Avantages
- A few people in the energy industry have heard of Amory Lovins and think that is cool. - If you are lucky to work in specific programs your exit opportunities into the private sector can be good. - A few very smart people if you are lucky to work with them - Decent work/life balance
Inconvénients
- The promotion process is incredibly unfair and not transparent. A group of people who never interact with you or see your work get to decide on your performance and promotion eligibility. Your fate is largely determined by a career adviser who also has little insight into your work and their motivation to help you varies wildly depending who you get assigned. In the years I worked there, I saw only a handful of promotions to manager and principal and maybe one or two people to managing director and they were almost all massively overdue. The performance feedback you receive is largely useless since it goes through a rewriting and anonymization process before it gets to you so the original intent is often lost. In addition, the performance goalposts constantly move and the scoring system is completely subjective. e.g. they will tell you to do x, y, and z to get a promotion and then you spend 6 months crushing it on those things only to be told you now also need to do a, b, and c before you can get a promotion. - Very top heavy. The lack of internal professional development leads to a lot of external hiring at the top. - Very low compensation for non-senior positions. This is to be expected somewhat for a nonprofit, but this isn't even competitive compared to other nonprofits I've worked in. People who drank the kool-aid think RMI has this incredible reputation that warrants the financial sacrifice, but it's mostly hype. - Depending what program you are in, the institute views the value of your work very differently. i.e. legacy programs like electricity get a lot more attention than those that came from the "merger" Carbon War Room. - Each program is responsible for its own P+L, so industry experts with no fundraising experience are suddenly responsible for fundraising. If you enjoy spending half your time writing proposals and grants rather than doing actual research, then you may not mind this, but this was not in my job description when I applied. - So many useless meetings clog up the calendar all the time. - Unless you are in Boulder, the smaller offices can feel pretty empty and lack morale/camaraderie. - The fact that there are senior associates who joined RMI straight out of undergrad and got promoted from associate to senior associate in 6 months, AND senior associates who have 5+ years of work experience, started companies, and advanced degrees does not make sense. - Offices are overcrowded.