Expect to be treated like an employee - Administrative Assistant Bryan Research & Engineering Employee Review

Working at BRE is a great way to grow your chemical engineering experience. Work/projects can be diverse and interesting if you make it so. Good training to help you get caught up to speed. The people are very willing to help and easy to work with.

This is a flat organizational structure so if you are hoping to climb a ladder, this is probably not the place.

The only positives are some smart, friendly coworkers trapped in the same boat. But that's not enough to outweigh the toxicity. Decent coworkers, low pressure to innovate (because nothing changes).

I lasted less than two years at Bryan Research & Engineering before jumping ship, and looking back, I wish I'd read the red flags in the Glassdoor reviews more carefully beforehand. This place is a relic stuck in the 1980s – outdated software development, archaic policies, and a leadership style that's downright abusive. The owner/CEO treats employees like disposable parts in his machine. Stories of him berating staff or making wildly inappropriate comments during interviews aren't exaggerations – they're part of the culture here. There's no real management structure; it's a flat organization run by fear and favoritism. If you're not in the inner circle of long-timers (many of whom seem burned out and jaded after decades), forget about advancement or fair treatment. Work-life balance? Laughable. No remote work flexibility. Direct deposit for paychecks is the lone step towards modernization this company has achieved. They still mail physical checks like it's 1995. Benefits are a joke: the health plan is so expensive that many employees opt out entirely, and compensation lags behind industry standards despite the "we never lose people to salary" boasts. As a software engineering role, the technical side is a nightmare. No code reviews, no automated testing, manual builds that waste entire days, and massive technical debt that's impossible to fix because touching "someone else's code" gets reverted. You'll pick up terrible habits and watch your skills stagnate while the support/sales team calls the shots – the software feels like an afterthought. Abusive leadership, poor pay/benefits, no modern practices, exhausting travel, stifling culture.