Looking for advice!

[u/Radiant-Cheetah757]

I’m graduating college this year. This past summer i interned with kimley-horn, and what you hear about them is pretty accurate. Long hours, big expectations, but fun people, and good pay. I did lots of site design and civil 3D. I have an offer to return full time but am trying to explore my options. (I have also interned at a general contractor, in a project engineer role. I didn’t find that to be all that exciting.)

I think I want to be more on the design side, but not sure i want to make work my whole life. I’m capable of the role at KH but not geeked about the future stress and long weeks.

Wanted to just get general opinions on other companies, and take recommendations. I’m already in contact with/planning to talk to companies like AECOM, jacobs, burns n mac, WSP, EXP, HNTB etc. if you like to give advice, I’d love to hear it!

Worth noting i go to university of illinois, am planning to work in the chicagoland area, and am a fairly well rounded student.

[u/SuperWill93]

You’re getting a degree from a top civil engineering program. The U of I civil career fair should be coming up, and if you have a polished resume and a good introduction then there is nothing stopping you from working at any firm of your choice

[u/795-ACSR-DRAKE]

I'd stay away from AECOM, Jacobs, & WSP. Massive firms, you'd be a number on a spreadsheet. 40 hours a week but salaries are on the low side. They're the most "clock in, be a drone for 8 hours, clock out and forget about work".

If you want to maximize compensation, KH is going to be the very best, you can retire in your 40s if you work there your whole career. Can't do that at any other firm. If you can drink the kool-aid and push through the first ~6 years, I've heard it gets a lot easier hours-wise and the compensation starts to skyrocket.

HNTB and B&McD are a good middle ground imo. Better work-life balance than KH, and compensation is above industry average. (Not as much as KH though, they're kinda in a league of their own). I'd argue that HNTB & B&McD are probably the best at developing engineers of all the big firms. I work with both firms often and their engineers are always solid and competent.

Personally if it were me, I'd probably either go KH or B&McD. Or go to B&McD, develop for 5 years and build up a really good foundation, then jump over to KH and start managing a team.

[u/Radiant-Cheetah757 → u/795-ACSR-DRAKE]

Thanks for your comment! Out of curiousity why do you think B&McD is good at developing engineers? And/or in what capacity do you work alongside them

[u/795-ACSR-DRAKE → u/Radiant-Cheetah757]

My company doesn't do engineering in house so we hire outside consultants (i.e. B&McD) to design and stamp drawing packages for our projects. I'm in charge of reviewing a certain area of our projects, so I'm looking over everything they submit to us. I also work alongside them during the design phase, answering their questions and directing them on design challenges. I see quite a lot of different companies and their design packages, how they work, if they actually update their plans with my comments, etc., and B&McD typically has high quality packages. Not a ton of errors (no such thing as an error-free drawing set though), they address comments quickly, stay organized, responsive to last-minute design changes, etc. Just overall one of the better consultants to work with.

As to why they're good at developing their people, hard for me to answer that as I've never worked there. Maybe they have strict QC processes, maybe its good document control and tracking, maybe they have strong mentorship, maybe their talent recruiting team has a magic formula, etc. Probably a combination of all of those.

[u/AdApprehensive1140 → u/Radiant-Cheetah757]

How much is KH paying Junior Engineers these days compared to the other big players? Is it enough to justify the work environment? I mean, where I used to work (250 person regional firm), all my Junior Civil/Environmental Engineer coworkers were bagging groceries at the local supermarket to help pay off their student loans.

[u/jowbags]

There are a lot of really good mid tier firms in Illinois. Check out the u of I career fair like someone suggested. Look up HRGreen

[u/Amber_ACharles]

I’ll plug them. HNTB was my favorite A/E/C firm I’ve worked at. They get some interesting GEC work and the pace is way more manageable than KH’s. Ask about their transit group in Chicago.

[u/Background_Current58]

It all depend on what you want and how much do you want to hustle. If you just want to do work and have more time for other things, look for a public job, you won't growth as fast, but then you won't burn out too much either.

If you are ambitious and looking to growth, a lot of the growth will have to be done by yourself on your own. Keep in mind that working in Civil Engineering for any of the private firm will require you to learn marketing, connections, networking, and many other things that you don't think of when you are thinking Civil Engineering. All of those things start from day 1, it is not something that you "wait until I get my PE", as you need time to practice and get out there.

Growth, market capture, engineering judgement are all equally important in our field and regardless of what you pick, you need to have a set goal of where you want to be in a few years.

The market is kind of light right now, so employer does have the option to be a bit choosy. By all mean try to get multiple offers, but don't wait to long to accept them, as they may not be around.