structural welder

project engineer

journeyperson electrician

The-Whiting--turner-Contracting-Company

WT seems like it would be a great workplace as an intern. Sadly, if you are not on a project in your area or a project engineer intern you will spend the majority of your summer sitting in an office twiddling your thumbs. From the start of my internship, I have not gotten along with my direct supervisor, constant nit-picking, babysitting, and micromanaging. You’d think being a VDC intern you’d be exposed to VR headsets, 3D modeling software, etc. Instead you are strung along for the entire summer and given full time employee style work. My supervisors had no interest in getting to know me, my interests, or aspirations. They created a hostile work environment for me and my fellow VDC interns and really sucked the fun out of the summer internship. The company itself is looking for people to give their entire lives. They expect you to intern, start full time, and die there after 50+ years. The HR dept (in the Greenbelt Office) is awful. I was lied to, strung along, and then insulted for asking for slight adjustments. They do not care about your commute, parking, etc and do not seem to really make any attempt at creating relationships with their interns. To WT, interns are a numbers game. “If we hire a lot of them, a percentage are bound to stay.” Overall, awful experience with the Greenbelt Office, VDC department, and WT in general. I also see some former employees stating a below industry level compensation. Unless you want your entire life to revolve around WT, stay far far away.

Praying I get out soon because it is almost unbearable. Unchecked egos and rife with a “frat boy” type of mentality. Some are respectful to female employees, but many will treat them as if they are incompetent. Hard to be successful with ever changing expectations and no one is ever satisfied with what you do.. even if it’s exactly what they told you to do. Very cult like culture and everyone smiles and acts like robots while they do insane amounts of work and have zero work life balance... it’s very strange and they are constantly pushing company propaganda at you to try and make sure that everyone believes they’re the only successful and amazing construction company on the planet. They will promise you a lot in the beginning but it all quickly changes and isn’t as glamorous as they make it sound. If you value life outside of work, stay away, this will consume you and then you will be made to feel guilty for wanting to do anything other than work. If you ever have an issue, upper management will just look the other direction and sweep it under the rug and blame it on being too busy to help. Great for a single guy looking to dedicate their lives to construction  

- Typical day at work: submittal review/tracking, RFI creation/tracking, change order review, meetings
- What I learned: learned a lot about the construction industry, bidding jobs, safety, constructability, project budgeting, etc 
- Management: inconsistent. Most of the VPs seem to be well liked by the people under them. The quality of your direct report, the project managers, varies wildly. 
- Workplace culture: very gossipy, word spreads fast. I've learned to keep my head down and just do my work, try not to be noticed too much. Most employees are very conservative politically and outspoken about it, although that's probably to be expected at a lot of construction companies. 
- Hardest part of the job: dealing with how tedious a lot of the work is. As a new hire you'll basically get all of the really boring administrative tasks that older members of the team don't feel like dealing with 
- Most enjoyable part of the job: seeing the project go from lines on a piece of paper to reality is very rewarding. 

Working at Whiting-Turner this summer was full of knowledge. As an intern I was told to be a sponge, and I did that to the best of my knowledge. A lot of higher-ups and managers I worked under were very open to answering questions and teaching what they knew about construction, construction management, and their specific trade on the project. It was a great experience being around different  minds full of experience and knowledge for the other interns and I to soak in. The hardest part of the job was sitting in meetings at 6AM until noon. The most enjoyable part of the job was exchanging words with the superintendents and project managers and learning from the experiences and mistakes and seeing how it molded them to be in the current position they are in now. Also, taking progress pictures and creating quality control documents were things I looked forward to everyday on the job.

Great retirement and health benefits and for the most part great people to work with that are driven to get the job done. How the company is structured with staffing and all the processes and checklists leaves office and field staff to wear a lot of hats and battle red-tape on ever changing priorities and expectations on the corporate and local levels. Working in construction is no easy task and there are many resources available with how large this company is to help in any situation, but more often than not this company makes the job and projects feel more difficult than it needs to be. Feels that upper management is out of touch with how much they time they demand out of their employees between meetings, paperwork, check lists, daily and monthly requirements, minimal onsite support, travel/long commute jobs, and often puts project teams in a situation to “check a box” rather than do what’s best for the project and team. 

The people are what make Whiting-Turner an enjoyable place to work and a top construction firm in the nation in both revenue and satisfaction by owners and clients.  The company offers great benefits and an outstanding retirement package that is likely unmatched in the construction industry.  However, a lot is asked of employees in their first 5-10 years in terms of travel and work hours.  It is difficult to have a work/life balance of any kind when consistently working on out-of-town projects, and life is challenging for anyone with families and kids.  If you can get past this aspect of the company, Whiting-Turner is a great place to work.

Working for Whiting-Turner right out of college was a great experience. I had a fantastic manager who made it a point to make sure I felt comfortable with the tasks she was assigning me. 

I worked on an office fit out, a few bids, and a project for an airline, all of which were fairly small jobs (under $5M). This allowed me to have more responsibility than what was typical for some other Project Engineers. 

The upper management in the office were all willing to help if you had questions and were patient if you didn't catch on right away. The culture in the workplace was one of teamwork and employee satisfaction through client satisfaction. 

Unfortunately for me - the work slowed down in the White Plains office to a point where I wasn't feeling engaged anymore and chose to change career paths.

A typical day at work was always very busy for me since I not only did my own work,but I was also a back up person when ever someone was out sick or just taking vacation. I am a very hard worker and always willing to help where ever it was needed. I can't seem to come up with anything that would be considered as the hardest part of the job. The most enjoyable part of it was working with great people and having everyone always willing to help if you ever got stuck on something that you weren't sure if it was being done the correct way or not.

Worked with an amazing team. They truly cared about the project.

However, the compensation you receive is well below industry average for the title. The mindset is to work at the level above your current position to get promotions. But when you breakdown your salary into the amount of hours your really putting into per week, it can be frustrating and feel like you’re really settling. The gas card for APMs are great if you’re doing long drives, but if you have a short commute, the monetary benefit is almost meaningless. If they don’t start seriously restructuring their comp. For middle to lower level mgmt, they will lose lots of talent they’ve already invested in.

What is the best part of working at the company?
This is a great company but if you are African American or Hispanic and you do not change your personality to fit “the culture” this might not be the company for you. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The subs and sometimes your mangers. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Not for individual thinkers or creatives. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
9 - 12 hour shifts 
Writing contracts, budgeting the project, engaging in managing your subcontractors

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Structural welder 1 salary reported	$21.50 per hour
Project engineer 1 salary reported	$76,000 per year
Journeyperson electrician 1 salary reported	$25.00 per hour

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