Bechtel Corporation Graduate Programs & Internships

Bechtel is trusted engineering, procurement, construction, and project management partner to industry and government. 

Mission statement: Bechtel helps our customers deliver projects of purpose that create a lasting positive legacy. These are projects that create jobs and grow economies; improve the resiliency of the world's infrastructure; connect communities to resources and opportunity; get us closer to net zero; tackle critical environmental challenges; protect people and the planet; and accelerate progress to make the world a cleaner, greener, safer place.

With consistent values in safety, quality, ethics, and diversity, Bechtel is on a mission to solve the biggest challenges of our lifetime, deliver excellence to our customers, lead the way in innovation, and advance the careers of our biggest asset—you.

Size and presence: Since 1898, we have helped customers complete more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries on all seven continents that have created jobs, grown economies, improved the resiliency of the world's infrastructure, increased access to energy, resources, and vital services, and made the world a safer, cleaner place.

Best known for: Bechtel serves the Infrastructure; Nuclear, Security & Environmental; Energy; and Mining & Metals markets. Our services span from initial planning and investment, through start-up and operations. For more than 60 years, Bechtel has delivered projects in every Australian state and territory across a portfolio spanning mines, minerals processing facilities, LNG installations, refineries, chemical plants, power stations, procurement services, and telecommunications infrastructure.

The good bits: Nice work-life balance flexible job hours international work opportunities.

The not-so-good bits: Since project-based, job security.

The Bechtel Story

Like many great entrepreneurs, Warren A. Bechtel would take a few frightening steps toward failure before he found the path to success. In 1898, a nearly bankrupt 25-year-old Bechtel and his pregnant wife, Clara, left Peabody, Kansas, and headed 100 miles (161 kilometers) south in search of construction work and new opportunities. Thus began an epic journey that would span more than a century of building, five generations of his family, and eventually much of the globe.

Founded in 1898, Bechtel is a global engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company. The company works on projects that range from civil infrastructure, power, telecommunications, and government services. Notable projects include the Hoover Dam, the Channel Tunnel, and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Four generations of family members have run the company that Warren Bechtel founded. Headquartered in San Francisco, Bechtel employs 53,000 people in nearly 50 countries.”

Bechtel has always functioned as a family-owned company. Its founder, Warren A. Bechtel, started as an employee of the burgeoning United States railroad industry in 1898 after his Oklahoma cattle ranch failed. Over the next 20 years, he built up a sizable contracting business that specialized in railroad and highway building. After building the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, the company was a major contractor during World War II building Liberty ships under the leadership of Stephen David Bechtel, Sr., the founder’s son. After the War, the Company continued to expand in the energy sector completing projects such as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the 1970s when George Shultz was CEO.”

Culture & vibe

The social unrest of 2020 called us to look deeper into our business to see how we could accelerate fairness at Bechtel. Too many of our colleagues, partners, customers, and neighbours continued to experience racism, discrimination, and bias in their daily lives, their workplaces, and their communities.

We are approaching our Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) strategy with a new sense of urgency—not as an initiative, but for long-term sustainability, managing it with the same focus on results that we bring to our projects. We have organized our efforts into a three-pillar action plan.

Three pillars

Each pillar is designed to accelerate the creation of a fair and equitable workplace culture where every colleague feels valued, respected, welcomed, and treated fairly.

• We will attract, engage, and retain a diverse workforce that reflects the makeup of society, our customers, and the communities where we live, work, and serve.
• We will foster an inclusive, bias-free workplace aligned with our VV&Cs where everyone feels valued, respected, welcomed, and treated fairly.
• We will maintain a governance process, ensuring we employ best practices, and bring transparency and accountability to our challenges, plans, and progress toward meeting our D&I goals.

Career prospects

We know that it takes the right blend of talent, knowledge, service, and experience to tackle some of the biggest and toughest jobs in the world. Founded in 1898, Bechtel has worked on more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries on all seven continents. Today, our 50,000+ employees work with customers, partners, and suppliers on hundreds of diverse projects in nearly 40 countries.

Our business and corporate services professionals use their ideas and ingenuity to create innovative, practical, and cost-effective solutions for our business process as well as our customers. Bechtel offers opportunities in several business areas including administration, business development, communications, finance, accounting, human resources, legal, and quality and risk management among others.

Bechtel has a long tradition of technical and engineering excellence. Our engineers use their ideas and ingenuity to design innovative, practical, and cost-effective solutions for our customers. Engineering disciplines at Bechtel include chemical and process, civil, control systems, electrical, environmental, geotechnical, mechanical, nuclear, offshore, plant design, project, structural and more.

Bechtel’s construction teams are proud of their role as builders, completing projects around the world—often under difficult conditions in challenging locations. Supervisors, superintendents, and field engineers in civil, electrical, mechanical, piping, rigging, welding, and quality assurance are just some of the on-site pros who bring a project to life.

Social Contributions    

By integrating our unique knowledge and capabilities in engineering, technology, and construction, we develop innovative and sustainable solutions to turn ambitious concepts into real projects and help you achieve your goals.

Building a sustainable future means having a relentless commitment to innovation. We challenge ourselves to decarbonize every project while generating cost-efficiencies to bring greater value.

We are proud to have helped deliver pioneering renewable projects to help customers on their path to net zero, including landmark projects like Ivanpah, the largest solar farm of its time, and the 695-megawatt Keeyask Generating System. Ivanpah continues to reduce carbon emissions by more than 400,000 tons per year, while Keeyask when completed, will provide clean, renewable, and reliable energy to 400,000 homes.

We’ll also work with you to integrate digital tools and data that are all around us for developing smart cities that evolve with humanity and ensure communities thrive. From helping deliver 5G, beyond master-planning, rethinking rail, and fighting floods we’re there to support you every step of the way.

Building resilient societies

Next to mitigation, adaptation is one of society’s top challenges, and we believe that poor infrastructure, both physical and natural, undermines a society’s ability to develop and grow sustainably.

Our customers are searching for customized solutions to adsorb natural hazards while still retaining essential infrastructure and its intended services. We design, build and restore to help societies not only adapt and recover faster but also to build back stronger, greener, and more resilient.