disgruntleeng1
Structural
- Sep 29, 2021
- 1
To Anyone Who Wants to Listen,
If I had to summarize my 15 years of structural engineering career experience in one word, it would be "passionless". But more specifically, I would say that working in this profession in the US for 15 years now, I have struggled to find any interest in the skillset and technical specification of construction members and materials that allows me to derive comfort in knowing that I have participated in a project. Let me back and outline some of my experience in arriving at this assessment. I graduated in 2006 with a BS in Civil from a widely accredited and renowned engineering school on the west cost of the US. Upon graduation I sought out the most respected of engineering firms and dedicated my career to learning and growing in a highly competitive and focused job in Southern California. Where I worked on design teams for schools, high profile healthcare institutions, theatrical projects, international projects, and mixed use retail and multifamily. Of course 2009 hit the industry hard and made all of us rethink our paths from which I opted to stick it out in the outer edges of the Northern frontier, where I found work in Anchorage for a little over a year. Of course giving my experience in classified military and extreme cold weather environments. My migration from the fiscal and social isolation of Alaska living then led me to the mountain states, finally settling down in Denver in 2011. Today I have worked in both design and construction project management building mostly high density multi-family (par for the course as it seems like that's all investors want to build these days).
As of late, while working as a freelance structural engineering consultant, I have been having serious thoughts questioning my passion to continue my pursuits in this industry. Faced with increased tension from builders, owners, jurisdictions all looking for different qualities of design and implementation of services. Looking back on my career involvement and projects that I have participated on and now see constructed and occupied one would think that I derive a sense of satisfaction in having a hand in the development of the built environments. But you would be distinctly wrong!
So maybe I am standing at a cross-roads in my career path, and I wanted to invoke the responses of other engineers (yourself or people you maybe know of) that have struggled with finding passion in your(their) career working as engineers. What do you find interesting in this business, or more generally what keeps you going to work every day (excluding the pay check of course): RFIs, assembling design calcs, drafting, layout and redlining, contract writing, project management? On a day to day basis what do you get the most satisfaction doing?
If I could name one part this job that I enjoy doing, it has nothing to do with engineering. I love writing/managing contracts, managing budgets, marketing, reviewing accounting and payroll, and scheduling resources. I hate performing calculations, checking headers, sizing beams, analyzing shear wall hold down capacities, inspecting footing rebar to name a few.
Is there hope for me in this industry, how does one transition, with such limited highly technical experience base? In this market, there appears to be a demand to hire only highly qualified master degree specialists in every professional career, for which I am not really interested in returning to college anymore to have some inexperienced adjunct faculty professor talked to about the state of the market as if his experiences are relevant or the colleges outdated/antiquated curriculum has any relevance to the skillsets that are truly needed in today's market (something that I could also go off about too, will save that for a different forum thread). I have to believe that there is somewhere for a lateral transferrer to go these days, despite the obvious positions that have been highlighted on this forum: inside sales and construction management. I feel like I am missing something here and looking to hear real world impressions and interpretations of this industry, including: the plight of increased risk sensitivity by jurisdictions enforcing more and more conditions of permitting beyond the basic responsibility of life safety, working to satisfy or dissuade pre-conceived engineering notions by contractors that our industry have engrained in construction, or informing owners expectations and real world code challenges need to met with pragmatism.
Thanks,
If I had to summarize my 15 years of structural engineering career experience in one word, it would be "passionless". But more specifically, I would say that working in this profession in the US for 15 years now, I have struggled to find any interest in the skillset and technical specification of construction members and materials that allows me to derive comfort in knowing that I have participated in a project. Let me back and outline some of my experience in arriving at this assessment. I graduated in 2006 with a BS in Civil from a widely accredited and renowned engineering school on the west cost of the US. Upon graduation I sought out the most respected of engineering firms and dedicated my career to learning and growing in a highly competitive and focused job in Southern California. Where I worked on design teams for schools, high profile healthcare institutions, theatrical projects, international projects, and mixed use retail and multifamily. Of course 2009 hit the industry hard and made all of us rethink our paths from which I opted to stick it out in the outer edges of the Northern frontier, where I found work in Anchorage for a little over a year. Of course giving my experience in classified military and extreme cold weather environments. My migration from the fiscal and social isolation of Alaska living then led me to the mountain states, finally settling down in Denver in 2011. Today I have worked in both design and construction project management building mostly high density multi-family (par for the course as it seems like that's all investors want to build these days).
As of late, while working as a freelance structural engineering consultant, I have been having serious thoughts questioning my passion to continue my pursuits in this industry. Faced with increased tension from builders, owners, jurisdictions all looking for different qualities of design and implementation of services. Looking back on my career involvement and projects that I have participated on and now see constructed and occupied one would think that I derive a sense of satisfaction in having a hand in the development of the built environments. But you would be distinctly wrong!
So maybe I am standing at a cross-roads in my career path, and I wanted to invoke the responses of other engineers (yourself or people you maybe know of) that have struggled with finding passion in your(their) career working as engineers. What do you find interesting in this business, or more generally what keeps you going to work every day (excluding the pay check of course): RFIs, assembling design calcs, drafting, layout and redlining, contract writing, project management? On a day to day basis what do you get the most satisfaction doing?
If I could name one part this job that I enjoy doing, it has nothing to do with engineering. I love writing/managing contracts, managing budgets, marketing, reviewing accounting and payroll, and scheduling resources. I hate performing calculations, checking headers, sizing beams, analyzing shear wall hold down capacities, inspecting footing rebar to name a few.
Is there hope for me in this industry, how does one transition, with such limited highly technical experience base? In this market, there appears to be a demand to hire only highly qualified master degree specialists in every professional career, for which I am not really interested in returning to college anymore to have some inexperienced adjunct faculty professor talked to about the state of the market as if his experiences are relevant or the colleges outdated/antiquated curriculum has any relevance to the skillsets that are truly needed in today's market (something that I could also go off about too, will save that for a different forum thread). I have to believe that there is somewhere for a lateral transferrer to go these days, despite the obvious positions that have been highlighted on this forum: inside sales and construction management. I feel like I am missing something here and looking to hear real world impressions and interpretations of this industry, including: the plight of increased risk sensitivity by jurisdictions enforcing more and more conditions of permitting beyond the basic responsibility of life safety, working to satisfy or dissuade pre-conceived engineering notions by contractors that our industry have engrained in construction, or informing owners expectations and real world code challenges need to met with pragmatism.
Thanks,
