Opportunity to learn, but not fairly compensated for advancment or recognized for progress
Pros
Atkins provides the opportunity to work on many large, high profile projects. I have had a great learning experience and have advanced extremely fast in my specialty.
Cons
Salary is still less than average for an entry level engineer in my area (0 experience) despite being given full responsibility to deliver projects. Often times I am given more responsiblity than senior engineers making more than twice my salary who just happen to be tight enough in the old boy network that they can keep their jobs without producing much at all. When budgets get spent, they rely on me and other "entry level engineers" to work for free to get the jobs finished even though the people making 120k-150k are clearly the ones blowing the budgets. This abuse of young engineers seems to be systematic within the North American company. I have worked in three states under five different managers and they all seem to handle the issue in the same way. I have also seen more than a few highly competent young engineers leave the company at their first chance for the same reasons. Asked to not charge overtime and not record all hours worked even when there is budget left. Profits from projects are taken from the group to cover other underperforming groups. Need to put in extra effort to make up for incompetancies in higher level technical staff. I feel that my skills are highly abused and taken advantage of.
