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HPI Architecture

Is this your company?

Don't take a job here. Let lied about their company in the interview - Interior Designer HPI Architecture Employee Review

1.0
4 Nov 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

9 hr workdays on Monday- Thursday and Half days on Friday. Lots of good lunch spots and half hour bars near the office. Right next to the beach.

Cons

Frustrated, isolated, lied to, manipulated, ignored, and abused. That is how I felt working for this company. Firstly, This company lied to me in my interview process to make me think I was working for a better company then I was. I applied as an Interior designer. In my interview, I was curious as to how their department was run. Among other things they told me they had a long-established department of 4 people with different levels of experience and I would be number 5 in the group. On my first day on the job, I come to find out that I was actually number 2. They had 1 other girl working in their "interior design department" who had only ever worked at that firm since she graduated and had been mainly doing administrative work and some material selection. Not just that but they had not yet figured out how to organize the department and didn't know what I would be working on. I found out that they were trying to establish an interiors department and that is why they hired me, to grow their department. I learned many other disturbing things soon after. That never check shop drawings or coordinate after the design goes into construction. Project managers often lie to their clients about deadlines and I was told by someone in the CA department that most of our clients were mad at us and we were having to write a lot of checks to clients. The first month I was working there, there was no direction and no communication as to my tasks or responsibilities. They had been doing busy work and every time I asked to be working on a project, each person simply said, they didn't know what I should be doing. Fast forward to my third month on the job, I am finally given a material presentation to put together. They told me I had only one week to get it done and they wanted the presentation to be created in a rendering software called Lumion. They were fully aware that I did not know how to use this software. So due to the tight deadline, they allowed me to put creat my presentation using photoshop. The deadline came, and they are not pleased with my work, saying that it is not the quality of work they expected and it needs to be in Lumion. So now we are behind the deadline and I worked 11 hour days in order to complete 9 fully rendered interior views of this project in a program I am just learning, with no help or support. They fired me right after I presented, due to "lack of experience". It wasn't until after I got back home that I realized that the date coincided with the end of my probationary period. So much of this makes me frustrated. Maybe because they fired me after I completed my presentation or maybe because I know that they didn't know what they were doing and finally figure that they did want to pay me while they were figuring things out. but it was a bad company to work for and I'm glad to be out of there. I apologize for it if sounds like I am summarizing. Honestly, I would write a book about their "figure it for yourself " culture. Or the fact that they falsely advertise ain their interview process or experience level of their employees.

Explore other reviews about HPI Architecture

5.0
27 Jan 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Team building via zoom and TEAMs working remote options Great company culture

Cons

Remote meetings does not give full experience of team bond

1
2.0
31 Mar 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

flexible WFH, competitive pay, HQ office is at the beach, good healthcare benefits, flexible to work out of state.

Cons

no leadership vision, no real design because you are really designing for the principal, they will change your design even after client sign off. There is also a huge disconnect with the designers and those who draft, very little attention to detail. but some how also nit pick the smallest detail while ignoring glaring issues. "leadership" is too focused on the day-to-day project decisions rather than looking at the firm's process and big picture.

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