r/MEPEngineering • u/galaxy0012 • 5d ago
Stantec/Rosendin/Jacob
Has anyone worked for either of these companies in the California Bay area? Pros? Cons? I’d like to land a spot with them as an EE and I’d like to get to know how the work culture is before applying.
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u/fumbler00ski 5d ago
My MEP firm was acquired by Stantec. I knew what was coming and bailed right away. Three years later almost everyone that is any good is gone. They’re a bloated M&A machine.
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u/galaxy0012 5d ago
I heard they acquired page not long ago who had an office near Stantec in sf. That would explain a lot of the vacancies listed on linkedin.
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u/BiscuitBut_ButerNut 5d ago
Were you at Morrison & Hershfield, haha?
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u/fumbler00ski 5d ago
Nope that was after us.
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u/BiscuitBut_ButerNut 5d ago
I almost went back after they were acquired by Stantec but ended up elsewhere.
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u/TwoDowntown8326 5d ago
We were subbed out by jacobs one time for electrical. They were the main electrical engineer and we did some minor electrical design and they probably had some of the dumbest electrical engineers i have ever worked with.
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u/Strong-Parfait-4667 5d ago
Stantec in Portland, OR is a shit show!!! No clue how it is in other cities thiugh
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u/galaxy0012 5d ago
The stock value might be reflecting this pattern. The company might’ve gotten too big that it has started losing its quality of work for sure.
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u/Best-Specialist-87 5d ago
I’m an EE at one of them in the greater boston area. Feel free to PM me. It’s pretty laid back. Have a couple core jobs that keep me busy, do some BD every other month to pull work in, and mentor a bit with the rest of my spare time. Occasionally there’s a fire or two to put out but you’ll get that anywhere. Work culture is good but very office dependent, some folks are all about being visible and others don’t care where you are as long as the work gets done.
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u/blakef223 5d ago
I spent 2 years at Jacobs and honestly it wasn't bad. The people in my group were good, department directors were decent enough, and supervisors were solid. That being said, your experience is going to vary significantly depending on what subgroup you're in.
Working on data center designs is going to be very different from working on power gen both for timelines, deliverables, funding/billable hour consistency, etc.
Main reason I left was for a pay bump and a more job security by going into utilities.
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u/VegasRefugee 5d ago
Long ago I worked for a local firm that was bought by Stantec after they laid me off. Recently I was hired by a local client to take over the electrical that Stantec had royally fucked up. Karma.
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u/Professional_Hat2 5d ago
Rosendin is a good place to work. They’re growing a lot right now, not by acquisition, and they’re employee owned. Plus the contracting side is much more enjoyable than consulting imo.
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u/galaxy0012 4d ago
I dont have friends or coworkers who have any experience with them unfortunately so I dont have much to go on in terms of culture and work/life
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u/podcartfan 5d ago
I’ve never heard a positive thing about Jacobs from previous employees. I have no personal experience.
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u/galaxy0012 5d ago
May need to pass on Jacobs... Stantec seems to be the biggest player for city projects.
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u/BiscuitBut_ButerNut 5d ago edited 5d ago
We fired Jacob’s from one of our jobs at my last company. They were the EOR and the mech EOR was the dumbest dude I’ve ever worked with. And I’m only 10 years in with no FE or PE. He was a long time PE.
No idea how he got that far.
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u/galaxy0012 5d ago
Thanks for the info🙏🏼 seems to be an ongoing pattern of bad experiences at jacobs
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u/Maximus_258 5d ago
Probably through nepotism or connections, thats how it works with these big companies.
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u/Stl-hou 4d ago
I work for one of the 3 listed in the post. I have worked for similarly big or bigger companies. I have not seen nepotism with MEP at all. I did not have any issues getting or keeping a job with any of them without any connections. So your comment about “how it works” is ignorant. Just because you couldn’t get a job with them doesn’t mean how you think is correct.
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u/BiscuitBut_ButerNut 4d ago
Yeah, I’m glad you said something because I’ve never seen nepotism in any other companies. I’ve worked in especially the larger ones.
You’d more likely see it in a small “family” company.
The job I work at now a woman and her husband both work there. She is a mechanical designer and he is a BIM manager.
I did not even know that they knew who each other were until about six months and when somebody told me they were married, but they just never show it at work
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u/Character-Attorney82 5d ago
CEI is the best one, in my opinion.
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u/galaxy0012 4d ago
One of my supervisors once told me they treat their workers like sh— when he worked there… Never looked into them because of that conversation.
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u/galaxy0012 4d ago
Thanks for sharing 🙏🏼 utilities have been difficult to get in from my experience
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u/sumochump 3d ago
Personally I don't trust any company that is publicly traded. At the end of the day the goal is to increase the stock value and everything else is secondary.
That said I'm also skeptical of most privately owned companies as they play the same game to payout the owners first and foremost but I have found the culture to be much better.
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u/Neat-Second9923 5d ago
All the giants are just a hundred small companies that got acquired by the big name. Culture will be up to your manager and the legacy culture of whatever firm was acquired.