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Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

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Middle management nightmare - R&D Engineer Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Employee Review

1.0
8 Apr 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Stable career so long as you don't go against middle management. Absolutely excellent benefits if you have a family.

Cons

Company has begun to ignore their values. SEL has great values, but recently tends to ignore them and treat their employees poorly as a result. It seems that the bottom line has become more important than the customer or the employees. Very low pay for engineers, but company expects engineers to be grateful and humble about their meager paychecks while also expecting them to put in 60+ hour work weeks. Middle management frequently hire incompetent people. People who have been fired for verbal abuse, drug violations, or dereliction in their duty will be re-hired while people who voice concerns to middle management over these hires are fired. When the company fires someone, they do it same day in a 30 minute process and try to bully you into signing a contract that signs away all anti-discrimination rights you may have. They often don't give good justification and search through people's electronic history to justify the firing after the fact.

Explore other reviews about Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

5.0
5 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Really great company culture. Great work life balance. In a cute town.

Cons

Applied a bunch to get in.

4.0
8 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Right job for some people. If you buy into the koolaid and are passionate about the power industry this can be an incredible job for you. The benefits are pretty great. I really enjoyed my coworkers, all of them feel human and are earnest. You can live quite cheaply in Pullman. There is an incredible amount of job security. SEL boasts they've never done a layoff. Additionally their ESOP distribution is generous - though it takes 6 years to fully vest. There is a lot of things I really admire about the company and the culture.

Cons

Comp is lower side. A lot of people are hired out of college and have only ever worked at SEL so sometimes I feel like there is a bit of an echo chamber. Small town. I really struggled with the initial allocation of 12 days PTO. 17 after 2 years is much easier. As a SWE, the company feels very catered to their power engineers. Company is very traditional in its values, people wear suits to work. Seems like the timeline for promotion is quite slow for SWE compared to other companies. I see a lot of friction when lower level engineers trying to advocate for changes; though I do think that the conversations with leadership happen in good faith.

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