civil engineer

project manager

cad technician

construction project manager

engineer

AECOM

I worked at AECOM for two years as a field geologist. This job is great for an entry level geologist, you will get a ton of experiences working in the field sampling water, air, soil, etc. depending on the contamination and sometimes you do get a great opportunity to see projects that might not be available at other companies. When I first started at the company there was a correct number of team members but with time various field geologists including me were frustrated with the pay and seeing no progression in job titles. To the point that people that just got out of college where making more money starting off than geologists that have been at the company for years. Basically if you didn't fight in your interview for a certain pay they will low ball you and then the yearly raises were only offered in precents with 5 being the highest. It barely changes your pay and honestly is discouraging because people that are just starting off are already making more than you with less experience / time at the company. Another major issue was work-life balance, this job required travel that was mostly out of state which can be challenging. You have to constantly pick up rental cars, load the rental cars, drive hours to the hotel, work the project, drop the rental car off, drop the equipment off, etc. It was alot of work and at the end of the day it felt like i was barely living in the apartment i was paying for. With constant travel during the week it feels like you have no weekend because you have to play catch up on the two days that you have for the weekend. Just trying to emphasize that this is not regional or local travel expect to be driving 2-7 hours to project sites. And lastly the issue when there is no project on your schedule for the week and you have the possibility to work from home sounds great right? no this was honestly one of thee most stressful parts of this job. When you are not in the field you are expected to find 40 hours of work for yourself. I have never heard of this at a company and honestly was completely ridiculous. You would have to BEG project managers to send you something to work on to fill up your 40 hour work week and usually they are hoarding work for themselves to create their 40 hour work week and on top of that if there was a down time with various geologists looking for work we had to fight like cats and dogs to find something to work on. and if you couldn't and brought it up to your manager they would say to reach out to managers at different offices that you have never once talked to.......... It was ridiculous. If you are working for a company they should provide the work not you having to find it or be penalized if nobody wants to give you something to work on. Honestly that was more stressful than field work and that is a huge major red flag when looking for a company to work at. They need to change their policies and how they handle raises, promotions, work practices, etc. Its hard because some parts of this job were great and made you feel like you were making a positive environmental impact but than others really tore you down. 

If you planning to work for AECOM in Collegeville  PA campus be ready to lose your job at any moment.
This is a facts: for less than 2 years all 4 stationary engineers lost theirs job. One of them was badly injured at work. All of them was loyal to the company,when it was necessary for a weeks they didn’t left boiler room to help  company come through the tough time.All 4 of them had perfect evaluation and thanks from the management.But it was meant anything all 4 of them lost theirs job as soon director desided to  replace them.Another fact for less than 2 years 3 workres of 15 was  injured at work. One  very knolegeble manager was fired another one had operation on his heart and a few months of his returning to work his position was eliminated.Your responsibilities will be to operate 2 plants one with 3 boilers and 7 chillers and another one with 2 boilers and 5 chillers.You have to monitor 16 buildings for heating ,cooling ,fire and any other issue and fix the problem during no maintenance on the campus Also you have to do rounds through most of the buildings.You have to do chemical tests and add them as needed.You have to do a lot of pm’s .And if some of your coworker didn’t finished it on time –you got to finish it.You have to operate 5 computers in which you will have a thousands alarms per shift ,take a guess how many alarms you will  miss because you doing your other duties.But any of your missed alarm can be investigated and disciplinary action may take place.3rd one is termination.For most of your mistakes you have to write an explanation and you will never know whrere it will go.Usually each investigation taking around 3-4 weeks,You are totally forgot about it  and think it is already over ,but in one  day director bring you in conference room and tell you what the panishement for you.During all of this activities you will be watched very closely under huge microscophe through the cameras which installed everywhere except bathrooms also all your activities will be saved in computer memories for years.Rules and requirements changed often,but you may know about them only when you broke them,because managers simply forgot to inform you about changes.And you will take full responsibility for it ,because  no one will accept your arguments  and managers want to save theirs job and put all blame on you.Top managers and human resources will be on the side of the managers ,not yours.It is a proven fact.3 stationary engineers raised issues of bad management ,it was commisiion from AECOM investigated this issue and as result all the managers still working ,but 3 stationary engineers was fired .Small  mistakes was presented  as neglitience at work ,management fault such as broken equipment was presented as stationary engineer neglicience and they was fired in 2 weeks period.

Five years as an assistant project manager for URS left a sour taste in my mouth. Co-workers are terrible at delegation and communication skills, especially for a leading engineering firm. Act like their jobs are at risk, and highly secretive and territorial about projects even if we are on the same team. Sensitivity training is badly needed in my engineering department given insensitive comments based on ageism, gender, political affiliation, and race. HR did not respond to repeated requests by multiple employees, and HR is off-site.

Office place is nice, low-wall cubicles surrounding outward facing offices. Most everyone has window view and the surroundings were recently updated. Fortunate to have ample parking and room in the floors in our building.

My average day cannot be easily quantified. Last minute work is commonplace due to the poor communication and hoarding of information of my teammates, management, and affiliated departments. Frequently running from a client meeting to budgeting to contract review to preparation, and often forced to perform tasks outside my scope because I fight so many fires concurrently. This is a highly stressful and disorganized environment that will shock anyone used to more practiced or process-oriented offices. URS is choked by its regulations, corporate-wide policies, and procedures that attempt a one-size-fits-all variety. We reinvent the wheel very often, a lot of wasted time/energy.

Management is focused on bottom line and profit over everything except safety compliance. They squeeze water from stones out of employees, especially the lowest on the pay scale. Routinely require administrative staff to perform professional and specialist services in order to stay under budget. Intense pressure to pass the buck down, and I perform tasks and responsibilities far outside my job description or pay scale.

Compensation is terrible, at least 20-30% lower than major competitors in the same market. Bonuses reserved for senior executives in our region, and was told 1% bonus was maximum anyone in the department could expect to receive despite meeting our targets by 3Q. Benefits package doesn't measure up to other companies, extremely expensive health care plans that have favoured health care accounts over actual coverage. Already we're below par and we're told we can expect not to receive a raise over years. No incentive to work better, harder,

AECOM is a very large public company traded on the NYSE that places too much emphasis on profit margins for all projects no matter the size of the project.  A minimum 15% margin is required when the project is setup in the internal accounting system in order for the project to be approved for execution..  Most of my clients are counties, municipalities and state agencies with small budgets that rely on cooperative funding from other agencies to fund projects.  Therefore, negotiating a project with a 15% margin can only be achieved if you limit the number of hours for staff working on the project. Working overtime at home after 5:00 pm and over the weekends for free is the only way to achieve a 15% profit margin.  Performance for project managers is measured on meeting this profit margin.  Therefore, raises for project managers are very small.  Little to no emphasis on technical training.  I recommend you budget personnel time and personal funds for technical training on software programs you need to perform your work because AECOM as a rule does not approve this training.  However, AECOM does pay for continuing education through Red Vector, this is a plus.  Unfortunately, Red Vector does not offer courses in many of the specialized software packages used by the engineering and architecture industry.  AECOM spends too much time and effort on training employees on meaningless QA/QC procedures, safety protocols and internal accounting processes.  They also conduct internal audits of project files to make sure project managers are following the internal file management procedures.  Upper management is comprised of accountants and former hedge fund managers not engineers, architects, contractors, or scientists.  Thereofre, they do not understand that a licensed professional is trained to provide excellent designs and consultation to clients, which contradicts  AECOM's emphasis on internal processes and profit margins.  I will never understand how professional services such as engineering, architecture and consulting is traded as a stock equity on the NYSE.  Project managers are challenged to provide quality service with small labor budgets because too much is absorbed by the required profit margin.

Five days before my 41st  birthday I was laid off after working a little over 11 years for this company. 

I gave my all to this company and completely screwed up my work life balance by putting them first and at the expense of relationships with family/friends/significant others. I will not go into the details of what happened but will urge those looking to work for this company to practice self-love at all times by striving for a work life balance because nothing is ever guaranteed in this life and when you give your all to a company and you lose your job especially suddenly as I did without any notice whatsoever that this was coming, your world comes crumbling down and you are left feeling empty and with no desire to continue to live. What made it even worse was that I was a single income household and so losing my job meant I had to try to figure out where I was going to get the money to pay the mortgages/put food on the table/ensure that I had lights and heat as it was winter season in Colorado. 

Do yourself a favor and learn to love yourself and make time for yourself because this company as with many large companies has a tendency to demand a lot from you and if you do not have firm boundaries set then it will be you to blame for having thrown away years of your life in an attempt to save your job or impress upon management so us to save your job. This is especially word of advice to foreigners moving to this country and having grown up with a very strong work ethic that almost seems to place work at an extremely high position and sometimes even over family. That is how I grew up outside of the United States. This kind of mentality and approach (wanting to do your absolute best for your employer and boss) while honorable can easily be misused by employers that care little about their employees or supervisors that are threatened by seemingly ambitious employees and as such want to remove any kind of potential competition. 

So learn to strike a work life balance so that you never have to go through the pain of having something taken away from you when you thought you were giving your all as happened in my case. I am thankful that I did not take the lousy severance package with its long list of requirements one of which would have forced Me into giving up my right to free speech and subsequent ability to share my story. Thankfully the law provides us all the right to freedom of speech. Hopefully this review will help somebody out there when looking to interview with a AECOM.

The office environment feels like a set from the 70's and 80's. It feels like that you are in a factory. Most of the people in the company has 20 or 30 years in the company, these people have taken years to move up the latter. Some like their jobs, most do not and have just stay for the money. Almost everyone do not like some things in the corporation which change policies, software or everything things. Most people just ask you to not look anything above the company, becuase you will not like it. Most assistance just ask you to just do your job and do not look into all the polititics or things that happen around. If you are new, there are a lot of young engineer and there will be a lot of rotation in the positions. People do not care who stay and who goes. There is no interest into grow the people in the company. If your passion is to develop a specific skill in design and with project this will give you the perfect opportunity to work and work and work in the same area. The reason there is no interest is growing peoples is based on the system. People apply in different areas of the company, and nobody care if people move inside the company. The system use the people until they are tire, or leave the company, get sick or die and then they are replace with other younger people. The culture is just do your job, move up, take the money and do not do anything else. You can get lost in the corporation and will stay in the cubical for the rest of your life. Any activity to grow you must be done outside the predetermine hours you have to complete your work. There is a mandatory number of hours that you must be working to be profitable. People will invite you the teams and give you hours if they like you, if not you will be staying without hours to complete the minimum time require to stay in the company. 

Summary, you are a number, and you must complete as much work as possible. You can imgine you are Neo inside the matrix or Tyler Durden in his job. The office design will only drain your energy. There are a lot of dead end jobs here, that will take advantage of young blood to fuel their engines and keep alive the people that area in the company because there are just tired to move to another company and start all over. 


Prepare to be micromanaged at every turn by 7 different bosses, all knowing more than the other.  (The lowest managers think they know the most). We had a lead, a supervisor, a district manager, a state manager, an HR manager, a safety manager, a training manager, and managers of managers, all to manage 15 people in the district (1 of 6 districts in the state serviced by AECOM).  you get the point...  They are extremely critical and as a top producer for every quarter I was there, top numbers every month for the entire state, it was never acknowledged by most managers, only conversations on how you could do more, or the district as a whole was failing, all while the ones that did nothing just kept doing nothing.  The better you performed, the more they expected, the lazier ones just seemed to get a pass even sleeping in the truck on the job or watching full movies or football games while on duty.  There is no sense of appreciation and the work is completely thankless.  Pay for same work at different employers is close to 50% more.  Extremely dangerous work for little pay.  Employee morale was the lowest of any employer I have worked which is sad because I truly loved the job, but the management made it a completely toxic environment to the point that nobody cared anymore, the work was thankless and you were made to feel like you were nothing and replaceable.  High turnover probably due to the reasons listed above.  Onboarding should be called overboarding, watching countless videos for days on end for situations that will never apply to your specific duties.  I fixed cars on the side of the road, I don't need to know the ins and outs of international trade law or the 30 other videos pertaining to scope of work not related to what I was hired for.  Field training had an almost hazing-esque feel to it, where you were pushed to your limit to see if you would break, or maybe that was just my trainer, I didn't treat my trainees in such fashion.  I would stay away unless you are a glutton for punishment.

I had to find a job after my employer went bankrupt. URS was the second company that offered me a position. I took them because the pay was dramatically better then the other private company.

I worked for then for one and half years. It was pretty much total hell the whole time. Me and one other employee started at the same time. We were pretty much put into isolation since day one. The manager and GM were both ex-miltary. They were not management material. But either they had moved up to a pay scale that required they become a manger, or had an inside track with the leadership. 

As far as the co-workers go, If you weren't military they didn't want anything to do with you. If you had a degree they basically tried to show you up, and make you feel stupid.

The manager actually told us that if he doesn't like you he will make your life a living hell, until you resign. The last employee walked off the job after a few weeks, leaving his credentials on the managers desk. It was a classic hostile work environment, with the manager and his cronies that talk to other employees about you in front of others, sometimes right in front of them about you. Very unprofessional. But they know how to cover their tracks, they are professionals at that.

He had pulled the same thing with me and another person. We both managed to escape, I left for a much much better job, the other just went and quit without new work.

The GM wasn't any better, he had gotten complaints about the manager and ignored the pleas to demote or fire him. Before I left he was to be demoted. But he still acted the same way as a non functioning manager. 

Life is so much better not being there, I work for a group that appreciates my job skills, and loyalty. 

KSC was a living hell, the old military folks desperately needed the job, for the most part its the only job they had that wasn't in the military. They would always say they could never make the kind of money they made there again.

The manager would apply for jobs on the outside, only to be ignored after the interviews.

My experience with AECOM made me lose faith in fairness and equality in corporate America.  Growing up in a foreign company, I was taught that a job is extremely important and you give your all.  This I did.  My job came to define me.  I took great pleasure in thinking that I was adding value and helping my employer succeed.  This dedication sadly was seemingly not appreciated by all and soon there was little to no feedback between my supervisor and I.  My health suffered,  relationships failed, my home life was neglected.

I continued to work to deliver because I was afraid to fail, make mistakes or be laid off, but despite it all, on October 10, 2018,  I was laid off, under the claim of the position being eliminated for lack of enough work.  This story changed later to poor performance which to this day I will never agree with. 

My wish for AECOM is to work to change its approach in recognizing issues when reported.  Do not immediately favor management because management is not always right.  Take the extra step too, to truly understand issues brought up, as well as diverse personalities.  This company prides itself on embracing diversity, but I did not see that practiced in my case.

For those thinking of interviewing with AECOM, set firm boundaries that protect work-life balance.

I am thankful for the opportunity to exercise my right to freedom of expression/freedom of speech by sharing my story/my experience at AECOM.  My story while a painful one, is one with hope.  Through it all, I have grown to develop a new appreciation for life, regained a sense of self-worth and a  desire for a healthy work dynamic/environment.  

My experience with a new company since, has begun to re-instill in me the belief that not all of corporate America is unfair.  There are companies out here that truly embody what fair and equal is, while embracing and appreciating diversity.  

Hoping that my experience and my story will be a learning opportunity for AECOM and its employees.

I have worked at many AECOM offices, under many managers in 8 years. Most managers were very helpful and approachable.  One manager was not helpful and not approachable.  His leadership was non-existant accept for his efforts to protect his own job by removing opposition.  The company lost the contract because of his incompetence. People were afraid to complain about him.  Those that did, lost their jobs. He now has been promoted to a similar management position in a district office.  He apparently deflected blame for the loss of the contract onto others. I wish that AECOM would have sincerely investigated the loss of that contract that resulted in the layoff of many people.

I have worked at other offices and they were good people and management was excellent and helpful.  They paid me well.  They promote from within by permitting people to transfer to openings in other cities where AECOM has an office.  You will move a lot if you transfer, but each move is an opportunity to improve salary and learn more.  Each new contract offers an employee in good standing a chance to join a new work group. AECOM has offices all over the world.

The most enjoyable part of the job was a better than average workforce with a better quality of people.  These are professionals and do their jobs.  You are expected to do your best work or you will not be transfered.  Do your job well and your manager will help you find your next contract.  It was a pleasure to work for AECOM -- except for one person.

They have a good vacation benefit package and allow you to take it as soon as it is earned.  So you can take a long weekend several times a year if you want. Some of my contracts permitted overtime flexibility if you needed extra days for family illness or vacations.  Their healthcare is very good, some contracts had free healthcare and paid out on an 80/20% basis.  They also had a very good 401K plan and a disability plan.

I would be happy to work for AECOM again, if given the opportunity.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Civil engineer 1 salary reported	$22.00 per hour
Project manager 9 salaries reported	$130,444 per year
Cad technician 2 salaries reported	$30.00 per hour
Construction project manager 1 salary reported	$95,000 per year
Engineer 3 salaries reported	$95,933 per year

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