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Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

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Great benefits terrible work environment - Production Assembler Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Employee Review

3.0
May 6, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits, access to heath centers if they have openings, they also have a gym, it's not much, but it has the bare minimum basic machines.

Cons

Work life balance, pay isn't as good as it should be. HR has one good employee, the department as a whole has cut corners on paperwork, they are now about only helping the company and supervisors, the average worker gets very little support. People who have family who are higher up the chain can get away with atrocious behavior upto and including bullying and threats. Employees will bully others to get ahead or to distract from their own short comings. The environment is very much so like junior high or high school. The supervisors who actually stick up for their employees and do what the can to help them are often mistreated and threatened with losing their positions while the ineffective or ones sleeping with higher-ups get away with poor behavior up to and including trying to fire people under false pretenses or trying to fire people because they are slow. Some supervisors will use their opinions of what should be happening on the manufacturing floor as a means to force people to do a job without a title, and threaten them with poor reviews and not depersonalizing as a means to try and strong arm people into continuing to work without the title or pay of the promotion.

Explore other reviews about Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

5.0
Jul 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Plenty of friendly faces to work with.

Cons

Reluctant to hire certain places sometimes.

4.0
Apr 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Right job for some people. If you buy into the koolaid and are passionate about the power industry this can be an incredible job for you. The benefits are pretty great. I really enjoyed my coworkers, all of them feel human and are earnest. You can live quite cheaply in Pullman. There is an incredible amount of job security. SEL boasts they've never done a layoff. Additionally their ESOP distribution is generous - though it takes 6 years to fully vest. There is a lot of things I really admire about the company and the culture.

Cons

Comp is lower side. A lot of people are hired out of college and have only ever worked at SEL so sometimes I feel like there is a bit of an echo chamber. Small town. I really struggled with the initial allocation of 12 days PTO. 17 after 2 years is much easier. As a SWE, the company feels very catered to their power engineers. Company is very traditional in its values, people wear suits to work. Seems like the timeline for promotion is quite slow for SWE compared to other companies. I see a lot of friction when lower level engineers trying to advocate for changes; though I do think that the conversations with leadership happen in good faith.

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