Kimley-Horn Reviews

Pros

Kimley-Horn is my first full-time position post-college. The onboarding process is really well streamlined; you get a reasonable grace period during your transition and different learning curves, and people are really understanding towards new-hires. Everyone was always telling me, "I know it's a lot, but you'll get in the flow soon!" but it's really not that bad, because you're guided through everything. They also have a buddy system, so you're assigned to someone who'll show you around, take you to lunch, etc. I had like 3 people give me tours on my first day before my buddy even arrived--the people here are great. Which brings me to the culture. No one is going to give you the side eye for heading to the kitchen to get your 5th cup of coffee before noon. There's no such thing as micromanagement here; you're trusted to get the job done and do it on time and correctly. Likewise, I've never been afraid to ask questions or sit in on a call, or do something I've never done before. KH gives all new-hires an unlimited number of lunch coupons, which you put to use getting to know the more senior-level management (or anyone around the office really, I've made a friend or two doing this). I feel very taken care of mentally, which is not something every company can brag about. When KH landed on Fortune's 100 Top Companies to Work For list, they blast emailed everyone company-wide and gave EACH employee over $200 to spend at the KH store. I got the backpack. They have these awesome Workrite Ergonomics stand-up sit-down desks (the standard for great companies), and all the pens and highlighters you could ever need. Tons of notebooks and materials and resources to get your work done and stay organized. This is a company that will go the extra mile to ensure their employees are happy, healthy, and feel valued.

Cons

Hmmmm well I guess it would be nice to have a perfume bar in the bathroom or 2-ply toilet paper but that's not really a deal-breaker.

Pros

I love working for Kimley-Horn. They expect a lot but it doesn't come without reward. I work from 7:30am to 5:30pm Monday-Thursday and 7:30am to 11:30am on Friday. It's basically a three day weekend every week. It balances out the long hours during the week that, honestly, do not feel that long because you're always busy doing something. Leadership truly cares about the well-being of Kimley-Horn people and we are generously rewarded for our work with high salaries, multiple bonuses a year, and surprise money that Kimley-Horn gives when we're doing good work as a firm. I love it here!! I also love that Kimley-Horn supports women with special programs, resources, and benefits for women and mothers. Thank you, Kimley-Horn!!

Cons

None that I can think of!

Pros

-The benefits (401k, Health Insurance, HSA) are excellent. Better than their competitors. -Top of their field. You get to work on high-profile projects with big name clients. -Young employees are trained well and pushed to become very good in their fields. -You are given as many opportunities as you want to grow your career.

Cons

-Long hours and lack of work life balance. -Company rarely says no to work, causing overloads that burn employees out. -You must work 6+ years at the firm to get the full retirement benefits. -Base compensation+bonus is not much better than competitors who require less work hours. -Environment can be overly competitive. -Kimley-Horn focuses too much on hours worked to the point where there is constant stress to consistently get enough hours in, even during slow times.

Pros

I don’t even know where to begin. They were very prepared and planned for my first day and everything was so well organized and thorough. They have training videos for a lot of different softwares that were made specifically for Kimley Horn, as well as just training videos about the company overall and how things operate. There is so much less bureaucracy at KH compared to other large firms and the interaction among people in the office is unlike any other office I’ve seen. Everyone is talkative, social, easy to approach, and friendly. It’s very easy to make friends at KH because of their culture. The work itself is a lot, but they pay generously and have really great benefits like an amazing 401K match, decent health insurance, a good amount of PTO, and annual bonuses/profit sharing. KH has been the best place I’ve worked so far.

Cons

Using PTO counts against your utilization which is very important for your annual bonus. There’s also so much work and it seems like we can’t hire people fast enough to keep up with the amount of work there is to do.

Pros

Every office and team is unique. One thing that I found to be consistent between offices is that young staff are given opportunities early in their careers to design projects and interact with clients. The 401k contribution is unrivaled as well.

Cons

Work-life balance is mentioned in most reviews for a reason. The more you “contribute to the firm”, the more you will be rewarded. Employees are expected to work a total effort of 110-120% each year, and your effort directly impacts your bonus at the end of the year. Bonuses are sizable which tend to balance out the lower-than-average salaries. The culture of shifting works great during short-term needs, but an increased reliance on shift help means staff are trained for short-term tasks often in offices/states they’ll never work again rather than hiring new staff and investing in growing their careers for the long-term benefit (of course, I can only speak to my experience).

Pros

Decent place but covid protocols are for optics only Money, money, ummmm and money. We’re talking like 15-20% higher than average for fresh out of college with your bonus.Jokes aside you also can learn a lot but it depends on your supervisor. I think it’s a good first job for the first few years of an engineering career but it really depends on if you have good people guiding you. If you wanna stay here long term you’ll have an unrivaled 401(k) match fully vested after 6 yrs and make big money when you with bonus as a p4-p5 if you meet all your goals and the higher ups like you. But your base salary will be lower than other companies. It’s essentially a lower floor higher ceiling scenario. If you can put up with the politics it’s an ok place to start, one could argue that getting paid overtime as an analyst at different firm would yield the same amount of money with our “bonus”.

Cons

A lot to unpack here but this is the truth for people looking for a honest review. Everything discussed here is team to team and it makes a big difference. Mine was very toxic and had a huge turnover rate (a lot of the teams in the Warrenville office do, from engineers that come from other firms.) UT is your billable rate. As a young professional your billable rate will be 96%. This means you gotta hit that or it’ll effect your bonus. In theory as a extra effort firm your extra effort of 6 hours a week which is “optional” would be charged towards a project bringing your UT up so when you take vacation your goal isn’t messed up. Consulting is a more than 40 hour a week job, people should know that if they do their due diligence. But many times depending on your team or supervisors you’ll be told if you can charge a project or not after working on it. It’s donating time as a YP.... I think this is unethical when UT is being tracked. It effects your money when you are not charging your hours means taking you anytime off will doc your UT and your lower UT will be used as merit to reduce your bonus. Donating time happens just to meet a certain multiplier to make groups look better and create a bigger bonus pool. On the surface Kimley Horn says this should never happen, trust me it does. This last comment is my biggest issue. The irresponsible handling of Covid 19. When the covid protocols started they seemed to be pretty good. But after many months of being in the office I have seen many times where protocols are not followed. YP’s have the pressure of speaking out to someone in a senior position but don’t want to, because it’s very easy to figure out who is going behind their seniors back. This is an unfair position to be in. I have personally seen people test positive that sit next to others and HR not send everyone home on a team after “investigating” and lying about contacting everyone involved. I have watched them not sanitize desks after people have tested positive. I have watched quarantine guidelines after travel not be followed because people feel pressured to “show up to work”. Pretty tragic stuff for a company that has the potential to offer so much more and advertises itself as such. STOP PUTTING IT ON YP’s TO TAKE AN UNCOMFORTABLE STAND TO PM’s and SUPERVISORS THAT ARE VERY CLEARLY ANTI WFH IN A PANDEMIC!!!! KH should be taking initiative when people test positive and not worry about maintaining the culture. I mean it literally gets ridiculous when you hear someone is being told it’s safe to stay in the office from the HR person working from home that’s reading of a script. Get your stuff together and enforce wfh diligently where it is required or you guys are going to get sued. As a YP here for a few years. I’ve concluded being senior engineer here is not worth it. The money is ok but what good is it if you sit behind a desk all day and never get to use it. Advice to college grads. Make your early money and save it , learn as much as possible and take control of your life after that! There are some supervisors here who see us only as tool to raise their own pockets and nothing more. There are others that genuinely care about you. It’s really luck of the draw, I have seen both. Discussing the bonus being taboo is bs. This is fed to employees to cover up favoritism and it runs deep. When people move on, don’t shame them or bad mouth them for choosing a different path for their life. This is just a job at the end day, it’s not a person’s whole identity: if it is you are not a normal person. Most people these days are not naive enough to work their life away like some in the previous generation. I may be coming of as harsh but these are some realities than need to be known by others.

Pros

My accounting team was great and everyone got along very well. The accounting managers are extremely helpful and want to see you succeed. They give out bonuses depending on your ladder and extra effort. The benefits are okay and work-life balance is manageable.

Cons

There aren't many growth opportunities in the accounting department, if you are an AA and don't have a degree there is no way for you to transition into being a PA without getting your degree. I think it would make sense for them to allow their AA's who already have the knowledge of the accounting systems to transition. Pay is mediocre for support staff and the lack of diversity is EXTREMELY concerning and uncomfortable.