How to Apply to Stantec

21 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 24 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Stantec is a global engineering, architecture, planning, and environmental sciences consultancy headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, dual-listed on the TSX and NYSE under ticker STN, with approximately 33,000 employees, 450-plus offices, and 2024 gross revenue exceeding CAD 6 billion.
  • The company organizes around five business operating units: Buildings, Infrastructure, Environmental Services, Water, and Energy & Resources. The Water practice, anchored by the 2016 MWH Global acquisition, is a global top-three player.
  • CEO Gord Johnston has led the company since January 1, 2018, joining originally through the MWH Global deal. The growth strategy is unapologetically acquisitive; recent transactions include the 2024 Morrison Hershfield (Canada) and Page Southerland Page (USD ~345M, U.S.) acquisitions, plus the earlier Cardno (2018), MWH Global (2016, USD 793M), Burt Hill (2012), and Anshen + Allen (2009) deals.
  • Professional licensure is the most important non-resume credential. P.Eng. (Canada, by province), PE (U.S., by state), RA (architecture), AICP (planners), and discipline-specific credentials (LEED AP, ENV SP, PMP, CPESC, GISP) materially affect which roles you qualify for and how you are paid.
  • The applicant tracking system is accessed through stantec.com/en/careers as a custom portal layered over the enterprise ATS. Single-column ATS-clean PDF resumes, accurate structured profile fields, and tailored cover letters all materially help.
  • Compensation is competitive against Canadian engineering benchmarks but typically below U.S. tech firms and aggressive private-equity-backed boutiques. The trade is stability, project longevity, technical depth, and the chance to deliver durable physical infrastructure.
  • The Edmonton headquarters and most of the company operate in English. Quebec offices operate in French and Canadian federal procurement increasingly favors bilingual project teams; bilingual French-English candidates command a real advantage for federal and Quebec work.
  • The interview funnel is three to five stages over four to ten weeks: recruiter screen, technical interview with the discipline lead, panel interview with the office, and (for senior roles) a meeting with a regional or sector vice president. Bring specific project examples, code knowledge, and quantified outcomes.
  • The competitive set is AECOM, WSP, Jacobs, Arcadis, and to a lesser extent Tetra Tech, HDR, GHD, and Ramboll. Stantec is the smallest of the global majors but punches above its weight in water, environmental services, and Canadian buildings.
  • Sustainability, climate adaptation, and energy transition are the fastest-growing markets, supported by the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, and parallel U.K. and EU regulatory frameworks. Environmental, water, and sustainability disciplines have particularly strong hiring momentum.

About Stantec

Stantec Inc. is a global engineering, architecture, planning, and environmental sciences consultancy headquartered at 10220 103 Avenue NW in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The company is dual-listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker STN, employs approximately 33,000 people, and operates more than 450 offices across roughly 30 countries. Gord Johnston, a chemical engineer who joined the company through the 2016 MWH Global acquisition, has served as President and CEO since January 1, 2018, and has presided over the most aggressive acquisition-led growth period in the company's history. Annual gross revenue passed CAD 6 billion for the first time in 2024, and the company has explicit ambitions to reach the upper tier of the global design and consulting industry. Stantec organizes its work into five reporting business operating units: Buildings, Infrastructure, Environmental Services, Water, and Energy & Resources. Buildings includes healthcare, science and technology, education, civic, mission-critical, sport and recreation, workplace, and aviation architecture and engineering. Infrastructure covers transportation, bridges, ports and marine, airports, and community development. Environmental Services delivers permitting, environmental impact assessment, contaminated-site remediation, ecology, and ESG advisory. Water is the company's flagship discipline, inherited largely from the MWH Global acquisition, and covers water treatment, conveyance, wastewater, dams, hydropower, and integrated water resources management. Energy & Resources serves mining, power generation, oil and gas, and the rapidly growing energy-transition market: hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, battery storage, transmission upgrades for renewables, and small modular reactors. Approximately 50 percent of Stantec's net revenue is generated in the United States, roughly 25 to 30 percent in Canada, and the balance across the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, the Middle East, Latin America, and continental Europe. Stantec's growth strategy is unapologetically acquisitive. Founded in 1954 as Stanley Associates, a small Edmonton civil engineering practice, the company spent its first four decades growing organically across Western Canada, then began an acquisition-led expansion that has now totaled more than 130 deals. The transformative transactions include the 2009 acquisition of Anshen + Allen, which seeded the Buildings practice in California; the 2012 purchase of Burt Hill, which built out U.S. Buildings further; the 2016 USD 793 million acquisition of MWH Global, which made Stantec a top-three global water consultancy overnight; the 2018 purchase of Cardno, which expanded the environmental sciences and Asia-Pacific footprint; and a clutch of 2024 deals including Morrison Hershfield (a long-established Canadian multidiscipline firm with a marquee bridges and buildings portfolio) and Page Southerland Page, the Texas-based architecture and engineering firm acquired for approximately USD 345 million, which materially deepened the U.S. Buildings, Federal, and Science and Technology practices. For candidates, this matters in three concrete ways: many of the 33,000 employees came in through an acquisition rather than a Stantec hire, integration is a constant feature of the workplace, and brand recognition for legacy firms (MWH, Cardno, Page, Morrison Hershfield, Anshen + Allen, Wenck, RNL, ZGF-adjacent practices) varies sharply depending on which office you walk into. The regulatory context is the second most important thing a prospective employee needs to understand. Stantec's core technical work is delivered under professional engineering and architecture licenses that are jurisdiction-specific. In Canada, professional engineers register with the provincial regulator (APEGA in Alberta, PEO in Ontario, OIQ in Quebec, EGBC in British Columbia, and so on) and earn the P.Eng. designation. In the United States, engineers register state by state with their respective Boards of Professional Engineers and earn the PE license, typically anchored by passing the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) and Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) examinations administered by NCEES. Architects follow parallel jurisdictional regimes (the OAA, AAA, and other provincial associations in Canada; AIA membership and NCARB-administered ARE for licensure in the United States). For senior technical roles, the absence or presence of the right license materially changes whether you can be hired, which projects you can stamp, and your billing rate. Stantec is generous with examination preparation support and reimburses license fees, but it cannot grant the credentials themselves; you have to bring them or be on a documented path to obtain them. The sustainability and climate adaptation business is Stantec's fastest-growing market. The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, and a generation of state and provincial water, transit, and resilience funding have created a sustained tailwind for environmental consultancies that can deliver under public-sector procurement rules. Stantec's ESG advisory, climate-resilience planning, ecology, contaminated-sites remediation, and water-infrastructure backlog all reflect this. The company has also leaned into nature-based solutions, biodiversity net gain (a particular strength in the United Kingdom), and Indigenous engagement frameworks in Canada. If you are a junior or mid-career professional in an environmental, water, or sustainability discipline, this is one of the most active hiring markets in the consulting industry. The competitive set tells you what kind of company Stantec is and is not. Stantec is benchmarked alongside AECOM (Los Angeles, NYSE:ACM, ~52,000 employees), WSP Global (Montreal, TSX:WSP, ~73,000 employees), Jacobs Solutions (Dallas, NYSE:J, ~45,000 employees), Arcadis (Amsterdam, AMS:ARCAD, ~36,000 employees), and to a lesser extent Tetra Tech, HDR, GHD, and Ramboll. Stantec is the smallest of the global majors but punches above its weight in water, environmental services, and Canadian buildings, and it is the most acquisitive and arguably the most operationally disciplined of the five. The company is widely regarded as a stable, well-run, professionally serious employer. It is not a place that pays the highest salaries in the industry (compensation is competitive against Canadian engineering benchmarks but typically below U.S. tech firms and below the most aggressive private-equity-backed boutiques), and it does not market itself on hyper-growth or moonshot promises. It markets itself on technical excellence, project longevity, employee tenure, and the chance to put your name on durable physical infrastructure. Language matters in pockets. The Edmonton headquarters operates in English, as does the vast majority of the company globally. The Quebec offices (Montreal, Quebec City, and roughly 20 other locations) operate in French, and Canadian federal infrastructure projects increasingly require bilingual project teams to satisfy Official Languages Act obligations on certain federally funded contracts. Bilingual French-English candidates command a real advantage for federal procurement, Quebec municipal work, and any role that interacts with the National Capital Region. Spanish is useful for Latin American work; Arabic helps in the Middle East offices. If you want a place that values technical depth, professional licensure, multi-decade project careers, and the chance to deliver tangible, often civic infrastructure across North America and beyond, Stantec is one of the most credible employers in the design and consulting industry. If you want venture-backed compensation upside, a startup culture, or rapid promotion based on personality rather than billable performance and licensure progress, this is not the right fit.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Start at the official careers portal at stantec

    Start at the official careers portal at stantec.com/en/careers. Stantec runs a custom careers presentation layered over its applicant tracking system rather than a public-facing third-party board. Search by job title, location, business operating unit (Buildings, Infrastructure, Environmental Services, Water, Energy & Resources), or job family. Use the country filter aggressively; Stantec posts thousands of roles globally and the U.S., Canadian, and U.K. funnels are administered separately.

  2. 2
    Decide whether you are applying as a licensed professional, an EIT/intern engine

    Decide whether you are applying as a licensed professional, an EIT/intern engineer, or a non-engineering professional. The application path is broadly similar but the screening criteria diverge sharply. Licensed roles require you to list your jurisdictions and registration numbers (P.Eng., PE, RA, CPESC, PMP, etc.). EIT applicants should list the date they passed the FE or completed their EIT registration and the target P.Eng./PE date. Non-licensed professionals (planners, ecologists, GIS analysts, scientists, project managers, technical writers, finance, IT, marketing) follow a more conventional resume-and-cover-letter path.

  3. 3
    Create your candidate profile and upload a clean, single-column PDF resume

    Create your candidate profile and upload a clean, single-column PDF resume. Stantec's ATS parses resumes for skills, education, certifications, languages, and experience. Allow it to populate your structured profile fields, then go back and correct every field by hand. Pay particular attention to credentials, dates, and the office location; routing to the right hiring manager depends on accurate location data.

  4. 4
    Complete the screening questions thoroughly

    Complete the screening questions thoroughly. Stantec consistently includes work-authorization questions (Are you legally eligible to work in [Canada/the United States/the United Kingdom] without sponsorship?), license attestations, willingness-to-travel questions, and increasingly diversity self-identification questions for U.S., Canadian, and U.K. equity reporting. In Canada, the questionnaire often includes optional self-identification under the Employment Equity Act (women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, members of visible minorities). In the U.S., expect EEO-1 categories and veterans/disability self-identification under federal contractor obligations.

  5. 5
    Submit a tailored cover letter even when it is marked optional

    Submit a tailored cover letter even when it is marked optional. Stantec hiring managers, particularly in Buildings and in regional Infrastructure offices, still read cover letters and use them as a tiebreaker. A two- to three-paragraph letter that names a specific project the office has delivered (the LRT line, the hospital, the wastewater plant, the bridge replacement) and connects your experience to that work is far more effective than a generic letter.

  6. 6
    Expect an initial recruiter screen within one to three weeks of applying for pos

    Expect an initial recruiter screen within one to three weeks of applying for posted roles. The screen is typically 20 to 30 minutes and covers your background, work authorization, salary expectations, target office location, license status, and willingness to commute or relocate. Stantec recruiters are pragmatic and direct; come prepared with a specific number for compensation and a defensible answer about location.

  7. 7
    Prepare for a technical interview with the prospective discipline lead or princi

    Prepare for a technical interview with the prospective discipline lead or principal. For senior technical roles this round is rigorous: expect to walk through specific past projects, design decisions you made, code or standard references you applied (CSA, NBC, IBC, ASHRAE, AASHTO, MOE, EPA, NPDES, AWWA, ACI, AISC, Eurocode, depending on discipline and geography), and how you handled conflicts with clients or contractors. For early-career roles, expect a knowledge-of-fundamentals conversation and a 'tell me about a school project you actually owned' question.

  8. 8
    Plan for a panel or behavioral interview with the office leader or business cent

    Plan for a panel or behavioral interview with the office leader or business center lead. This round screens for fit with the local office, project portfolio alignment, billable utilization expectations (typically 70 to 85 percent for technical staff, lower for principals and business development leads), and your ability to interact with clients. Stantec uses STAR-format behavioral prompts (Situation, Task, Action, Result) consistently and rewards candidates who can quantify outcomes in dollars, schedule days saved, defects avoided, or design hours optimized.

  9. 9
    For client-facing or principal-level roles, expect a final conversation with a r

    For client-facing or principal-level roles, expect a final conversation with a regional or sector vice president and possibly a meet-and-greet with the broader team. At this level you are being assessed for book-of-business potential, client relationships you can bring with you, and whether you can grow a practice. Bring a one-page slide that maps your client relationships and pursuits to Stantec's existing footprint.

  10. 10
    Background, reference, and credential verification follow the offer

    Background, reference, and credential verification follow the offer. Stantec verifies professional licensure directly with the relevant regulator (APEGA, PEO, NCEES, NCARB, etc.), confirms degrees with the issuing institution or through a third-party service, and runs criminal background checks where permissible by jurisdiction. Allow two to four weeks between verbal offer and start date; longer for international relocation. Compensation packages typically include base salary, an annual short-term incentive plan tied to company and business-unit performance, an employee share purchase plan with company match, RRSP/401(k) contributions with employer match, professional dues reimbursement, and continuing-education funding.

Resume Tips for Stantec

recommended

Lead with your professional license status, prominently

Lead with your professional license status, prominently. P.Eng. (with the issuing province), PE (with the licensed states), RA (with the licensed states or provinces), AICP, PMP, LEED AP BD+C or O+M, ENV SP, CPESC, GISP, PMP — whatever your credentials are, put them after your name and again in a credentials section. Stantec's recruiters and discipline leads scan for licenses in the first three seconds. An unlicensed candidate competing for a senior technical role will almost always lose to a licensed peer with comparable experience.

recommended

Quantify project experience in fee, construction value, and schedule terms

Quantify project experience in fee, construction value, and schedule terms. Engineering and architecture consultancies live and die by hours and fees. A bullet that reads 'Designed pumping station' is invisible. 'Lead mechanical engineer for $12M, 38 MGD raw-water pumping station; managed $850K design fee, 4,200 design hours, delivered 90% submittal three weeks ahead of schedule' is read carefully. Construction value, design fee, billable hours, schedule compression, and change-order percentage are the four currencies of this industry.

recommended

Map your projects to Stantec's five business operating units (Buildings, Infrast

Map your projects to Stantec's five business operating units (Buildings, Infrastructure, Environmental Services, Water, Energy & Resources). Hiring managers think in those terms. If you spent three years on healthcare hospital projects, label them under Buildings/Healthcare. If you did wastewater conveyance, label it under Water/Wastewater. If you did transmission line routing for a wind project, label it under Energy & Resources/Power Transmission. This mapping signals that you understand how the company is structured.

recommended

Name your tools, codes, and standards explicitly

Name your tools, codes, and standards explicitly. For civil and structural roles, list the specific codes you have designed under (CSA S6 Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code, AASHTO LRFD, ACI 318, AISC 360, IBC, NBC, Eurocode 2/3). For mechanical and electrical, list the standards (ASHRAE 90.1/62.1/55, NFPA, NEC, CEC). For environmental, list permitting frameworks (NEPA, CEAA/IAA, NPDES, CWA, ESA, SARA). For water, list AWWA, MOE, Ten States Standards. For software, list the specific platforms (Revit, AutoCAD Civil 3D, MicroStation, OpenRoads, OpenBridge, Plaxis, MIDAS, SAP2000, RAM, ETABS, HEC-RAS, HEC-HMS, PCSWMM, InfoWorks ICM, WaterCAD, GeoSlope, ArcGIS Pro, Bentley iModel, Synchro, Primavera P6).

recommended

Show your billable utilization, especially for mid-career and senior roles

Show your billable utilization, especially for mid-career and senior roles. Consultancies care about chargeability. A line that reads 'Maintained 84% billable utilization across FY2024 while leading two pursuit teams' tells a Stantec hiring manager you understand the economics of consulting. If you have a chargeable rate and you know it, do not include the rate, but reference your project portfolio's total fee.

recommended

Document your continuing education, professional development hours (PDH/CPD), an

Document your continuing education, professional development hours (PDH/CPD), and memberships. Provincial and state engineering regulators require continuing professional development. List your annual PDH/CPD totals for the most recent two years, your active society memberships (ASCE, ACEC, CEC, OACETT, OAA, RAIC, ITE, ASHE, AWWA, WEF, AEG, SAME), and any committee or chapter leadership roles. This signals that you are a serious professional, not just an employee.

recommended

For Quebec and federal Canadian roles, declare French language ability honestly

For Quebec and federal Canadian roles, declare French language ability honestly using the Government of Canada's oral/written/reading proficiency framework (A/B/C/X). Bilingualism (CBC profile or higher) is a meaningful differentiator for federal procurement work, Quebec municipal contracts, and any role with the National Capital Region. Do not overstate; bilingual fluency claims are tested informally during the interview process.

recommended

For environmental and ecology roles, list field hours and species-specific certi

For environmental and ecology roles, list field hours and species-specific certifications. Bat acoustic monitoring, bird point counts, wetland delineation under the U.S. Army Corps regional supplements, fisheries electrofishing certifications, snorkel surveys, SARA-listed species permits — these specifics matter and recruiters look for them.

recommended

For Buildings architecture and engineering roles, list LEED, WELL, Living Buildi

For Buildings architecture and engineering roles, list LEED, WELL, Living Building Challenge, Passive House, and ESG project credits explicitly with the project name and the certification level achieved (LEED Gold, LEED Platinum, etc.). Stantec's Buildings practice has a strong sustainable-design reputation and resumes that demonstrate certification literacy stand out.

recommended

Keep the layout single-column, ATS-clean, no graphics or photos

Keep the layout single-column, ATS-clean, no graphics or photos. Stantec's ATS parser is competent but, like every ATS, it stumbles on two-column layouts, embedded images, header/footer content, and creative typography. Use a standard sans-serif (Arial, Calibri, Helvetica) at 10.5 to 11.5 points. Save and submit as PDF. Two pages is normal for mid-career engineers; three pages is acceptable for principals with a long project list.

ATS System: Stantec Careers (custom careers portal over enterprise ATS)

Stantec uses a custom careers portal at stantec.com/en/careers as the candidate-facing layer over its enterprise applicant tracking system. From the candidate experience perspective, you create a profile, upload a resume, and the system parses your work history, education, skills, certifications, and languages into structured fields. You then complete location, work-authorization, and equity self-identification questions, attach a cover letter (recommended even when optional), and submit. Stantec's careers site supports job-alerts subscriptions by discipline, business unit, and country, which is the most reliable way to be notified of new postings in your target geography. Because Stantec's career path runs through a custom portal rather than a high-traffic third-party job board, the candidate volume per posting tends to be lower than identical roles posted to LinkedIn or Indeed alone, and a tailored application stands out more clearly. Resumes are scored against the job description's required skills, certifications, and education, and the structured profile fields are what recruiters filter on, not the raw resume text. Recruiters are organized by region and discipline, not by office, so a posting in the Edmonton office may be screened by a recruiter based in Calgary, Toronto, or Denver. Once you have applied for one role you can apply for additional roles using the same profile without re-entering work history; this is a significant convenience compared to systems like Workday that require re-entry per tenant. Stantec also runs a strong employee referral program; if you know someone at the company, ask them to submit you as a referral before you apply, because referred candidates are routed to the recruiter ahead of the unsolicited queue.

  • Use a single-column, standard-font (Arial, Calibri, Helvetica) PDF resume at 10.5 to 11.5 points. Avoid tables, two-column layouts, photos, headers, and footers; they confuse the parser and silently mis-route your application.
  • Upload your resume first, then let the parser populate your profile, then go back and correct every field by hand. Pay special attention to professional licenses, target office location, and dates.
  • List professional licenses, certifications, and memberships in a dedicated section as well as next to your name. Stantec recruiters and discipline leads filter on credentials; if your P.Eng., PE, AICP, LEED AP, or PMP is buried halfway down the resume, it may not be picked up correctly.
  • Mirror the job description's exact phrasing for required skills, codes, software, and certifications. The ATS scores keyword match and the screening recruiter uses the job description as the screening rubric.
  • Complete the structured Skills, Languages, and Education sections fully — recruiters filter on these structured fields, not on raw resume text.
  • Answer every screening question, including the optional ones. Optional EEO/EE self-identification is sometimes used in tiebreaks; work-authorization and license-status questions are hard filters and unanswered fields are treated as disqualifying.
  • Subscribe to job alerts for your target discipline, business unit, and country to learn about new postings within hours rather than days. Stantec's hiring cycles are continuous, not seasonal, but specific niche roles open and close quickly.
  • Apply selectively — three to five well-tailored applications across your target offices is far more effective than blasting twenty generic submissions. Recruiters notice mass application patterns and the company has a reasonably small recruiter pool that compares notes regionally.
  • If you have a Stantec employee referral, ensure they submit you through the internal referral system before you apply yourself; referred candidates are routed to the recruiter ahead of the cold queue.
  • Save your candidate profile credentials. Stantec's continuous-hiring cycle means you may apply to additional roles months or years later, and reusing your profile preserves your application history and makes follow-up easier.

Interview Culture

Interviewing at Stantec is professionally serious, technically rigorous, and reasonably humane.

The company is widely described by current and former employees as a place where the interview accurately reflects the day-to-day work, which is itself a meaningful signal about the culture. There are no gimmick brain teasers, no artificial pressure tactics, and no late-night case-study marathons; there are also very few shortcuts. The bar is technical competence proven through specific past project examples, client orientation proven through behavioral storytelling, and licensure or a credible path to licensure for any role that requires it. The typical interview funnel runs three to five stages over four to ten weeks. Stage one is a recruiter screen of 20 to 30 minutes covering background, work authorization, license status, target office, salary expectations, and motivation. Stage two is a technical interview with the discipline lead or hiring manager, often 45 to 60 minutes, focused on specific past projects, design decisions, and code or standard knowledge. Stage three is a panel interview with two to four interviewers from the office, typically including the discipline lead, a peer-level engineer or architect, and either a project manager or the office leader. For senior or principal roles, stage four is a meeting with a regional or sector vice president and may include a meet-and-greet with the broader team. Some Buildings and Infrastructure offices conduct an in-person walk-through of the office and an introduction to senior staff before the offer; others move entirely on video. Technical interviews are deep and specific. Expect to be asked to walk through one or two recent projects from your resume in detail. Prepare to describe the project's scope and budget, the design challenges, your specific role, the codes and standards applied, the calculations or models you produced, the conflicts or trade-offs you navigated with the client or contractor, and the outcome. Stantec interviewers will ask follow-up questions designed to test whether you actually did the work or merely watched someone else do it. Be ready to draw a sketch on a whiteboard or virtual whiteboard, do an order-of-magnitude calculation in your head, or talk through a code section by reference. Bring a notebook and pen even to video interviews; visible note-taking is read as a positive signal. Behavioral interviews follow a fairly standard STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format. Common prompts include: describe a project where the client changed scope mid-design and how you handled it; describe a time you had to push back on a contractor's submittal; describe how you mentored a junior engineer; describe a project that did not meet schedule and what you learned; describe how you handled a disagreement with a senior colleague. Stantec rewards quantified, honest answers over polished narratives. The company's culture is markedly less performative than most U.S. consultancies; understated competence is rewarded. For early-career and EIT-level candidates, the bar is fundamentals plus aptitude. Expect questions on undergraduate-level engineering science, basic code knowledge, units conversion, free-body diagrams, fluid mechanics, and questions about your final-year design project. Hiring managers know that EITs do not arrive fully formed and explicitly screen for curiosity, work ethic, and the ability to take direction without being defensive. Strong school projects, internship references, and any demonstrated initiative (a design-build student team, a thesis, a published technical paper, a technical society leadership role) carry real weight. For licensed senior hires, the bar shifts toward portfolio depth, client orientation, and book-of-business potential. Principal-track interviews explicitly probe whether you have client relationships you can bring with you, what your billable utilization has been, and how you have grown junior staff. Stantec is open about wanting people who can grow a practice, not just deliver hours. Quebec and bilingual roles will include a portion of the interview in French. The depth of the French component scales with the role; for a Quebec-only municipal project manager role expect the majority of the interview in French. For a federal procurement role based in Ottawa or Gatineau expect at least one panel member to switch to French to test working fluency. Do not overstate your French proficiency on the resume; the interview will surface it. Dress is business casual for video interviews and business professional for the final in-person panel, particularly for Buildings and senior client-facing roles. The Edmonton head office and most Canadian regional offices skew slightly more formal than the U.S. offices. Show up early, prepared with two or three thoughtful questions about the office's project portfolio, recent pursuits, and how the role fits the team's growth plans. Asking questions that reveal you have read recent press releases (Morrison Hershfield integration, Page acquisition, the Buildings practice's recent healthcare wins, water and wastewater capital programs in your target region) is consistently rewarded. Decision timelines are reasonable. After the final interview most offices return a verbal offer within one to three weeks, and offer letters follow shortly after. Negotiation is welcomed and expected; the company has clear pay bands by region and discipline and recruiters are professional about discussing them.

What Stantec Looks For

  • Professional licensure or a documented path to it. P.Eng. for Canadian engineering roles, PE for U.S. engineering roles, RA for architecture, AICP for planners, and discipline-specific credentials (LEED AP, ENV SP, PMP, CPESC, GISP) where relevant. The company will hire EITs and intern architects, but the expectation is steady progress to licensure.
  • Technical depth in a specific discipline rather than generalist breadth. Stantec organizes around discipline depth (mechanical, electrical, structural, civil, environmental, water, transportation, geotechnical, etc.) and interviewers consistently reward candidates with deep, demonstrable expertise in their stated discipline.
  • Project portfolio quality. Specific, verifiable, fee-bearing projects with named clients matter more than the absolute size of any single project. A portfolio of 12 well-executed mid-size projects with positive client outcomes beats one famous mega-project where you played a junior role.
  • Client orientation and the ability to communicate technical content to non-technical clients. Consultancy work is sold by trust and delivered by clarity. Candidates who can explain a foundation design or a wastewater treatment process to a public-works director without jargon are valued highly.
  • Code and standard fluency for the relevant jurisdiction. Stantec works under dozens of code regimes (CSA, NBC, IBC, ASHRAE, AASHTO, AWWA, NPDES, NEPA, CEAA/IAA, Eurocode, etc.). Demonstrated fluency in the codes you have actually designed under is a hard differentiator.
  • Billable utilization mindset. Mid-career and senior candidates should understand and be able to talk about chargeability, project budgets, fee management, and scope-creep control. Consulting economics is the company's economics.
  • Comfort with the acquisition-driven culture. Stantec has integrated more than 130 firms over its history and continues to acquire. Candidates who have worked in or through M&A integrations, who can navigate brand-legacy ambiguity, and who are comfortable working with colleagues who joined through different acquisitions are particularly well-suited.
  • English fluency for global and head-office roles, French fluency for Quebec and Canadian federal procurement work, and willingness to learn the regional language for Latin America, Middle East, and certain European projects. Bilingual French-English is a distinct, repeatedly cited advantage in Canadian operations.
  • Sustainability and climate-adaptation literacy. The Inflation Reduction Act, Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, biodiversity net gain in the U.K., and global ESG disclosure regimes are driving the fastest-growing segments of the business. Candidates who understand decarbonization, energy transition, climate resilience, and ESG advisory are in active demand.
  • Ethical and professional conduct. Engineering and architecture are regulated professions and Stantec takes professional ethics seriously. Behavioral interviews probe how candidates handle situations where commercial pressure conflicts with technical judgment, and the right answer is always to stand behind the engineering.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does Stantec use?
Stantec uses a custom careers portal at stantec.com/en/careers as the candidate-facing layer over its enterprise applicant tracking system. Candidates create a profile, upload a resume that the system parses into structured fields, complete location, work-authorization, license, and equity self-identification questions, and submit. Recruiters filter on the structured profile fields (skills, certifications, languages, education, location) and the keyword match between the resume and the job description, not on the raw resume text. A single-column, ATS-clean PDF resume in a standard sans-serif font is the safest format. After your initial application you can apply to additional roles using the same profile without re-entering your work history.
Do I need a P.Eng. or PE license to work at Stantec?
It depends on the role. For senior technical engineering roles in the Buildings, Infrastructure, Water, Environmental Services, and Energy & Resources business units, professional licensure (P.Eng. in Canada, PE in the United States, with the relevant province or state) is generally required because Stantec's engineering deliverables must be stamped by a licensed engineer in the jurisdiction of the project. For junior engineering roles, the company hires Engineers in Training (EITs) and supports the path to licensure with continuing-education funding, exam fee reimbursement, and structured mentorship. Architecture roles follow parallel rules: Registered Architect (RA) status is required for stamping work, with intern architects supported on the path to licensure. Many non-stamping roles (planners, ecologists, GIS analysts, scientists, project controls, technical writers, finance, IT, marketing) do not require professional licensure, though discipline-specific credentials (AICP, LEED AP, PMP, CPESC, GISP) are highly valued.
Where is Stantec headquartered and what languages are used at work?
Stantec is headquartered at 10220 103 Avenue NW in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The Edmonton head office and the vast majority of Stantec's roughly 450 global offices operate primarily in English. Quebec offices (Montreal, Quebec City, and approximately 20 other Quebec locations) operate in French. Canadian federal infrastructure projects increasingly require bilingual project teams to satisfy Official Languages Act obligations on certain federally funded contracts, so bilingual French-English candidates have a real advantage for federal procurement and any role interacting with the National Capital Region. Spanish is useful for Latin American work; Arabic helps in the Middle East offices. Working English fluency is mandatory for any global or head-office role.
How does Stantec compensation compare to its peers?
Compensation at Stantec is competitive against Canadian engineering benchmarks but typically below the highest-paying U.S. technology employers and below the most aggressive private-equity-backed engineering boutiques. The trade is stability, professional development support, project longevity, and the chance to deliver durable physical infrastructure under your own license. Compensation packages typically include a base salary aligned to a documented pay band by region and discipline, an annual short-term incentive plan tied to company and business-unit performance, an employee share purchase plan with company match, RRSP (Canada) or 401(k) (U.S.) contributions with employer match, professional dues reimbursement, license exam fee support, and continuing-education funding. Recruiters discuss salary openly during the screen and negotiation is expected; come prepared with a defensible target number and a justification rooted in your experience, license status, and competing offers.
What companies has Stantec acquired and why does that matter for candidates?
Stantec has completed more than 130 acquisitions across its history. The transformative deals include Anshen + Allen in 2009 (which seeded the U.S. Buildings practice in California), Burt Hill in 2012 (further U.S. Buildings expansion), MWH Global in 2016 for approximately USD 793 million (which made Stantec a global top-three water consultancy), Cardno in 2018 (environmental services and Asia-Pacific), and a 2024 cluster including Morrison Hershfield (a long-established Canadian multidiscipline firm with a marquee bridges and buildings portfolio) and Page Southerland Page for approximately USD 345 million (a Texas-based architecture and engineering firm that materially deepened the U.S. Buildings, Federal, and Science and Technology practices). For candidates this matters because many of the 33,000 employees joined the company through an acquisition, integration is a constant feature of the workplace, and brand-legacy variation across offices is real. Comfort with M&A integration and the ability to navigate legacy brand identities is a genuine advantage.
Who does Stantec compete with for talent and projects?
Stantec is benchmarked against AECOM (Los Angeles, NYSE:ACM, approximately 52,000 employees), WSP Global (Montreal, TSX:WSP, approximately 73,000 employees), Jacobs Solutions (Dallas, NYSE:J, approximately 45,000 employees), Arcadis (Amsterdam, AMS:ARCAD, approximately 36,000 employees), and to a lesser extent Tetra Tech, HDR, GHD, and Ramboll. Stantec is the smallest of the global majors but punches above its weight in water (strongest practice, anchored by MWH Global), environmental services, and Canadian buildings. The company's reputation is for technical depth, professional discipline, and stable employment rather than the highest compensation or the most aggressive growth posture.
How long does the Stantec hiring process take?
The typical funnel runs three to five stages over four to ten weeks from initial application to verbal offer, with another two to four weeks for background checks, license verification, reference checks, and start-date alignment. Stage one is a recruiter screen of 20 to 30 minutes. Stage two is a technical interview with the discipline lead or hiring manager, typically 45 to 60 minutes. Stage three is a panel interview with two to four interviewers from the office. For senior or principal roles, stage four is a meeting with a regional or sector vice president and possibly a meet-and-greet with the broader team. International relocations and roles requiring security clearances or specialty license verification can extend the timeline by several weeks.
What sustainability, ESG, and climate-adaptation work does Stantec do?
Sustainability and climate adaptation is Stantec's fastest-growing market segment. The company delivers ESG advisory, climate-resilience planning, decarbonization strategy, energy-transition engineering (hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, battery storage, transmission upgrades for renewables, small modular reactors), water-infrastructure resilience, ecology and biodiversity work (including biodiversity net gain in the United Kingdom), contaminated-sites remediation, nature-based solutions, and Indigenous engagement frameworks for Canadian projects. Demand has been amplified by the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, and parallel U.K. and EU regulatory frameworks. Junior and mid-career professionals in environmental, water, and sustainability disciplines are in particularly active demand, and the company has visibly invested in growing these practices.
Does Stantec sponsor work visas?
Stantec sponsors work authorization on a role-by-role and country-by-country basis. In Canada, the company commonly supports Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) and intra-company transfer (ICT) work permits for technically scarce specialties and senior leadership hires, and it is a registered employer for the Global Talent Stream where applicable. In the United States, Stantec sponsors H-1B visas for specific specialty technical roles (most commonly senior engineering specialties), TN visas for qualifying Canadian and Mexican professionals under USMCA, and L-1 intra-company transfers for international relocations. Junior and EIT-level roles are generally filled with candidates who already have work authorization. The work-authorization screening question on the application is a hard filter, so be honest and accurate; a 'requires sponsorship' answer is not automatically disqualifying for senior technical roles but is for most early-career postings.
What is it like to work at Stantec day-to-day?
Stantec is widely described by current and former employees as a stable, technically serious, professionally well-run consultancy. The day-to-day is largely structured around chargeable project work, project meetings, design reviews, client coordination, and the rhythms of permitting and regulatory submittals. Billable utilization expectations are typically 70 to 85 percent for technical staff, with lower targets for principals and business-development leads. Hours are generally reasonable by industry standards, though deadline-driven peaks (proposal pursuits, regulatory submittal dates, construction administration crises) do happen. Office culture varies meaningfully by location and by the legacy firm that originally seeded the office, but the company-wide tone is understated, technically credible, and reasonably collegial. Hybrid work is common across most offices with a typical pattern of two to three days in the office. Tenure is high relative to industry peers; long-serving engineers and architects with 15-plus years at the company (or its predecessor firms) are common.

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Related Resources

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Sources

  1. Stantec Inc. — Careers — Stantec Inc.
  2. Stantec Inc. — About Us / Leadership — Stantec Inc.
  3. Stantec Inc. — News (Page Southerland Page acquisition, 2024) — Stantec Inc.
  4. Stantec Inc. — Investor Relations (TSX:STN / NYSE:STN) — Stantec Inc. Investor Relations
  5. APEGA — The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta — Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta
  6. NCEES — National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying — National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying