electrical engineer

project engineer

operator

mechanical designer

senior developer

Urenco

This is a great company to work for.  A bit heavy on workload since a recent (2017) downsizing, but overall balance is quite good.  Great benefits, very good pay, company culture is very positive, safety is a major focus.  Lots of really good people, very open to questioning and learning, management all the way up to the CEO is very approachable and truly "open door".

The worst part is the area.  It is located in one of the worst places to live in the United States.  The area is visually very unattractive, extremely hot in the summer (110F plus quite often), it is very dry and dusty/dirty, and overall the closest towns/cities are very run down and shoddy.  

The local population is not very welcoming, there are significant crime and drug problems, and New Mexico routinely ranks in the bottom five for education in the US.  The schools are pretty bad, especially in this region.  

There is very little to do, very limited choices in shopping, dining, entertainment, recreation.  If staying home most of the time is your thing, you might enjoy it.  You have to drive 100 miles or more for a taste of the "normal" world.  Most of the area is dominated by oil fields.  When oil is up, things get marginally better.  When oil is down, crime skyrockets, as does the drug problem.  

It is NOT a place to raise kids; there are few opportunities for teens to get jobs, very little for younger kids to do, and kids who stay here inevitably get the "small town going nowhere" sense of hopelessness.  Good colleges are far away, aside from Texas Tech (100 miles away in Lubbock, TX).  New Mexico colleges/universities are just as bad as the public schools (routinely bottom 5 of the 50 states).  A good education means moving a long way away.  If you don't go oil field, or get away from the area, your remaining options are URENCO (limited openings) or retail/food service.  You don't want to be a young person here.  The smart ones get out, the ones that stay are either miserable or have no idea that life can be better.

The area and most surrounding areas are ultra conservative; very resistant to change, very backward, not at all modern or technologically up to date.  Customer service is the worst I personally have ever experienced.  Things you take for granted in more populated areas are unknown or years away from coming here.  In short, the area has all of the worst aspects of rural/small town life and virtually none of the good parts.

TL;DR - great company to work for, situated in the absolute worst place in the United States to live.

I was a senior project manager at Urenco until 2015.  The company at that time had generous compensation and benefits.  In the last four 4 months, a good number of people have been reaching out to me to help them find employment elsewhere, apparently things are not so great any longer.  I hear there are no real opportunities to advance, and if you're fortunate to become a manager, you will quickly find expectations clearly exceed your resources to manage with.  People are sick of the all hat and no cattle approach that senior management team takes with respect to dealing with the local realities in Eunice.

Urenco USA has trouble holding on to its educated workforce by openly advancing the careers of those with non-traditional educations whilst ignoring those with chartered engineering degrees.  Seasoned personnel with real degrees are departing for sunnier climes, leaving in their wake those with the dreaded "technology" word at the end of their certificates from real-college alternatives or kids right out of college who do not (yet) know better.  Working long term at Urenco U.S.A. is better suited for locals with no real career ambitions nor desire to move away from family.

Management routinely misleads employees by not clearly communicating the realities of the company's prospects in the long-term uranium enrichment market.  The reality is (and those at the top know it) that a privately-held and chartered company cannot compete in the world market against sovereign nations that bankroll new builds (Russia, France and Korea, and soon China).  Urenco's book and market share continue to shrink against the backdrop of a contracting customer base, and as Germany eliminates nuclear generation and with Donald Trump’s recent failure to protect U.S. domestic uranium producers, one wonders who will be left to turn out the lights.  When push comes to shove and it is time to close its first enrichment plant, Urenco employees will discover the pain of working for European governments that have to decide which employees to let go:  the non-shareholding American's or their employment-for-life expecting European counterparts whose social-democratic governments actually own the company and whose re-elections depend on delivering job security.

Not a good fit for me. I was not allowed to work unaccompanied for three months. My first week I was accompanied everywhere, even to the restroom. I understand the need for security but it seemed paranoid over the little things and lacking in common sense. They have armed guards that will do random searches, but I never knew what they were searching for.
   After making a security mistake, carrying a phone into the wrong building, training and supervisors became adversarial. Training methods at Urenco is mostly done by peer-training. It works if the peer that is training you is a good teacher and knows the right way to do the required work. If they didn't know the right way or are bad teachers, you are screwed when the supervisor sees you doing it wrong. You can have another peer think you are still aren't “doing it right” and then that leaves a strain on get help for training. 

   I loved the paycheck, but finished the last three weeks having panic attacks over dealing with the company and waiting hours a day to go places to get my work done. 

   Most colleagues were not chemists, but biologists that picked up the  "Right way to do things". Which is fine, but several of them didn't know the names of glassware seen Freshman college labs. I questioned why they didn't use a test tube clamp and I got asked, "What's that? What's wrong with the way we are doing it?".

Typically in my position I was transferred to a lot of different departments since the position I was interning for was being phased out. Learned how to paginate documents to file. I don't really believe that the management should have been offering an intern position with the turnover department at that time considering that the entire department was done with everything by the time I was there. My co-workers were extremely friendly people. I enjoyed talking with them and eating lunch with them. The hardest part of the job was that some days the other department wouldn't have anything for me to do for them and so I would just sit there waiting for the day to be over with. I loved to interact with the different departments and other interns. The Interns were also tasked with decorating for the official opening of the business and I did enjoy that very much.

URENCO Ltd. is a well established international company.  URENCO USA, however, is fairly new and, as such, is dealing with things that most new companies deal with.  There are a ton of fantastic people here and it has developed a very "family" like vibe (both good and bad).  The executive leadership team communicates well and they say all of the things that executive or senior level managers are supposed to but there are some breakdowns in follow-through.  There is also a bit of misalignment between how the individual contributors see the company and how the management teams see things.  This makes it difficult to resolve conflict and find workable and relevant resolution to issues.

Urenco is a company that directly mirrors the culture in the navy due to the high number of former navy personnel. While this lends itself to highly trained individuals, it also lends to a negative, lazy, condescending culture where you are only valued based on the rank you held in the navy and not based on workplace merit. This makes it almost impossible to advance due to URENCOs preference and affinity for navy chiefs. PTO is not representative of the actual workday i.e. a day of PTO is 8 hrs whereas a day of work is 12. Additionally, the pay schedule is set up in a way as to minimize the amount of overtime received. Cost of living in the area is unreasonably high.

URENCO USA has the potential to be the best employer in the area, however, they are limited by their poor managers, particularly in Shift Operations. 

There is also a significant pay disparity between Operators with US Nuclear Navy experience, and those of us from other backgrounds, including engineering degrees. 

I would recommend this employer if you are US Navy veteran, and warn you to be cautious if you are from a different background. 

The overall compensation package is great, benefits are great, and campus is second to none. They are truly in their own way as far as potential to be the employer of choice in the area.

Having to intern at URENCO for two years was great experience. The first year I worked more with physical security and the second year I worked more directly with I.T. Security.
Everyone in the Security Department took time out of their way to answer question and provide feedback on a project or assignment.
The hardest part of the job was trying to implement security controls for the regulators inspections.
The most enjoyable part of the job were lunches. Everyone who went were more laid back and casual to talk with.

Worked for Urenco USA FOR 11 years, loved it for the first 8.  However upper management has become completely toxic.  If you want to dread going to work every day than this is the place for you.  The operations manager was the worst boss I have ever had.  The CEO doesn’t really want to hear what you think and will speak over you constantly.  The icing on the cake is the Oz culture that has been brought in, dumbest thing ever!

Urenco USA used to be a fun place to work prior to the downturn in the price of SWU (enriched uranium units) which caused the company to downsize to the point where they are now understaffed. Many workers are doing their best to keep their noses above water. Competitive pay initially, but now are lagging with other nuclear facilities/sites in New Mexico.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Electrical engineer 373 salaries reported	$122,593 per year
Project engineer 54 salaries reported	$19.00 per hour
Operator 181 salaries reported	$102,096 per year
Mechanical designer 55 salaries reported	$125,777 per year
Senior developer 74 salaries reported	$110,928 per year

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