AO - Architects Orange reviews

-will promote you even if you’re unqualified -lack of mentorship -tons of gatekeeping and weird mind games -spent more time managing coworker attitudes than actually doing my job - work life balance is garbage -no work from home options unless your specific manager allows it - offers summer hours with Friday half day but refuse to offer year round…with zero reasoning as to why other than “we are better together” - lots of office politics -zero recognition for jobs well done unless you get lucky with a cool manager (few and far between) -super mismanaged projects - no quality control on drawings - will tell you what you want to hear then take zero action to help. -tons of gossip -they say they will support you in your licensure process, but you’re on your own with that one. They offer study materials, but there’s no support group and people are too busy to answer questions. - learning at this office is trial by fire -they will bounce you around teams without telling you. -I think I said this already but NO FEEDBACK is really bad business practice - they underbid to get contracts and then slam clients with CA fees that could have been avoided if best businesses practices were followed beforehand. -massively inconsistent drawing sets -all example projects are void because the standards are constantly being overhauled and controlled by people who have zero understanding of the softwares used. -always trying to make revit look like autocad which can be done, but there’s no bim manager to help with templates or families, so you’re at the discretion of the drafting level of your team which varies MASSIVELY. -only care about making it right when you put your two weeks in, but to make it right, they’d need to change their entire business model. - they will set you up to fail. They promoted me knowing full well I was not at the level they promoted me to. - the health benefits suck. Literally any other firm will be better. -if you’re looking to gain credentials, they will tell you it’s a waste of time, so you’re on your own there. - site walks are very limited so gaining insight to the products we provide is reserved for higher level employees. -just know if someone is gossiping to you about someone else, they are also gossiping about you. Some people will act like your friend, then throw you under the bus as soon as any issues come up regardless of whether it was your fault or theirs. -tons of pointing fingers and inability to take ownership of project issues. - lack of clear direction on projects.

This place was a great place to work when i first started. Over the span of a few years there were multiple layoffs, people quitting/being hired again, and overall very rapid turnover. They implemented new HR systems that are not people focused and are strictly a one-size fits all policy approach without adequate trainings for management and employees. I feel there is a lack of accountability with management (and HR) as well. I have experienced instances of very unsafe work environments although having been remote. This would be cause for termination at many other companies considering today’s state of the world and workplace violence. I had to fight very hard to get this resolved and am very lucky that I did. This showed me that the company tolerates unsafe/unstable behaviors or otherwise doesn’t adequately train their staff and management. That is my opinion based on my personal experience here. The company seems to have confusing priorities and has rather unreasonable expectations for not only the workload, but the way you are to bill. They took away 401k and overtime as well. In my experience, there wasn’t adequate/cohesive training on this either. Profit over people and very “DOGE” like policies.