Engineer For a DOT
Engineer For a DOT
(OP)
Does anyone have experience working as an engineer for a DOT. I am recently out of school and thinking about getting a job with them. My concern is I want to be a designer and I am worried I will review plans and inspect construction sites, but not design roads. Anyone think this is a good career path or should I stick with the private sector?





RE: Engineer For a DOT
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Engineer For a DOT
Haveing seen some of the DOT designs around here, I want someone with experence.
RE: Engineer For a DOT
RE: Engineer For a DOT
The 95% seems really low. Our "city engineer" has an associates degree in marketing. Not sure he can even add and subtract. If he "designed" anything I'd be nervous. At the county level, the guy making the decisions never finished high school. At the state level there are engineers, but they (without a PE) administer programs that require a PE signature. Our DOT farms out 100% of engineering.
David
RE: Engineer For a DOT
Doesn't mean you can't learn a trick or two working for them, but don't think you'll get a govt job as a design engineer.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Engineer For a DOT
RE: Engineer For a DOT
RE: Engineer For a DOT
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Engineer For a DOT
it is (IMHO) extremely hard for someone inexperienced to review someone else's work. maybe you guys have a document that aligns requirement with analysis (ie report para ref). this would be enormously helpful but quite difficult to prepare and would potenitally miss the interactions between requirements.
maybe i'm wrong (and i'll take my hits) but i think most governemtn oversight is little more than a rubber stamp, the technical know-how has been outsourced and i think most is done on the personal relationship between appliciant and overseer.
if it's the only/best job going, take it, don't expect to design anything. take the opportunity to learn something of the business and to make contacts.
gl
RE: Engineer For a DOT
I work for a public electrical utility and would not recommend this to Civil Engineers just starting out, Electrical maybe - Civil no. Our group is very small, and most of our work is done by consultants. We have to formulate the scopes and make sure the designs are appropriate. This takes a lot of experience, and often we have to wade through conflicting recommendations from different consultants. We defininately do not just rubber stamp plans. I wish we could! It is pretty tough to know how much to review and how to hold consultants accountable for their mistakes. We can't just say a PE sealed it so we are off the hook if a chunk of concrete falls and kills someone, or if a lengthly generating outage occurs as a result of a mistake. We have the deep pockets and will certainly bear the brunt of such things.
RE: Engineer For a DOT
RE: Engineer For a DOT
DOT employment will also show how designs hold up over the years...how the project functions and what maintenance is required .
Three to five years of this field experience will then make you a much better designer and engineer for the DOT or a consultant
RE: Engineer For a DOT
RE: Engineer For a DOT
The smartest people I have ever worked with were at that DOT. So was the opposite end of the spectrum. As a whole, the state workers deserved every joke you've ever heard about them. State workers are very difficult to fire. I think the documentation needed just isn't worth the effort.
A lot will depend your attitude. I felt the bar was set pretty low, so I took that to mean I could perform however well I wanted and rise however high I wanted within the organization. This also made me feel better about the days where I was running on only 3 cylinders (due to illness or whatever). At least I wasn't bring down the curve.
Individual performance is often times less important the "time-in-grade" for promotions or raises. Some people don't handle that very well.
Your pay will generally be less and you benefits will be better. Your work/life balance will probably be unmatched.
As far as design work, that can vey dramatically between DOTs. You'll have to figure that out for your specific DOT. Asking what percentage of design they do in-house should provide all you need to know.
Working at a DOT is what you make of it, but mostly it depends on whether you can do what you think you want to do (i.e., design work).
RE: Engineer For a DOT
RE: Engineer For a DOT
I and many, many others gained our licenses while working for a DOT.
That said, everyone above is right when they talk about DOT design work moving increasingly to consultants. If design is the be-all and end-all for you, that may not be the job for you.
If, on the other hand, you want to experience more of the real world and not just your structural analysis software, a few years in a DOT can really get you a nice varied background that, as others have said, will make you even more of an asset when you run away screaming to a consulting firm. The trick there is to make sure you get to do enough design that you're still employable by a design firm when you get out.
Another thing to consider is that if you do go to a design-heavy DOT, you might end up encapsulated in their design office and don't get that broad experience after all. But they nevertheless should have cross-training opportunities that you wouldn't get in a private design firm.
Hg
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RE: Engineer For a DOT
But when it comes down to the project, everyone really is trying to figure out the best way to go about getting it done. This could be a positive depending on how you go about trying to get more experience.
Myself, I am glad I went private the whole way after graduating.
B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil and Structural Engineering
http://bwengr.com
RE: Engineer For a DOT
But, most of the engineers simply manage engineering projects (not to say there aren't bright folks working there). Almost clawed my eyeballs out with the lack of meaningful work coupled with the incomprehensible devotion to stupid policies. Perhaps it's not the same every government job, though.
I've found that my overall job satisfaction has been higher working at companies doing design work. That's why I got an engineering degree in the first place.