electrical engineer

civil engineer

mechanical engineer

intern

project manager

Burns & McDonnell

Pros: 

ESOP (financially).
There are some very good people to work with at this company.
Job security. 
Some fun give aways celebrating company achievements.
Working in the office, if that's a thing that you're into. (I'm not)
No overtime cap if you're a strong performer on primarily T&M projects – not so much if you’re on a lump sum project. You will end up working a lot of overtime. 

Cons: 

ESOP (in reality). 
There are some terrible people to work with.
Job security due to the pay structure - not the fact that you're an "owner". The real reason that the jobs are secure is that when you're hired, typically, you agree to take 20-25% under market rate base pay for your services. 
Your job is secure because if the company were to go out to the market and attempt to hire someone else to replace your 2080 billable hours during a year, they'll have to pay market rate, or closer to it. This will cost a lot more than when you're hired & then the company controls your merit increases. 
No overtime cap for solid performers since base pay across the board is so low for everyone. Depending on the client and the contract, the OT may be billable. It doesn't cost the company much to work people to the bone due to this. 
If you work on EPC, or other lump sum projects, there will be incredible pressure to work unpaid OT to meet or beat the project budget - not by the PM's directly, but by senior engineers. Management will want to distance themselves from any sort of unpaid OT claims.
These pressures come from people whose bill rate will be approximately double what yours will be if you are a new hire or early career professional. Just a little ironic. 
Mid/low level management has their own billable time targets to reach, thus taking away time that they could be managing. 
ESOP will be held over your head, as well as the year end bonus. 
Very vague year end bonus structure, unless you are in the know. 
There will be overt pressure for you to do unpaid work/trainings/company events. If you refuse, or even seem as though you are unhappy about these things, you will be an outcast. I've seen this happen to others. 
There will be pressure for you to take on extra responsibility or "roles" as the company calls it, if you are a strong performer. I.E. being an engineering "Lead". These "roles" may potentially help you in the long run if you're the right type of personality for the company. Just be aware that, if you take these roles, your bonus check will not reflect the extra role's responsibility/time commitment/stress, or anything else that comes along with said voluntary roles. You will be lumped into a group for your bonus pay, and the people that you are leading are making the same amount of money you are, while getting to enjoy a work life balance that you aren’t able to achieve due to the extra responsibility of your "Role". 
Vesting schedule. I can't emphasis this enough. Truly understand the impact, financially, of taking significantly under market pay for years. Then the thing that you're working for (ESOP), the impact over the span of 20-30 years if you must forfeit 20%, 40%, 60%, etc of that money early in your career if you were to depart service to the company. 
ESOP funds will be distributed over a multi-year time frame upon termination. The company is borrowing your money interest free for years and there's nothing you can do about it since this is compliant with current retirement laws in the United States. Not holding this against the company since I’m assuming that this practice will be typical for any ESOP, as it’s just good business to borrow money from obligations for free. The totality of all other circumstances around compensation here at this particular company make this practice very frustrating, personally. 
Be aware that if you start as an intern, your experience as an FTE won't be anything like your time as an intern. The company will attempt to show you how great the blue cool aid is with all the fun events and how nice everyone will be to you. I imagine that this isn't a trait exclusive to BMcD, and that many other companies participate in this practice as well, so I can't hold it against them. But be aware of the reality of the situation you're getting yourself into upon accepting a full time job with all of the cons of BMcD. I'll leave you with an anecdote, paraphrasing a Director as he was speaking to one of his PM buddies:
"Oh yeah, treat the interns real nice. Take them to Royals games, show them all a good time. Then once they accept the offer, drop the hammer on them. It builds character".
I’m not saying that this is a terrible company to work at. There are better, there are worse. Do your best to know yourself, and the true details about the company before you accept a job here. Don’t accept a job just because of the company’s reputation and the ESOP. 


This company touts it's "Great Place to Work" status which is determined by random surveys sent out to employees. Who's going to give it a bad rating when employees are afraid they would be found out for giving a bad review? 

Management is the poorist I've seen anywhere. No specific expectations, but if you do not meet the unspecific expectations they will show you the door. Very young culture, discriminates against older, more mature talent. No advancement for them. Treated like throw aways. I am young but I observe this happening and feel bad for the older workers. The pay is good, but other engineering firms pay well too with way less stress and much more appreciation. At least one third of your pay comes in the form of "incentive" pay at the end of the year. They can take it away, reduce it, and otherwise hold it over your head all year so you kiss their butts in hopes of a keeping your bonus. 

Very little training if you are low on the food chain. You have to come in knowing it all, even as an intern, or again, they show you to the door.  They set mandatory meetings and training durning lunch time. You have to bring your own lunch. They expect you to work overtime without counting it on your time sheet.If they have no work for you and you sit all day with nothing to do and then you get work they expect you to absorb the non worked hours with the new work. You could work a 10 or 12 hour day to meet the deadline and can only count 8 hours.They do not pay over-time because they bid their jobs so low to win against their competitors. The problem is, they take it from the "employee-owners".

Great place to get experience. Get it and get out is best advice I can give, before you become a Burns & McDonnell yes robot.

At Burns & McDonnell, we work for ourselves as we are a 100 percent employee-owned company. The culture of ownership that has been created by our ESOP is truly unique and a driving factor behind Burns & Mac being known as a great place to work. 

Also, the work we do is interesting and improves the quality of life throughout the world. Our employee-owners are also rewarded for their hard work. With many annual events and celebrations, a comprehensive compensation and benefits package and a camaraderie that is hard to match, it’s no wonder that we have a turnover rate that is significantly lower than the industry norm.

There are various opportunities for all employee-owners to grow and develop their careers at Burns & Mac...the key is taking initiative and making your goals known. Development requires life-long learning, utilization of mentors and making your expectations clear as you become more comfortable. As a woman in a predominately male firm, the best advice I give to anyone contemplating calling Burns & Mac home is don't be afraid to go after what you want. If you are good at what you do ... Burns & Mac will help you grow into the best professional you can be. If you aren't confident in your abilities and comfortable seeking out growth opportunities ... Burns & Mac probably isn't the right fit for you.

Run, don't walk, as far away from this company. Don't let the accolades in the newspaper convince you that this is the "best place" to work.

If you are a white male engineer, chances are, you'll fit right in!
If you are female, then be prepared to work with the most obnoxious, pretentious people in the industry. If you are a minority female, run!!!! Minorities are overlooked for promotions time after time after time. Backstabbing is a thing of the norm. There are individuals in this organization that will suck you dry, only to take credit for your work and pass it off as their own. This type of behavior is rewarded, even.

This place is known for having a great bonus structure and yes, this is true for certain divisions. I've seen people who sit and play on the internet walk away with 15-20k year end bonuses, while the people who actually work get very little, maybe 5k. 

If you are an architect, run!! This is NOT the place to go for any type of design work. It is laughable!! You will be bored with drafting details, while the circus of management all but feed the "desired" work to their friends (time after time). This is the most poorly managed organization I have ever worked for. The top level architecture managers are horrific and are complete bullies!

This is, by far, the bottom of the barrel for architects. However, if you are ok sitting in a corner drafting toilet details: Apply! You'll love it!

Absolutely awful! Some of the people were nice but not many. They are nice to you if you can do something for them. Internally, they are very much about politics and who has family in the higher ups and who should be nice to who. The "Executive" running the Lake Mary office managed to act in a very distasteful/inappropriate and disgusting manner towards female employees.....all while having a wife and children in his home state which he visited every 3 weeks on a weekend...but still magically appeared in a Top 30 Under 30 article for Orlando. What a joke, his answers were not even accurate or factual. The work and charity they claim they do as "employee owners" is ridiculous. Many of their employees are contractors because they do not want to pay benefits but yet say "employee owners" should take all the credit. I was let go after notifying another member of management what I have seen happen in the office and what others have seen as far as inappropriate behavior. They act like it's a college sorority house. If you don't go out and party with them and keep their secrets, you are as good as gone. They reward those who have the most brown stuff on their nose and willing to climb the ladder using whatever means possible. If you want to keep your job, do not say a word about any of their supposed favorites or well connected managers who are higher on the food chain. Management was notified of their behavior and supposedly they were doing an investigation. Fairly certain nothing came out of it.

This company will demand everything from you and give you little to nothing back in return unless you are groping the right people. They will encourage you and say that you are doing a great job until the end of the year review comes around and the say that you did not do enough. After working for free to meet budget demands on projects, putting in time to learn client standards to ensure projects are executed correctly they say that this is expected of you and you need to give them more. They do not pay enough money at this place compared to other companies in the industry. Even with the "pay differential" they gave out at the end of the 2021 year` it is not enough. They will make it sound like they are doing you favors but they are trying to brainwash you into "going above and beyond" the call of duty and not compensate you for it. If you are looking for a company that your grandfather worked at for 30+ years this place could be great for you. They have a great retirement plan if you are willing to suffer for about 10 years to see it begin to unfold. People that are in the positions to see that retirement nest egg are still unhappy at this place. They are just to afraid to leave. Anyone considering Burns and Mcdonnell as your career talk to some of the employees first, get their honest feedback and then make a decision. 

I couldn't imagine a better place to work in the A/E/C industry. With any company there are always pluses/minuses. The difference comes down to what's important to you.

For me, this is the greatest place I've ever worked. I've worked at a couple of top-ranking A/E/C firms throughout my 12 year career and Burns & Mac is the first place where I've witnessed a culture where they put quality, commitment, and accountability at the forefront of their mission. Where that's demonstrated the most is when you've been given a task or project, it's up to you to deliver and communicate throughout.

Leadership places a great deal of trust and training into it's employee-owners, so it's only fair to ask that each employee-owner be responsible for meeting expectations with the client and within your project teams. That's a fair thing to ask in ANY company, especially an employee-owned company because your success is directly tied into how I perform just as much as it is your own performance.

That may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I rather enjoy it because when I look around I see some of the brightest engineers and leaders I've ever been around.

Burns & Mac is already #18 on Fortune's Top 100 places to work in America and with the people I see around me, I can't imagine why we won't be #1 in another year or two.

It really is a great place to work!

Burns & McDonnell has a very unique culture. I would describe the company's culture as being old-fashioned with little work-life balance. The company has largely grown organically and only promoted from within, so nearly all project managers and upper level managers (directors/VPs and above) are engineers who only know Burns & McDonnell. Many of these managers are in their position simply because of tenure - they are not necessarily good managers. The result is that your job satisfaction is highly dependent on which group you are in and who your project managers are... it is easy to end up stuck in a group with poor management and your life quality may be poor.

As of 2021, remote work policy is to provide employees 30 days per year to work from home (2 days every 3 weeks). Many employees are unhappy about the company's response to remote work, but management largely ignores feedback from employees.

If you can last 5 years to become 100% vested in your company stock options, the pay is slightly above industry standard (when considering year-end cash+stock bonus), but salaries are ~20% lower than competitors.

The culture (emphasis on CULT) is rampant with hubris and narcissism. "We are the best" is a statement repeated with such frequency, you can't help but think it's part of a devious brainwashing campaign. Managers and most employees legitimately believe it. I have never encountered such corporate-wide groupthink in my entire career.

These "true blue believers" see themselves as the upholder and defender of this perfection persona, what they call MacCulture. If you voice opinions that are contrarian, pointing out areas of improvement, where we are not the best, or even something that's flat out wrong, you will be treated as a heretic, a nonbeliever, and you will be marginalized, your career will flatline, and you will be encouraged to quit by having your compensation severely reduced at the end of the year.

The thing about being "the best" is there's no room for improvement. If you want to contribute by driving change and challenging the status quo, this is not the company for you. However, if you're happy putting your head down, not making any waves, it's a fine place to waste 40 years of your life.

There is one thing this company is possibly the best at - telling ourselves that we're the best.

Been here a couple of a years now and I feel like I can honestly review it now that I’ve got some time in. The grounds are nice and very well kept, food in the cafe is great. There are no actual break rooms. You can either eat at your desk or the cafeteria that’s shared with everyone. 

My specific job is just okay. Very mind numbingly boring. No formal training and that was kind of annoying. I still remember my second day I had a crash course and was expected to do my job from that point on. I was also kind of irritated that they tell you all these “perks” but it’s kind of at managers discretion. You get 30 days work from home per year, and two floating holidays. I started in June and when it came to the holidays/Midwest weather. I wanted to work from home but when I advised of that I would get more work to keep me busy. If that’s the case why not give me more work AT WORK, if you think I don’t have enough to do to work from home. I can agree with other reviews that they don’t pay well. I have received two raises over the last two years but I am still under 50k salary. I am honestly kind of disappointed with this company, I did not go into it with high expectations a job is a job but the culture is a little toxic. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Electrical engineer 12 salaries reported	$94,882 per year
Civil engineer 3 salaries reported	$91,000 per year
Mechanical engineer 21 salaries reported	$81,762 per year
Intern 3 salaries reported	$22.67 per hour
Project manager 11 salaries reported	$130,500 per year

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