Pros
Pros: It is difficult to rate my time at Davis as there were tremendous ups and equal downs. It's a great learning opportunity for entry-level employees and often those more experienced, but seems like a very difficult workplace to navigate. Being a larger, but still local firm, Davis has a lot of resources in both other employees, libraries, and computer software. Your peers are more than likely to be upbeat and helpful. Though some projects can be quite boring, there is definitely potential to learn throughout the process of every one, and it seems the staff are eager to present and discuss those lessons. The office is absolutely beautiful and they are rightly proud of that fact, and the IT team is very intelligent and responsive. The benefits, although I did not enroll in several, seem more than sufficient, and HR (Liz) does a great job keeping everyone up-to-date with changes and informed about their options.
Cons
Cons: As reviewers before me stated, Davis is set up for it's more outgoing employees to succeed unless you're an out-of-this-world talent, or you are willing to just push through until you've achieved some seniority purely by loyalty. Loyalty is another very strange element in this environment. If you leave, you might as well have stabbed them in the back. Most everyone will complain about you once you're gone. They'll even speculate who wrote reviews on this very page and choose to ignore them if they feel you were too troublesome an employee (more than likely their view if your review is negative, and yes, I witnessed this firsthand). As far as I encountered, they are typically resistant to change, especially if it is not initiated from the top. Example: they carried the "intern" title when it was required for unlicensed architects, and it seems to be no longer required, but when staff who carry that title asked it to be removed to avoid confusion in the industry, they said no with little actual reasoning. If you have an issue with a senior staff member, there is a good system of speaking with an advocate (a staff member outside of your team whom you do not work with daily), but ultimately it is up to your team to resolve it, and it seems like this doesn't often happen. From personal experience, they will just tell you you're the problem and it's up to you to fix yourself, even though I spoke to several of my peers who expressed the same feelings about a particular senior staff member. I am not a particularly confrontational person, so I feel the very fact that I spoke out about these issues makes it clear that leaving was the best choice for myself, and though some of my coworkers saw that and agreed, there was still quite a bit of tension in my last week.