with little supervision. However, there are still discussions that you would like to have with your supervisor [since it may be a new kind of project/material that you haven't worked on before or certain design philosophies unique to the company. It also helps build relationships]. But most supervisors are so busy with 5 different projects that they cannot even spare 15 mins to talk to you. When I would be happy that I finally got a hold of my supervisor, 10 mins into the call, his response would be "I have a meeting, need to go". This happened multiple times such that I felt "his other projects were more important than helping me grow, especially when I was working so hard for the success of the project"
3. Constant race rather than learning: Due to the lack of oversight and so much work, a lot of engineers (especially the younger engineers out of school) are always in a constant rush to finish their deadlines. This mad scamper to desperately get to the finish line means one hardly gets the time to review, learn or deeply understand the mechanisms, design assumptions/detailing that was done in the course of the project. Every time you finish something, you are constantly thinking of the next deadline- it never ends. This constant race along with not being able to "deeply learn" the concepts stunts the growth of younger engineers [this doesn't apply to engineers working for >10 years since they have already gone through this same process at KPFF] and also makes the work less exciting/interesting. This inevitably results in burnout. Hence, you constantly hear people leaving after a few years.
Advice to engineers: 1. Younger engineers: Invest in other companies. Even though the name/projects of the company may sound alluring, you will have much better technical & overall growth if you look into other companies in the initial half of your career.
2. Experienced engineers: If you wish to constantly work, this company is for you. But if you value personal time and balance, this company doesn't share the same culture. You are only measured by the overtime and the number of projects you are working on.
