civil engineer

project manager

electrical engineer

senior architect

engineer

Pond & Company

Pond is a company that is struggling to find its place in the world at the moment. They want to be a large engineering and architecture firm but the plan to get there is foolish and lacks concrete goals. 

Corporate leadership has seen a massive turnover in recent years. A venture capitalist firm came in and bought a majority of shares from employees wanting to retire and there was not a concrete plan in place when this leadership did leave. 

Employee turnover is insane. People get irritated with the metrics used to gauge performance (an arbitrary utilization rate). Program/project managers lack training necessary to be leaders internally. I was told to not bill projects despite working on them and other times told to bill extra hours and increase my work week to 10+ hour days to compensate for not meeting department profit/revenue goals due to not having projects to bill (getting projects was out of the scope of my responsibility). 

There are a lot of company events that are used as “mandatory fun” and had in lieu of an actual bonus system. Company does not pay a competitive rate for engineers, only higher ups get what they are worth.

Was forced to come back to the office and wasn’t allowed to work from home unless i provided a “legitimate” reason. Work life balance is non existent. I was told to work for free on the weekends multiple times. 

I was scolded for taking vacation and guilted into not taking PTO despite not having any work to do (basically got to sit around and twiddle my thumbs to “send a good message to corporate leadership”). 

HR leads you to believe the benefits are great but they are very standard. Almost impossible to get promoted. I was told I met all the requirements for a promotion but was told that “the company wanted to see how I would handle the responsibilities first.”

It is genuinely sad, because I enjoyed working here when I started but everything went downhill with COVID and when I started to see through the foolishness that corporate was pushing.  

Overall Pond is a good company. I've worked at many consulting firms, and this is the best I've worked for. Not saying it's perfect. Pond is in business to make money, like all consulting firms. There is always pressure for revenue, utilization, and profit... same as anywhere else. And yes... if you don't perform, then you will (and should) be let go. That's just business. At Pond, my effort and work ethic have been noticed and rewarded, and I see lots of opportunity for folks that are willing to work hard and smart. Communication from the upper levels could certainly be better, but that is true of every company I have worked for. My ideas for growth and market development have been supported, and I've been given the freedom to go pursue them and make them happen. Pond is well diversified and has continued to grow, hire, and give raises throughout the pandemic, while many firms have cut pay and/or cut staff. I would recommend for anyone who is willing to work hard to achieve success. 

One day we got an e-mail that said Pond and Company was bought by an investment firm. Didn't tell us anything at all even though they had been in talks for months. If your office doesn't make money then there will be cuts. Management is really just looking out for itself in most cases. Often time work environment very poor due to constant cuts/push for profit. Mentality was often do what we have to get paid and move on even at cost quality of work. Communication was next to nothing, often just e-mails from managers saying to take care of something. It all makes you laugh when you hear the CEO is going on yet another gold trip to Scotland

the fact that I'm writing this over 2 years after my last day here, is insane but after seeing what a good work environment is, I felt compelled to write this.

the 6th floor electrical engineering team is terrible and toxic, and quite honestly, reflects the bad seeds of this company. SOME of the junior management doesn't know how to properly manage new people in the industry, and senior management doesn't know how to manage either. every just carried about themselves and doing their job. I want to go into more details but I'm afraid to. My current company ironically reached out to Pond to do a project for us years ago. Pond completely botched the job. did a horrible job and didn't even reimburse them for the bad work. Pond is all business, a terrible place to grow as an engineer.

I really like my job, and I like the people that I work with a lot. I feel like the company takes care of me really well. 

My expectations are that the company HAS to make money, and that means that having a job isn't all about just providing, providing, providing for the employee, but rather having a symbiotic relationship where they pay me for doing my job and doing it well. 

I feel like the company went well-into the weeds to keep people employed and keep making money during COVID-19 whereas a lot of our competition laid people off or put them on furlough. 

A typical day at this internship consisted of me re-drawing older CAD files in the new Revit program that had just come out and was becoming the new office standard at the time.  I also was able to put together several BID binders for real commercial projects.  I learned how to put together a BID binder and how to print out plans for a proposal.  The co-workers here were amazing and so willing to share all there knowledge of the industry with me.  The hardest part of the job was figuring out the filing systems for the projects and how to navigate between them.  The most enjoyable part was getting to work on existing projects and being apart of the design process as a whole.

I worked in the HR suite and I started out as a temp then went permanent within three months which was great. Initially it felt like home, I've meet a lot of great people and worked with a few great people.
I will say working in HR gave me the ability to see Pond in a different view.  At the end of the day you are replaceable which is how it is with majority of companies but the way this company goes about letting people go is shameful and ultimately I was let go the same way. 
On a good note I met some wonderful people at Pond who I remain close with and I will take what I learned, the  good and rhe bad as a learning opportunity to take with me on the next job and in life.


My department had a low ceiling. In other words, I did not see many opportunities to advance my career with this company. I felt that during my time there, guidance with career development diminished. Beware of job security for the dicipline/department you may be considering here, as they can be quick to make cuts. Pump and dump. Hire like crazy to meet goals and then layoff when contracts are not won or renewed, then hire more when new work is won. If you take a position here, keep your options open.

Pond Electrical Department is a very toxic work environment specifically the team that's on the 6th floor. There is a lot of high school behavior that's goes on that will affect your job. The supervisors don't have the proper training to supervise junior engineers. The upper management leaves a Blind eye to a lot of things. Only good thing about this is that you will learn a lot from being in the chaos and trying to work around it. AVOID AT ALL COST TO PROTECT YOUR MENTAL STATE!!!!! 

Working at Pond Constructors was a joy. I learned to input all needed request for repairs to continue to keep military fueling up and running. Management needed to communicate more with the staff to maintain a productive working enviroment. Co-workers work hard as a team, by supporting eachother.The hardest part of the work was retrieving the neccessary tools needed to complete the task from management. I enjoyed working with a company that continued to expand in productivity.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Civil engineer 1 salary reported	$110,000 per year
Project manager 1 salary reported	$115,550 per year
Electrical engineer 1 salary reported	$117,500 per year
Senior architect 6 salaries reported	$118,333 per year
Engineer 3 salaries reported	$108,333 per year

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