Pros
Pay and benefits are solid. I got at least a 3% raise every year, and a 10% raise on a small promotion. Accrued three weeks vacation per year that rolled over. Job security is also pretty good, especially compared to graphic design in other industries. Some projects are interesting to be involved with, and I learned a lot about rail and civil engineering. It gave me a more informed perspective on the large infrastructure projects around me.
Cons
A lot of the work is quite tedious. There’s more cleaning up messy documents and repurposing old files than there is actual original graphic design work. When you do get the chance to design from scratch, you’ll often be hindered by asinine restrictions from clients (i.e. “must be Times New Roman 12pt font”), and/or the uninspired and dated corporate brand guidelines. The general culture of quantity over quality leads to unrealistic deadlines and expectations on everyone in marketing, including the designers. Overworked engineers constantly send in materials late, but only marketing gets blamed when things run behind schedule. As a result, there is frequent pressure to work faster and cut corners, or worse, to work overtime to make up for someone else failing to hit a deadline. Middle managers are good at elevating issues to their superiors, and later passing along excuses as to why nothing can actually change. Meanwhile, from leadership you hear ad nauseam about how it’s so much better to work here than for any competitors. As I haven’t worked at a competitor, I can’t speak to the veracity of this, however it is telling that they rarely compare to anyone outside of the AEC industry. As work cultures change dramatically elsewhere, everything here remains static, no matter how archaic. For me, the absolute worst thing about the culture was the micromanaging of time. Charge a few too many hours to a project on your timecard, and you’ll have someone lecturing you about how you weren’t productive enough during that time. My office was also quite stingy about what “optional” time they would pay for – not only regarding stuff like happy hour socials, but also for things like internal mentorship programs, and even all-hands meetings. I’ll be quite happy if I never see “no charge code will be provided” on an explicitly work-related meeting invite ever again. All in all, this was at best a dull, and at worst a dreadful place to work.