Bad morale, bait & switch with the hours - Project Engineer Stantec Employee Review

1.0
Dec 14, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Develop camaraderie with other employees from how crappy the place is.

Cons

At the interview, HR promised 40 hour weeks but only after signing the offer did the actual manager say we were only doing <37 hour weeks. I understand times are tough, but it would have been nice for them to have been upfront about this. Morale was very bad amongst employees, and it was clear you had to find your cliche otherwise no one would look out for you. Because times were tough, it felt like everyone was just trying to hog work for themselves in order to get billable hours. As a result, there was almost no training, very poor onboarding, and no clear direction on where we were going. The only people that were protected were the core group who were all buddy buddy and been with the company for many years. From chatting with colleagues, it was suspected that often times management likes to bring on new blood for the sake of saying they had engineering capacity to take on new work as this would look good for their bids to clients. When they fail to be awarded this work, they could always let go of employees. It was really hard making it through the orientation training content on values and blah blah because it's clear no one actually follows it.

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5.0
Jul 13, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great work environment and team

Cons

Work load can fluctuate and you may feel like you're drowning in work sometimes

1.0
Jul 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some of the projects were very interesting. Compensation and benefits were competitive.

Cons

I worked at the downtown Houston Page office (later acquired by Stantec) for one full year. During my time there, I personally witnessed significant turnover, including approximately 11 engineers and 4 Architects/Interior Designers leaving the company. I ultimately decided to resign because of what I experienced as a bullying management style. Although the former Engineering Director had been moved out of that role, he remained responsible for project deadlines. On one project, a delivery date was committed to the client without consulting me or confirming the amount of work required. I was told there would be consequences if the project was not submitted on time and that I would be responsible for damaging the client relationship, even though I had not been involved in setting the deadline. I was pressured to work six consecutive 12-hour days to meet that deadline, but based on the amount of work required, I did not believe it was realistically achievable. I ultimately submitted my two-week notice. What was especially frustrating was that I had previously sent eight Microsoft Teams messages to the new Engineering Director expressing concerns about how the project was being managed. None of those messages received a response. This was not an isolated experience. I observed similarly aggressive scheduling practices on another project, where unrealistic deadlines resulted in excessive overtime for other engineers. Based on my experience, I cannot recommend this company to professionals seeking a healthy work-life balance. While overtime was paid, the repeated expectation of long hours came at the expense of employee well-being. Ultimately, that was the primary reason I chose to leave.

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