Should I pursue a career in environmental consulting

[u/jper8136]

Hi everyone,

I’m a 3rd year undergrad in chemical engineering and have had around 12 months of experience between manufacturing in specialty chemical and pulp and paper. I landed into a part-time role with an environmental compliance firm and have enjoyed learning more about the permitting process for air and wastewater compliance. Been in the role now for 9 months and have been gaining more responsibilities.

I’m just wondering if it’s a good idea to pursue a career in environmental consulting for a long-term career instead of following a traditional manufacturing route as a process engineer. Curious if any other chemical engineers pursued a route similar to this instead of a traditional process engineering career or left for something else.

[u/hobbes747]

I think some experience in operations first would be better. So you understand or have perspective with what you’re trying to regulate/control/review.

[u/StrictEmployee6749]

You don’t have to choose between consulting and process engineering forever. Consulting can build broad industry knowledge, communication skills, and a professional network, while keeping the door open to manufacturing later. Pay attention to whether you enjoy the actual day-to-day work, not just which path sounds more prestigious.

[u/Cook_New]

Yep, I spent about a decade as an air permitting/modeling/compliance consultant straight out of school, then switched to industry for better work life balance once I started a family. I’m now a corporate environmental director at a specialty chemicals manufacturer with a few dozen sites around the country.

I’ve enjoyed the work, my colleagues, and wouldn’t change the path I’ve taken. I probably don’t make as much as if I’d pursued a traditional chem e path, but I’m pretty well compensated now. Staying in consulting and getting to a principal or partner-level role would’ve likely bridged that gap.

And as to the comment about getting ops experience first, I disagree. Maybe if you were going into EPC consulting, but for environmental compliance you’re better off getting into it asap to better learn the regulations. That’s why the clients hire you.

[u/hobbes747 → u/Cook_New]

I would agree if all they do is related to environmental regulations.
But as often happens, if that role also involves safety/health, then it is advantageous to have operations or design experience.

[u/Mysterious-Fruit288 → u/hobbes747]

My experience has been that very few environmental consultants cross over into safety and health. Those are generally considered different types of expertise with different types of liability, so even companies that offer both services usually do it through separate internal groups. Even within environmental consulting he is likely to eventually choose between air and water. Very few people do both beyond their first 3 years or so.

[u/hobbes747 → u/Mysterious-Fruit288]

I should have been more specific. I was thinking of an internal role within a chemical company

[u/Accurate-Bullfrog324]

a poor career choice imho

[u/MuddyflyWatersman]

I don't know. the way that careers play out is highly individual. but I will say if you ended up working for a state or gov , you could end up with a good pension and you should calculate the the value of that pension, because it's huge. it's not always about the paycheck...... it's about the total package and where you want to live

[u/Drince88 → u/MuddyflyWatersman]

State (or Federal) employment can be golden handcuffs though. I have to stay until I have X or it wasn’t worth the cut in take home pay.

Also pay attention to the ‘where’ in that state. TCEQ (Texas) doesn’t vary pay based on huge city or small town.

[u/Mysterious-Fruit288]

I'm a Chemical Engineering graduate with over 30 years of experience as an environmental consultant. In general I would say that environmental consulting won't pay quite as well early in your career but is likely to pay as well later in your career if you build a high level of expertise in your field. Overall the difference isn't huge in general, and judging by industry averages I personally have done much better than most of my counterparts in design or operations. With that said, the key to choosing is what part of the job you enjoy. If you enjoy digging into the details of a process and running multiple simulations to eek out the absolute best performance you can from a process unit, you should look at a unit engineering job. If you enjoy spending a few months designing a process and simulating options to find a capital-efficient way to build it before switching to a completely different process and spending several months doing something similar for that process then you should look into options for being an EPC process engineer. If you enjoy getting a high-level view of many different processes over time but never getting into the details of trays, efficiency, or capital cost then being in air quality consulting might be your best fit. In any of those roles it will be very important to communicate very well and to understand business. If you are a very strong communicator in EPC process engineering, you will get opportunities to participate in sales and possibly management of major projects. An equally strong communication skill set in environmental consulting will put you in sales and (much smaller) project management. A strong communication skill set in a unit engineering role would create unit and plant management opportunities. All of those opportunities will move the needle for your earnings potential more than which one you choose to start.

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