Pros
This company has grown over 30+ years to be a dominant supplier of nuclear contracting -- it has solid core cultural values of client service, quality, and professionalism that have served it well. No company is perfect, but there is a good culture of quality and professionalism with clients here. Management is very approachable, even up to the CEO level. All employees are encouraged to ask the CEO to lunch or talk to upper managers. As a contract engineering firm, the pay is above average. You're typically paid for overtime, since overtime is billed to clients and makes them more money. As an employee-owned company, they pay company performance bonuses and distribute profits back to employees. If you produce high quality work, complete tasks on schedule, and remain applied to billable projects, then life is good and management will be flexible with you. You can get good familiarity with power plant components and systems level design here. The work is ideally suited for people who communicate well and are able to learn independently.
Cons
With recent contraction of the nuclear industry, the company laid off ~10% of its workforce in 2016. Outlooks for growth are dim, but hopefully this changes one day and more nuclear power plants are built. As a contract engineering firm, the good pay is offset by a weak benefits package (less vacation, etc.). The employee owned company pays out massively to its ESOP program, but their vesting schedule is the minimum allowed by law -- you enter the program after 1 year and vest 20% per year after that. This program will not reward you well if you work here <6 years. HR frequently spam emails cat memes and other articles online to engineers. Regular safety meetings and monthly meetings on company financial status are held over lunch and expected to be attended without pay. Overhead is to be absorbed by projects, but projects are not bid to absorb non-project meetings and other overhead. The timesheet software that all engineers use is dictated by the accounting department without much concern for or input from those using the software. Training and personnel development is very weak. The head of training does not have a technical background. The need to keep costs low as a contract firm prevents them from investing heavily into their staff without direct benefits to the company. The nature of most of their work is not highly technical or innovative, but this is the nature of current modifications/changes at nuclear power plants. There is a lot of boring, tedious paperwork involved. The industry is trying to change this, but it is heavily regulated. The majority of management-level hires are made externally from their clients. This supports their business because of the experience/connections those individuals have, but advancement to this level is not promising without that background.
