Good salary, good benefits. But a cubical farm / sweat shop. Can be a waste of time for Junior Engineers. - werkgeversreview Junior Civil/Structural Engineer bij Jacobs

3,0
20 aug 2014
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

For a junior engineer, this type of job can potentially be very good - especially if you are looking to get a decent multidisciplinary understanding of how the Oil and Gas industry works. Jacobs is an EPCM company - and like other EPCM companies, it has to work very hard to be competitive in the international market place. This means that cutting the cost of engineering, reducing re-work, eliminating new engineering (re-use old engineering designs) is a big part of its philosophy. A very large amount of engineering is completed in India (as much as possible. I've seen 100% on some projects). This means that the engineering completed in Calgary is just review / check work. How your experience will pan out greatly depends on your state of mind, as well as the people that you end up working with.

Minpunten

As there is so much change in the market, and competition for projects, as a junior engineer you can often end up being swept around, forgotten, lost in the blur of the busy workplace. It's not uncommon for junior engineers to have literally nothing to do, and I've seen very intelligent junior engineers sitting around for months on end doing literally nothing. One friend of mine sat at his cubical for an entire year with no real work to do. But as long as your hours are being billed to the client, nobody really cares whether or not you're actually performing. This can be immensely discouraging, especially if you're bright and ambitious to learn. Since there is a lot of turn-over in this type of company, you may also have the experience that you're constantly re-establishing and re-proving your skills and your worth. You may get a new boss every 3 or 4 months, and what's expected of you can be very vague. HR puts a lot of work into trying to guide your development, and put you on the path of honing your skills and improving your knowledge, to better perform. But don't fall into that trap - the reality is that these "Jacobs Future" or development programs are more or less useless. The key to succeeding is in developing connections and relationships with people directly in the company. Use honesty, be ambitious, but be patient. Overall, Jacobs is quite a decent company. I'm not sure that I recommend it to junior engineers, especially if you are in civil / structural. As a civil / structural engineer, you need a lot of hands-on and field experience to understand the concepts and know what you're doing. At Jacobs, you'll likely get zero, as the construction contractors are typically a wholly other company. I left after 2 years, having decided that I didn't like the big-company Dilbert-style of career. Best of luck.

Ontdek andere reviews over Jacobs

5,0
24 jun 2026
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

Great company, great culture, love it here

Minpunten

None to share, it’s great

3,0
6 jul 2026
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

Decent culture, individual contributors are fine, management is lacking

Minpunten

The company operates like many smaller companies depending on which business market you are in so your experience will vary. For some, it's the best company, others will say it's the worst; it just depends on your region/group even at the local level. Water/wastewater is a good market in most offices, transportation is hit an miss depending on location.

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