Pros
Keystone Engineering has a friendly culture that focuses on excellence in design. We create revenue by providing engineering calculations, designs, and recommendations to Oil and Gas majors (mainly Shell and Valero). Since our top client, Shell, has stringent quality standards, we have increased our level of quality to match. Most of the projects we earn are within the $1MM to $250MM budget space. We currently have great contracts with our clients, but they are all short term projections for the most part (design phases are <1yr). I see within the next decade that Keystone will be granted a contract to design an offshore platform, like Olympus, through our partnership with Shell. You will have similar opportunities throughout New Orleans and Houston, and upper management is aware of that. The main reasons to work for Keystone are that it is a locally-owned company which has a friendly but aggressive approach to work. You cannot possibly have a better work schedule than what Keystone offers. Period. I work 9 hours Monday through Thursday with 1/2 day on Fridays. Excellent paid time off, +50% 401k match, Professional Organization fees are paid, and competitive salaries across the board.
Cons
Inter-office and inter-departmental communication are areas which the company is a little weak on. Some departments in the Metairie office are strong, but their counterparts lack the technical prowess or drive for excellence. This means communication between the civil/structural, mechanical, electrical, process, and instrumentation engineers may be tense when working on large, interdisciplinary projects. Communications with other offices (Baton Rouge, Houston, Lafayette) have similar social dynamics: one group will possess more prowess but lack the time/experience to complete certain tasks in office. These strains create a negative effect on project budgets and completion, which may result in an unhappy client or Keystone paying the difference.
