Terrible working environment. A huge cube farm. Travel light and don't get too comfortable because you never know when they will move you around or lay you off. When they do, there is generally no notice.
Stay billable or get kicked out faster than you thought possible.
Professionals should forget about being able to make decisions. The decision making abilities you may have had with your former employer will be stripped away. The bureaucracy you need to go through to get an approval or a decision will astound you.
Benefits are awful. Health care is now up to around $700 / month for family. Add in dental and vision and you are looking at over $9000 annually for family coverage.
The company is hypocritical with regards to the three sides of the corporate values triangle.
1 - "People are our greatest asset" - Jacobs is a totally transient company. When you have completed a job, you are as good as gone unless there is something right behind it to get you completely billable again.
2. - "Growth is an imperative" - The only way Jacobs grows is by buying companies to get more people. No talented individual would go to work for Jacobs by choice.
3. - "We are a relationship based company" - Relationships are destroyed through the cumbersome bureaucracy and one-sided contracts that clients are subjected to.
Why is Jacobs successful? Due to its size and low overhead, Jacobs can compete based on pricing. In this regard they will be shipping more and more production work to India. For some strange reason they are quite proud of this fact. Look for continual downsizing as more and more outsourcing is done.
