Good place to work, just don't expect any promotions. - Shipping McMaster-Carr Employee Review

4.0
Jan 9, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Benefits are great, work is fairly easy. Company shares its profits with employees. School is paid for completely and they also will pay a portion of your child's college. Insurance is paid by the company for the entire family. Excellent medical, vision and dental plans. Company is controlling their growth which leads to a more secure company. It is a nice job if someone wants to stay in one secure place for a long time, there is not a lot of movement in the company unless someone really impresses and make it known they want to do a lot. If not you can stay in the same position for many, many years.

Cons

No clear path for advancement, IVY league is a shoe in but everyone else stays put. The company does not post any job openings in the branch, a manager will walk up and tell you that you start in a new department in x amount of days. If you say no then you stay put for a long time, everyone knows to always say yes when the want to move you. Anyone from an IVY league school will be brought in as a supervisor or manager even if their major is not in that field, people skills are not required.

Explore other reviews about McMaster-Carr

5.0
Jun 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

At least in the Systems department, it’s a helpful and collaborative environment.

Cons

3 days in office and potentially long commute from the city

4.0
Jun 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Pay/benefits are incredibly generous - People are generally easy/nice to work with - Note that the Systems department seems to be fairly isolated from the negative issues discussed in other reviews (e.g. tension between warehouse workers and management) - I haven't experienced any of those issues within the systems department. In my opinion, Systems is a great place to work and develop as an engineer. - Hybrid work style (3 days in office). Personally, I like hybrid more than both fully in-office and fully remote styles. - Great cafeteria with good food and cheap prices. - Good work/life balance (outside of being on call, I can leave work at work).

Cons

- Work is not super interesting to me. I come from a highly technical, but very different (not ecommerce/industrial supplies), background where I was doing work I was much more interested in. No doubt there are folks in Systems who love the domain though. - While I'm not on call a ton (1-2 weeks every few months), I really hate being on call. I like to leave work at work. Note that joining at least one reliability team is expected within your first year or so.

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