This Top Workplace for Engineers has a "secret sauce" for its long-standing success.
There aren’t too many companies that can lay claim a lineage and history like that of the Chicago-based engineering firm Sargent & Lundy.
The company’s origins date back to the heady days of the rise of electrical power, which would change life forever. And the one event that would announce this revolution to the American public and the world was the 1893 Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair.
This multi-month exposition showcased the latest in scientific and engineering marvels and boldly predicted what the future would look like. And Sargent & Lundy played a decisive role. The company worked at the Fair to advance electrification, being among the first engineering firms to advance the new electric power industry beginning to take shape.
As such, Sargent & Lundy shares its history with that of the electric power industry itself. The industry was just emerging when engineers Frederick Sargent and Ayres Lundy formed an independent engineering and consulting company in 1891, dedicated to working with clients in the electric power business. Individually, they had earned recognition for their technical talent and foresight. Sargent was one of Thomas Edison’s most capable early associates, while Lundy was a highly regarded colleague of electric railway innovator Frank Sprague. Together, they collaborated on power generation and transmission projects that advanced the industry and set the company’s course.
As an engineering firm with a long history in the electrical power industry, it’s no surprise that their core engineering talent includes electrical, mechanical, and civil/structural engineers; this is the core of the company’s engineering talent. In fact, currently the firm employs over 4,000 people in a variety of roles, with engineers being most representative.
Sargent & Lundy is actively hiring engineers across all experience levels, from interns and recent graduates to seasoned professionals. The most sought-after candidates are experienced engineers with expertise directly aligned to the firm’s core work—whether it’s designing high voltage transmission lines, modernizing nuclear plants through instrumentation and controls engineering, or specializing in electrical power systems.
Speaking of interns, the company has a robust internship program. While headquartered in Chicago, they draw from much local talent in the area, but it is really a nationwide program, drawing talent from all over the country.
The main focus and most important element of the company’s work is their quality management system. This is a system of processes for overseeing engineering projects — you can call it the “secret sauce” of what makes for the company’s long-standing successes.
The process involves a certain pattern in workflow that begins with each new hire. There is the onboarding, learning, working under a licensed professional engineer (PE), then advancing into management roles. Among the company’s key deliverables are drawings for the varied engineering projects they work on; these are stamped by a licensed PE, so quality is the utmost value in the entire process.
What’s more, the company offers tuition assistance for engineers looking to obtain their PE license, a powerful incentive for engineers to advance in their careers. In fact, 70% of engineers at the company hold a PE license.
That’s why when it comes to the uniqueness of the culture at Sargent & Lundy, one word stands out among all others — quality. The overwhelming focus on everything the company does is quality. This is evident from the company’s founding, which often involved projects that were first of their kind across many different industries.
In addition to quality, surveys of employees often cite two other factors that are critical to job satisfaction: challenging and meaningful work and fair compensation. Part of what makes that possible is that the company is an engineer-led company, where the CEO is an engineer and PE. That consistency in leadership across more than a century is a defining feature of the company and is what sets and maintains its core values.
Many employees report that what they find most satisfying about their work at Sargent & Lundy is that the work they do is meaningful and has broad social impact. Case in point: a lot of the work they do is centered around power systems, in particular building a more sustainable grid to shore up and modernize the nation’s power distribution systems.
Another focus is load capacity for power systems, especially with new demand coming online from such applications as data centers and the increasing power demands driven by new AI systems. Other meaningful projects involve the design of next-generation nuclear power facilities to further decarbonization efforts. This involves projects with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to build next-generation small modular reactors on the Clinch River in Tennessee.
And people have taken notice. The company was recently named one of the USA Today Top Workplaces for 2025. What’s more, Sargent & Lundy Chairman, President, and CEO Victor Suchodolski recently won top honors among chief executives of some of the nation’s leading companies, earning Top Workplaces USA’s inaugural Leadership Award.
“I joined Sargent & Lundy as a project engineer over 25 years ago,” said Suchodolski. “We want to cultivate an environment where early career engineers feel they can thrive and contribute for years to come. This award is a tribute to the passion and innovation that our employees bring to work every day.” In 2026, Sargent & Lundy will celebrate its 135th anniversary. As one of the world’s longest-standing full-service engineering firms, there seems little doubt that the company is well positioned to continue being at the forefront of engineering for a long time to come.
For more information, visit topworkplaces.com/company/sargent-lundy.
Is your company a Top Workplace for Engineers? Submit your nomination at topworkplaces.com/engineering-com.
