Caltrans reviews

4.1

79% would recommend to a friend

(851 total reviews)

Malcolm Dougherty

67% approve of CEO

76% positive business outlook

Caltrans has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 851 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Caltrans employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Government & Public Administration industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

851 reviews
2.0
Mar 30, 2017

Only Trons Need Apply

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you can play the game, you'll do well. The licensed employees (engineers, etc) have it made with great salaries. Work is fairly steady. There are rare supervisors who are cool and give staff the freedom to do their jobs---in other words, to be the professionals they were hired to be. Staff is allowed to take their leave time without a hassle about it.

Cons

Only female robots get promoted. Don't show any emotion! Discrimination and chauvinism is still rampant, but not overt. Staff are paid according to classification, so pay across genders is fair. But opportunities for better experience are given to the favorites; men are given a pass on poor behavior while women are still required to perform perfectly. The promotional system is rigged so they can hire who they want. Objective #1, above anything else, is don't irritate anyone. Projects and schedules are secondary to that. Management looks for non-action milquetoasts to promote. They don't want anyone who's going to rock the boat. Everything must be status quo. Most supervisors break every single rule you will ever read on how to be a good supervisor. They are actually taught this. Pay is very low for those without a professional license and the union is terrible. Benefits are not good either, and decreasing all the time. Opportunities for those without a license are extremely limited.

1.0
Jan 18, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There is plenty of job security, because it's near impossible to get fired - even if you're incompetent. They're also big on ethnic and racial diversity, so if you're into that, then you'll like it.

Cons

There's a lot of office politics, confusion, finger-pointing, and discrimination at Caltrans. When something goes wrong, they look for someone to blame instead of fixing the problem. They don't reward harder working employees, nor do they terminate lazy and irresponsible employees. Rather, they just shuffle people around and make them someone else's problem.

1.0
Apr 21, 2017

Dispatch

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A lot of free time, state benefits (health, dental, pension)

Cons

Favoritism/nepotism is rampant, sexual harassment/hostile work environment is also rampant even though the dept policies in place, a lot of lazy employees, good work goes unrecognized, lazy workers are not reprimanded, supervisors don't take any action against bad employees

Viewing 4 - 6 of 851 Reviews

Glassdoor has 970 Caltrans reviews submitted anonymously by Caltrans employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Caltrans is right for you.