employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

Second Order Effects

Engaged Employer

Second Order Effects reviews

4.5

89% would recommend to a friend

(25 total reviews)

Dennis Fong

89% approve of CEO

81% positive business outlook

Second Order Effects has an employee rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, based on 25 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Second Order Effects employee rating is 22% above average for employers within the Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

25 reviews
5.0
Sep 16, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- no BS: the company is very transparent about its operations. Conversations about compensation, benefits, revenue and expenses are drama-free and quantitative. - Breadth of work: I've had the opportunity to explore working in serveral industries and have learned a ton about how all of these work. It's been super interesting, and has helped me remain invested in growing. - good culture: the technical teams here are a good mix of engineers, managers, and technicians with lots of different backgrounds, who recognize the benefits of working hard with breaks here and there. plenty of opportunities to hang out and make friedships, but no pressure to do so. - reputation: we are recognized by a lot of aerospace/new space companies, and our street cred is growing in other industries too. -self-reflective: we are constantly working to improve how we work, whether that's revising policies, trialing/investing in new tools, or working with outside groups to learn about something we struggle to do well.

Cons

- variability: some projects are much more challenging than others. I enjoy it but understand that not everyone is a fan of that inconsistency. - growing pains: we are a young company and only recently became "mid-size", so there are operational growing pains. a lot of the technical teams are young and still learning the best ways to operate. - contracting can have downsides, clients may be hard to work with sometimes or money issues may get in the way of a project's completion. This is not unique to SOE of course. - could be more diverse - not just ethnically/gender, we have a lot of aerospace engineers due to our background/origins and partly due to the location. We could benefit from having a broader range of interests.

1.0
Mar 11, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Casual dress code Interesting projects

Cons

Lack of infrastructure, little mentorship (Many departments lack a dedicated, experienced manager. Management often lacks consistent directives.), almost no onboarding. Lack of diversity in people and values. Many employees who leave are dissatisfied women, people of color, or both. Only a handful of woman engineers. Mediocre pay. Employee suggestions not valued. Lack of psychological safety. Lack of appreciation. Much higher expectations than average. You will do many things beyond your job description and pay grade.

3.0
Jan 31, 2023

College Engineering Club, but you're getting paid

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cool projects, you get the opportunity to make engineering decisions and have ownership early on. You'll learn a lot. Opportunities to work in many fields (although the majority of projects are aerospace-related, since the founders are from SpaceX). Growing presence in non-space industries. People are open, willing to chat & help but also very busy. Engineering club vibes - a little shoestringy, but everyone's really going for it.

Cons

If you loved your engineering club, this is the place for you. If you didn't enjoy that, this is probably not for you. There's very little structure. The least aggressive people get stuck with all of the paperwork/organizational tasks. Projects vary a lot, some are great, some are stressful, and/or not that fun. Pay is on the low side. Company (including leadership) is made up of mostly young guys without families. Managers are inexperienced, more skilled as tech leads than people managers.

Viewing 10 - 12 of 25 Reviews

Glassdoor has 42 Second Order Effects reviews submitted anonymously by Second Order Effects employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Second Order Effects is right for you.