If you want to become a rotating equipment specialist, working for an EPC company is probably not the best choice. From what I've seen most of the work that rotating equipment specialists do at EPC companies involves transferring information from a process data sheet onto a mechanical data sheet, incorporating requirements from client specifications, assembling requisition packages, then reviewing the vendor data as it comes in. Training budgets are typically quite small. Lots of meetings/administrative work. Additionally, on large EPC projects the engineering can become "assembly line" type work, so you might end up just preparing API 682 Seal Plan data sheets, one after the next.

I think the fastest way to gain expertise in rotating machinery would be to work as a rotating equipment engineer at a facility that has a wide variety of pumps/compressors/turbines.


-Christine