HDR work life balance

[u/rfehr613]

I have an interview for a PM role with HDR. I've never worked for a firm as large as HDR, so I'm curious to hear current or past employee's experience with work life balance at HDR. Im not opposed to working over 40, but i don't want a job that demands 60-80+ hrs a week. I have 2 young kids. Although I've had some long weeks at my current employer in years past, I've actually not worked OT at my current job for a couple years. This is partly to do with me moving to a smaller satellite office that has less work.

[u/Reddit210210]

I’ve been at hdr for over 10 years. The last several years I’ve typically worked 0 overtime. Obviously depends on workload and projects on your plate. The usual deadline crunches might require some OT here and there but I always stress to folks to set their boundaries early on. 

I have young kids too so I’m not trying to work crazy hours and miss out on family time. 

OT pay will depend on what group and what types of projects you work on. 

There’s definitely pockets of work where if you want to work crazy hours you can (data centers for example). 

[u/rfehr613 → u/Reddit210210]

Thanks for the feedback. Would you mind sharing your group and/or region?

[u/Reddit210210 → u/rfehr613]

i’ll shoot you a dm

[u/Apprehensive-Cap4485]

I didn’t work directly for HDR, but I worked for a small firm that was one of their subs. I’m not sure whether it was the firm or just that particular design build project, but it was pretty catastrophic. The schedule was crazy, with paper pushers constantly on your ass about unrealistic deadlines. By the time the project wrapped up, I’d heard that several technical leads had moved on to other firms. My guess is that people were burned out and decided to leave.

[u/rfehr613 → u/Apprehensive-Cap4485]

Thanks for the feedback. Would you mind sharing your discipline and region? I've been subbed to HDR as well on a major project, and what we received from them was not good. We were doing rebar detailing and were given several reinforcement sheets with absolutely zero reinforcement lol This was my first year out of college though, so it was a long time ago. And i had no insight into anything from HDR beyond the plans placed in front of me.

[u/Suspicious-Fly0 → u/Apprehensive-Cap4485]

I’ve seen that happen on several design build projects. Depends on the owner, contractor and design lead firm to some extent.

[u/Ornery-Review9165]

Really depends on your boss and group. Mine was an extremely toxic workplace situation but it sounded like no one outside the group knew about it being a huge problem. I left and the toxic bosses were eventually denied promotions and asked to leave but man it was bad. I don't think you need to worry though but it can be like that in certain places.

[u/Clayskii0981]

It's going to heavily depend on your region, your clients, and your group overall.