**Very Unhealthy and Toxic Work culture** - Engineer HDR Employee Review

1.0
22 Jan 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There are no pros to this company. If you try searching the job market they have a lot of openings and all their postings are onsite. They are constantly starving for skilled workforce. They hire people to get resources and contacts of clients. They are constantly stalking their competitors and its employees to make sure they are quoting projects low in comparison to their competitors. They use newly hired interns and EITs without proper guidance or training to execute the jobs, EIT's who are graduates in Bachelors or Masters in Engineering are compelled to do drafting as the senior drafters and BIM modelers play a lot of dirty politics. EITs are awarded for best performance for the drafting task and not for engineering calculations generated! Huge turnaround of employees since the upper management is constantly micromanaging their employees. Hey you know something, the office admins conduct rounds to mark attendance and late commers. They constantly harass you on your time away from your seats and are constantly monitoring your ID punch in and out. Think hundred times before you accept a job offer here as their work culture is totally opposite to what's marketed in the job postings. Lots of groupism and favoritism by race. You are a prisoner and slave at work as there is no work life balance.

Cons

They do not pay for your licenses even though their job postings require you to be licensed. They do not pay you overtime. They require you to charge your overtime hours on your PTO. Only the upper management (who are actually big time overheads) gets the perks of license reimbursement or overtime pay! There is constant micromanagement on your time at office all 5 days of the week. There were Engineers who were forced to work during weekends & late hours due to huge work backlogs are were not properly compensated for their overtime even after they raised their concerns to the upper management, were finally forced to quit their job. You are denied access to USB ports or flash drives on the company laptop or desktop, Career opportunities are given based on favoritism, Zero value for talents as they strip you down of your position whenever they want. Even though the company claims to be employee owned you don't sense an employee owned culture at their workplace,

Explore other reviews about HDR

5.0
14 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

work/life balance company stock office culture mentorship and young professionals

Cons

lower pay non-mandatory raises at end of year limited growth in certain positions

1.0
19 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent benefits and that was about it.

Cons

This was one of the most challenging management experiences of my career. The manager had spent her entire career at HDR and lacked both external perspective and experience in learning and development, which was critical for our team. There was a clear pattern of favoritism, and feedback tended to focus more on mistakes than recognizing contributions. Work-life balance was minimal, and expectations often extended beyond reasonable limits. I was consistently seeking growth and development opportunities, but these were not supported unless I was willing to fund them myself. Compensation and recognition also felt uneven. Outside of engineering and architecture roles, bonuses were not offered, and raises were infrequent—I received only two raises over four years. Although I’ve since moved on, the experience had a lasting impact on me. I would encourage the organization to invest more in leadership development, employee growth, and a more balanced and supportive workplace culture.

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