Michael Baker International Reviews

Cons

Some of the clients can be challenging

Cons

The operation if growing very fast

Cons

The intentions of the executives at the C-level are to create a culture of excellence. However, the fruits of that labor will likely not make it down to the worker bees. Uncertain how long the company will remain privately held.

Cons

Investor owned, you are just a serial number to the company.

Little to no training unless you are a minority or woman. I was actually told "go find a youtube video or something" by my manager when I informed him that I had never used inroads before when I was assigned to design a roadway corridor.

Also expect over 100% utilization, especially if assigned to a design build. My normal working hours were closer to 45 than 40 most weeks and after I was assigned to a design build project my hours were between 55-60 most weeks. If you complain about working so much or being overloaded managements typical response was "don't you like money?" and then they would brush you off. Also expect to essentially have to ask permission to only work a 40 hour week and good luck taking vacation time off unless its thanksgiving weekend or between christmas and newyears.

Rampant tribalism between the traditional project design teams and the design build design teams, project managers would not share workers with other teams. Consequently some people were barely pulling 40 hour weeks while others were working 60s.

Bonuses were extremely rare unless you were a manager who was high ranking enough that you weren't really doing production work. So when managers would decide to advance the schedule of a project to receive an early completion bonus, the staff doing the bulk of the work would see none of the bonus.

Don't expect to grow or be allowed to shift sideways in the company, they hired you for one task and if you express an interest in cross training in another discipline they assume you don't like your job and you get informally blacklisted and sidelined. With few exceptions, most people were hired from outside, not promoted from within.

While I was there we had 2 CEOs and i lost track of how many different COOs we had, seemed like every 3-6 months somebody with the "Chief XYZ Officer" title would leave the company and be replaced by someone from outside. Not really sure what anyone above office manager actually did for the company, each office was functionally treated as a separate company for all intents and purposes, executive leadership was only ever acknowledged when they would make some company policy change (usually for the benefit of corporate investors) or when they would do the quarterly newsletters.

Cons

There's little to no company culture. Baker has acquired several smaller firms over the years and there is no meaningful connection across the company. Pay and benefits are average for the industry, nothing special to entice people into sticking around long-term. Small annual raises (2-3% average per employee). No annual bonuses. Severely reduced the employee referral bonus and professional certification bonus. Took away company-issued cell phones. Weak tuition reimbursement. Eliminated unlimited sick days and then pooled sick and vacation days into a single PTO pot, meaning everyone comes to work sick now because they don't want to use PTO. Baker has been slowly stripping away the benefits that made RBF a good company to work for and has turned it into just another consulting company.

Cons

Focused on engineering and east coast culture, not very receptive or responsive to west coast planners. Very bureaucratic and poor communication from upper management.

Cons

no advancement opportunities, high turnover

Cons

Ownership and senior management have driven experience away. Bottom line is all that matters. Employee morale is not good. Employees always waiting for next downsizing.. Sad to continue to hear that bright young talent continues to leave company. Company is said to be making money but ownership is not satisfied and employees are not rewarded for efforts.

Cons

New employees sometimes kept outside of the loop and get random tasks assigned without being properly introduced to a project.

Cons

Poor management, No room for growth.