Opportunity for advancement is there, only at the expense of a poor work/life balance.
Pros
- Opportunity: There was always room for me to advance within the company and my division. Maser has very clear and well defined career paths that provide clear expectations of what you need to do in your job to advance to the next level. - Safety: Maser talks a big game about safety, and I do feel like they talk the talk AND walk the walk. They provide sufficient safety training and provide some very good tools to make sure employees are safe - especially out in the field. - Base Compensation: Maser was decently competitive in terms of base compensation. I write “decently” because it would have a great salary, if I didn’t have 6+ month periods of 50+ hour work weeks (note: it was expected that everyone work a 43 hour work week standard - more on this later).
Cons
- Poor work/life balance: As stated above, there were long periods of weeks packed with extreme overtime. It was very common to work 50 to 55 hour work weeks for long periods of time. It definitely contributed to burnout within the team. - Micromanagement: My direct manager and my manager’s manager were both extremely pro-micromanagement, in both their managing style and the way they encouraged us to manage. My role involved me managing a few direct reports, and I felt like we essentially had to treat our engineers and drafters as if we couldn’t trust them to do anything on their own. Same went for those that managed me - if we would have spent the time we spent micromanaging on process improvements and developing the technical team, things could have been a lot different. - Advancement comes with a price: While there are definitely many opportunities for advancement within Maser, you definitely have to put in the work. Which means managing your share of the workload, on top of doing your expected business development, managing your direct reports, QA/QC, and the usual administrative work (which is heavily emphasized as important from Maser’s corporate management) ON TOP OF “going above and beyond”. Going above and beyond means things like taking on writing procedures and developing process improvements for the good of the group, participating in corporate committees, and dabbling in some “good old boys club” type of office politics. What I’m trying to say, is that it will require a lot of work outside of the hours you put in just trying to do your expected job duties. - Total compensation: Maser doesn’t cover a whole lot of insurance costs, so that eats a bit into your base comp. Also as noted above, they expected that a standard work week for employee in my department to be 43 hours, which was “to make up for the amount of PTO and holidays you’re given”. Engineering and project management roles are typically salaried, so this also digs a bit into your base compensation. Bonus’s were talked up during my hiring process as being very lucrative, and were certainly not anywhere close to the percentages promised (even with a record year for profit & revenue) Finally, because of those 55 hour work weeks and being salaried, and combining all of those other costs, I ended up making less than I would have at my pervious project management job... and I would have been a lot less stressed. The job could have been a lot better, but I feel that they expect quite a lot of effort to be put in just to maintain your normal workload - let alone any other “extra curricular” activities (like process improvements or things to help the overall group). You have to really enjoy the type of work you’re doing, and be prepared to have some extended periods of high hour work weeks.
