Guidance beginning PE
Guidance beginning PE
(OP)
Hello everyone,
I'm looking for some guidance/advice as I'm just at the beginning of my PE carrier path. I recently obtained the PE license and I want to start working on my own (partially). I also work for an engineering company where I do not seal anything (my boss is a PE).
1. Is it even possible to work for someone and working on your own projects? There is no conflict here ?
2. Should I open a business in order to do my own PE work (design, structural evaluation, etc. ? Or it can be done without having a business (1099)? My boss will not be involved in my work at all.
3. What insurance would you recommend me to get? The projects I will be working on rather small jobs (residential, small commercial, sometimes steel connections).
Thank you for your input.
I'm looking for some guidance/advice as I'm just at the beginning of my PE carrier path. I recently obtained the PE license and I want to start working on my own (partially). I also work for an engineering company where I do not seal anything (my boss is a PE).
1. Is it even possible to work for someone and working on your own projects? There is no conflict here ?
2. Should I open a business in order to do my own PE work (design, structural evaluation, etc. ? Or it can be done without having a business (1099)? My boss will not be involved in my work at all.
3. What insurance would you recommend me to get? The projects I will be working on rather small jobs (residential, small commercial, sometimes steel connections).
Thank you for your input.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
But if you do go ahead here are my answers:
1. Generally yes but it depends on your association's rules. For example, in my jurisdiction the work would have to be substantially different from your what your current employer does in either type of work or in geographic area served (i.e. you wont be taking work away from your employer). You also need to notify your employer about your activities. Only if they give you the greenlight is it acceptable.
2. Yes. If you plan to run a business treat it as such and open up a c-corp with all the associated legal / insurance jazz. In addition, you'll need to apply for a CofA (or equivalent) via your business before you start to offer services to the public.
3. My association technically doesn't require insurance but if you do not carry insurance you need to notify every single client you ever deal with as such and get them to confirm in writing that this is agreeable to them. However, I truly dont recommend this route and would suggest you get both general liability insurance and errors/omissions insurance. Talk to your broker about policies and coverages.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
RE: Guidance beginning PE
Your supervisor will probably be leery of your moonlighting activities, so asking for permission won't score you any points in the company. Most companies want your full attention. Even if you have extra time, you have limited mental bandwidth and energy.
Even if your supervisor is OK with moonlighting, I would advise against it. I've done some of this over the years. It's interesting at first, but it's easy to become overwhelmed. I look at this part of my career as a mistake.
If your current position isn't enough to keep you "fully engaged" (That seem to often drive such desires to moonlight.) then you might consider looking for one that is more challenging.
If you're determined to be an owner, then I'd recommend getting 5-10 more years of experience, a lot of savings put away, and start your own full time company.
Good luck.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
Either way, you should keep them in the loop. You don't want them to find out on their own.
As for self-employed or employed in the second job, that depends on who hires you and what they demand. If self-employed, you need to have insurance. The problem is, that is expensive even if you only work one hour a year. Same for software licenses etc. Self-employment has a pretty high fixed cost that requires quite a lot of hours working to cover. So you really have to be sure to work a LOT to make it worthwhile financially. Better to be employed so the employer has the insurance and other fixed cost. I did the latter once, but there ended up to be too many conflicts of interest and at some point the "side employer" wanted me to become full time and I decided against.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
Thank you,
RE: Guidance beginning PE
But that's just me.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
How deep is your client list? If you leave, will they follow you or stay with your boss? In other words, are they your clients or are they the company's clients and they just happen to work with you at the moment? You don't want to go anywhere unless you either have a deep contact list or you're certain there's an under-served market that you can snap up. Even then, there's no sure thing.
If you just got your PE, wait a couple of years at least. You may be licensed, but that doesn't mean you're ready to go out on your own. When you do, the safety net is gone. Right now if you make a mistake your boss should catch it and if they don't, it's his/her neck on the block - not yours. Even if you start sealing the work, you'll be relatively shielded from civil issues as an employee of the company (that's a whole other topic). But if you go out on your own, it's on you. Working a good lawyer can help protect your personal assets, but single member LLCs/PLLCs are tricky things and the slightest accidental mismanagement of the business side can let an opposing attorney 'pierce the corporate veil' and take your house and life savings. If you're not ready to take that chance, don't go out on your own. Wait until you can find a partner or two and make a go at it as a full time business.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
100% disagree. As long as your activities outside of office hours do not affect your employer, it is none of their business what someone does on their own time. Owners of firms typically become more businessman than engineer. Businessmen have a habit of thinking they they have a right to their cut of everything. Why would any employer willingly grant an employee permission to do work on his own when he could make money off the employee doing the same work in the office. Only the rarest. There is nothing unethical about taking on work that is outside the scope of your firms typical client. For sure, protect your employer from any sort of liability with the appropriate insurance. Unethical, NO.
I will also add that employers can also benefit from employees moonlighting. Moonlighting can serve as free training for employees. Someone who is taking on their own contracts and stamping their own work outside of the office is much more motivated to study the code, hone their skills and be a much more careful engineer rather than someone who is content to remain someone's employee. They are also presumably exposing themselves to different varieties of work and experience that can easily become an asset to their employer.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
Depends on whether or not you want to follow / buy into your association's codes of ethics. For example, here is a snippet from mine which puts what you are suggesting squarely in unethical territory / grounds for misconduct:
RE: Guidance beginning PE
That's how I used to think. IMO, that line of reasoning misses an important part: Engineering is not a wage-earner type of career.
Engineers must be creative and mentally "all there." They are high enough in the leadership structure that they must be fully engaged. Inevitably the moonlighter's activities will come into some sort of conflict with the day job. Edit: I guess what I'm saying is "do not affect your employer" is very unlikely.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
I won't disagree that there is moonlighting requires some forethought, but to use our typical parlance, that is "means and methods".
You have an unfortunate professional association whose rules must have been written by successful owners trying to eliminate additional competition. Business owners can not make money without employees to do the work at a reduced cost.
Two practical issues,
1. Cost of living in our society is currently based on two wage earners. A single engineering salary unfortunately does not suffice raise a family. One either has to work for himself (operate a business) or supplement the normal income somehow.
2. Operating a business may not be the best option for many people, but for those that do aspire to that, one has two options -- if moonlighting is considered unethical, then there only option is to build up a client list while working for their employer and then leave with those same clients. I would think that more unethical than building up one own clients on the side and then separating with no prejudice to the employers clients.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
RE: Guidance beginning PE
I haven't dealt with this recently, but at two different firms I was at years ago plus when I was working for myself for a while, our professional liability insurance could decline coverage if the firm knew that a professional employee was moonlighting in the same field. I don't remember the language, limitations, etc., but I remember reading it.
Here are a couple discussions related to this issue:
https://www.ejcdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/X...
https://jcj-insurance.com/2017/06/moonlighting-wha...
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"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill
RE: Guidance beginning PE
I doubt it was a absolute restriction since there is more than one option out there for moonlighters to procure their own profession liability insurance.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
One policy in particular (when I was a partner in a firm back in the late 1980s/early 1990s) did have an absolute restriction on professional moonlighting. The policy I had when I worked for myself (starting about 10 years ago) was pretty restrictive, but not absolute. The third policy (early 1980s) is vaguest in my memory, but that company also had a "terminate for professional moonlighting" clause in their policies. I just don't remember the language of these policies.
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"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill
RE: Guidance beginning PE
So if your firm has a rule against it, it's not up to you to decide what may or may not affect the employer. Mostly because the problem with ignorance is that you're ignorant of what can affect the employer. I don't use ignorant in an inflammatory capacity here - most people just don't know what they don't know know. So if I accept a job and a condition of the job is no moonlighting, and I moonlight, I've committed an ethical breach.
And if you're working for a firm where the sole purpose of the firm is to squeeze every last dime it can out of it's people (I know they do exist in much larger numbers than anyone likes to believe), then you should probably work somewhere else anyway. They clearly have no loyalty to their employees, and if you moonlight while working for them and an issue arises, they'll almost certainly take you to court without a second thought if they think they can get any blood from your turnip.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
My thoughts exactly. In any case, why does this association get to prescribe the ethical rules?
RE: Guidance beginning PE
Good luck arguing against decades of IP precedent in court. Without a release or agreement otherwise, IP developed by salaried engineers stateside is property of their employer regardless if its on the clock or after. The reason moonlighting without notice is unethical is that your side work opens clients up to litigation from your employer for illegal use of prints, reports, or other products that you created.
IME most employers could care less about moonlighting so long as the engineer is open/honest about the scope of their work, and will gladly sign a two-way release. If the OP's wont, then I'd advise going elsewhere bc there are plenty of employers for good engineers that will.
Another trap many fall into regarding engineering IP is failing to read/follow severance agreements. Employers today commonly stipulate periods of a year or three after employment ends in which they own any IP you develop. For my employer that wanted one year's IP in exchange for six months' salary I had no qualms about signing bc it was a lot of money that wasn't particularly limiting since I dont stamp anything and patents/copyright are easily owned by others. For the employer that wanted two years tho, $5k wasn't nearly enough.
Insert ad here for a day or ten of continuing legal training annually, and disclaimer to consult with an attorney specializing in corporate IP law, not the local chicken-farmer who chases ambulances, litigates divorces, and defends petty criminals on the side.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
So the engineer is responsible for the parlous state of the legal industry and for unethical behaviour (IMO) of the employer?
RE: Guidance beginning PE
In the AEC industry, and for structural engineers specifically, there tends to be very little specific IP that can be claimed in any of our designs. I'd say 90% to 95% of the designs developed by structural engineers are an amalgamation of industry standards to produce a one off design. Our designs are not patented, and most just rely on automatic copyright without registration. So the employer would have to prove that it was completed in the scope of employment to claim ownership. There are exceptions - the SidePlate, for instance - where I can get in trouble for mimicking a patented design, or if I design a proprietary connection based on an issue that surfaced at work, then I'm on the hook and my employer could sue for ownership of the copyright/patent and damages as applicable. But taking a run-of-the-mill commission from an architect to provide consulting services...the "in the scope of employment" piece of it gets tough to prove unless the employment contract/agreement between the employee and the employer clearly state that ALL structural engineering performed by the employee at any time and in any place during belongs to the employer. Of course if I answered phone calls about it at my desk, used a company computer/software, or otherwise involved my employer (even tangentially), they could have a decent case.
The odds of that blowing back on the client in this case is still pretty slim, though. Structural moonlighting jobs are rarely worth more than a few hundred bucks...a few thousand if you're lucky. 10 story buildings are hard enough for small one or two engineer shops running full time and with a sound reputation to get...some guy or gal doing it nights and weekends generally won't get one. So what kind of damages will the employer really be suing for?
In general terms you're right - because general terms can include the invention of the next iPhone which would absolutely be worth suing over - but for a junior structural engineer looking at picking up some work on the side I think the risk you're talking about is vanishingly small.
That's not to say I think it's ethical - it's not unless you go through the steps we've talked about to make sure everyone is informed and in agreement.
RE: Guidance beginning PE
I understand that the insurance for a guy like me will be very expensive and it would be difficult to have enough work only working part time.
I decided to focus ONLY on steel drafting for now. Is LLC sufficient to run a business of this type?
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RE: Guidance beginning PE