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CallisonRTKL

Part of Arcadis

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Great people, but bureacratic nightmare - Senior Project Assistant CallisonRTKL Employee Review

3.0
Jun 10, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing and thoughtful designers come and go from the firm, so you will meet many great people and develop life-long connections. You will meet people who care about quality design, best practices and professional mentoring, despite the corporate culture. PTO is generous and the view of the lake is amazing. No dress code. Big company, so attention from building material reps is often good and responsive. Once you figure out how to navigate the system, it's a breeze to sit back and be comfortable.

Cons

Arcadis owns RTKL and with the latest merger with Callison, they've brought in a heavier hand on operations. Slowly but surely, CallisonRTKL is losing their autonomy as a design firm and will be fully consumed into the mega-corporation of Arcadis. Arcadis only cares about profit and ignores the triple bottom line. Leadership is often uninspiring and middle management is light and burned out from lack of support. Most clients are not really interested in quality buildings, mainly just cheap and fast which has lead to many problems in construction and beyond. Production work is currently being forced overseas by Arcadis to save money, but it causes new communication stresses on the current workforce and if successful, threatens the traditional legacy of learning technical architecture through drafting and face-to-face mentoring experience and construction administration. If you are a designer who thinks they can change the world here, you might have some small victories, but 'safe' design is the typical mode. Innovation is not really possible in the current bureaucratic work environment where adversity to overhead starves growth and freedom for employees.

Explore other reviews about CallisonRTKL

5.0
Nov 6, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

international background and diverse projects experience

Cons

not local residents but need work visa

5.0
Nov 7, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Opportunities to work on international projects and for new employees to freely share their ideas. * Leadership that not only guides design but also supports employees in becoming better professionals and people. * A great LA office environment with a fitting salary. * An office team with excellent skills and knowledge, and great teams that are easy to work with.

Cons

It seems that incorporating more trend-forward designs could lead to even better results, but as a newcomer, I found it challenging to overcome the established methods and the specific direction and style clients wanted. Nonetheless, they consistently delivered solid outcomes.

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