Avoid unless you're desperate - Recensione dipendente - Senior Scientist presso Exponent

Make sure you don't get hired as an associate if you don't have a degree from an ABET accredited institution. Getting switched to a scientist title is an absolute nightmare. If you are single, willing to sacrifice your relationship, or have an infinitely supportive partner who is willing to do all of the housework and be alone for 12+ hours a day, you can succeed. Tough luck if you also share house responsibilities, want to spend time with your partner, or take maternity leave. Work life balance is frown upon (at least in your first several years), and you are expected to be available at all hours, even if you're on leave (sick, PTO, parental). This company makes money by taking advantage of the "grad school" mentality where you have to continuously prove yourself and work harder and longer hours than anyone else to succeed. You are incentivized with the promise of overtime or a large bonus check, but if a project goes over budget the you're probably the first one to get their time written off, and your bonus will be smaller. Don't believe that you can “pave your own path"-- if there isn't much work to go around when you first start, people won't share work with you, and once you're settled into a “workstream" it's nearly impossible to diversify. You're still expected to socialize and talk with everyone internally that you can to try to get work, but principals will keep work for their own direct reports, and work is not shared across practices unless absolutely necessary. Certain practices are ridiculously cliquey and it all feels like middle school level drama. Associates are treated as disposable, and most leave after ~2 years. Despite the company claiming they're trying to change and fix retention, it's just a facade. Even your exit interview with HR is virtual (via teams) and they won't even give you the courtesy to turn on their camera. Unethical practices amongst senior management is rampant, including overbilling clients and removing names of associates who actually did the work from documents. Principals have gotten to where they are because of luck and timing (economy, others leaving/getting fired, growth of certain industries or client companies), not because they were so much smarter and hard working than their ex-peers. Unless Exponent is your absolute only choice, go elsewhere. If you want to know how much the company is really growing, check the stock over the past 5 years. You won't really even gain much professional experience that's marketable outside of failure analysis. If you do end up at Exponent, figure out what you want from your time there and get out as soon as you can.