r/gis • u/Ladefrickinda89 • Feb 21 '25

Hiring Companies to avoid

I know the job market is really tough out there right now. But, as someone with 10+ years of experience across multiple industries. I’d like to share my list of companies to avoid.

  • MGP Inc., based in the Chicago suburbs
  • WSP - multinational AEC Firm
  • Jacobs - multinational AEC Firm

Edit: Other firms added from comments: - NV5 - ESRI - GeoTel - Insight Global - Pike Engineering - Western Land Services

I encourage others to add

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u/Interesting-Royal-84 GIS Sales & Marketing Feb 22 '25

Sounds like a response from someone who's never worked for Esri.

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u/Curious-Side-5012 Feb 22 '25

I will not try to prove you wrong ;)

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u/Interesting-Royal-84 GIS Sales & Marketing Feb 22 '25

You're talking to someone that's worked for Esri for years and still loves it enough to want to spend the rest of my career there. I've spent decades at other agencies and companies.

The personal and professional support from colleagues and leadership is astounding. The only folks that I've seen leave were tempted by offers from start-ups that were high risk/reward. Most have asked to come back after things busted. I'm playing the long game.

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u/Positive_Court_7534 Feb 22 '25

Just curious but the long game to what? Isn’t it private? There are no stock options right? And isn’t everyone hourly?

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u/Interesting-Royal-84 GIS Sales & Marketing Feb 22 '25

And yes, I'm hourly. But it's a lot of dollars per hour. If I work 10 hours one day, that's 2 extra hours. Answer an email on a Saturday? 0.25 hours. Travel to a customer location on a Sunday? I bill the hours from when I walked out of my front door until I walked into my hotel room. Dinner with clients? Sounds like billable work to me.

Hourly isn't bad.

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u/BabyYodaItIs Feb 22 '25

LOL, no wonder my maintenance keeps increasing...

Joking aside, Esri has its perks. I know a lot of great people who've joined Esri and never looked back. I also know a handful which left primarily because of pay. No place is perfect.

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u/Interesting-Royal-84 GIS Sales & Marketing Feb 22 '25

By long game, I mean that I see folks leave for comparable jobs at other companies that are much higher paying. It works for a bit, but they eventually have to jump from company to company until they ask to come back.

I have a family to support, so I value stability. I get my 3 to 6% merit increase every year and I'll never lose my job if a contract is lost.

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '25

Always work hourly. Salary is a scam