Pros
They definitely will pay you well to put up with the toxic culture. The benefits are really good, of course you have to put up with the varying levels and attitudes of management across the company. If you get LUCKY you might have a good experience under your project manager but you really have to get lucky. Good amount of PTO but you will struggle to use it.
Cons
They will make you feel like the expectation of working 50+ hours a week is “normal” because you just get to hang out with your buddies all day long. In your interview, they will say “occasional overtime” but it is definitely EXPECTED. But oh hey, here’s some free food for celebrating a random holiday! The second you try to set boundaries for a work life balance **without** having kids, you are not fitting the “Pape Dawson culture”. It seems that their culture preys on young engineers without families so they can push out their impossible deadlines and create a loyal employee. Once you have a family, you are allowed to work 40 hours a week or leave the office whenever you want, even mid-day. Since being out of the mental torture that was working for Pape Dawson I have flourished as a person and advanced in my career exponentially. PD likes to gatekeep different areas of knowledge until you “earn” the right when you get promoted to Engineer II, Engineer III, etc. I have learned everything at my new company that I wasn’t allowed to learn at PD and I feel so much more confident and capable than PD ever made me feel. Just hearing stories from other former PD employees about which Vice President or Project Manager told them they weren’t good enough or any other snide remark concerning work ethic makes me wonder how I stayed there so long. PD definitely picks their favorites and if you’re not a favorite, you’re irrelevant. I wish someone had warned me about this place before applying, so I hope that this review will make someone think twice before accepting the tempting job offer. In today’s age, you deserve to be excited about going to work not dreading it every single day waiting to see how you will be treated.
