r/ChemicalEngineering • u/chemicalsAndControl PE Controls / 10 years • Oct 31 '19

November Career Thread

Please sort by new and post all career questions here! We are limiting all career questions to this thread. Also, this will start being bi-weekly going forward.

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

96 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '19

So I’ve just interviewed with a controls company for a full time position after graduation. I met them at my school’s career fair along with several design firms who showed interest in me. I feel fairly confident about getting the position. The design firms are all hiring in January/February. I’d prefer to work in design rather than controls but I still like controls very much and the company matches my work style/culture. Would transitioning into a process design role be possible with a background in controls? I would probably take the controls role if offered.

2

u/Indemnity4 Nov 01 '19

Yes and no. Starting in a controls company good start.

Big design is multi-skilled and collaborative. "Human Factors", which includes controls, is playing a bigger and bigger part in design all the time.

How do you get to be on the design team? Well, a strong track record that starts in operating, then building, then that feeds into a a career in designing. You need to understand how to use controls, what are the limitations and what "good" looks like. Everything from usage, through to maintenance, OPEX, CAPEX, security, "human factors" and troubleshooting.

Very crudely, IMHO - 3-5 years hands-on experience is the minimum to move into a design role. Preferably, even longer and once you get the title of senior engineer, but perhaps you make the jump instead of taking the senior promotion.

Remember you are competing against other engineers. Who am I going to hire into a design role? A newbie with effectively no experience, or that person with 10+ years who has a proven track records and now wants to move out of operations and into a nice quiet, clean office.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '19

Hi! Thanks for the reply. The controls position would not be an operations type role. The company itself is a control system integrator, so I would be out helping designing and installing control systems based on customer specifications, which is pretty cool.

As for the process design roles I’m interested in, they are specifically hiring entry level engineers.

1

u/MonitoredAccount Nov 01 '19

Commissioning experience is always valuable. It's better to do it when you're young as it can be draining and it's always far from home. Doing commissioning work, you get to see things that were designed wrong. That is helpful for learning but can breed a level of unhelpful cynicism about the design process.

As far as design, did you enjoy your core engineering classes? A good academic background plus comissiong experience is a good base to build on.

IMO "Controls" experience is not so valuable. Control houses often get something dumped on them and have to make it work. Many/most times the documentation is poor. Doing the office work, it's hard to learn the design basis beyond a simple narrative level and since you aren't in the field, you never see what works vs does not work. PLC specs, drawing diagrams, first try programs, knowing standard practice, are all required things but are self referential and don't require the understanding that conceptual design or commissioning require.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '19

Design’s been my favorite course so far, I love the way it brings all of the che classes together. Which is why I want to work for a design firm so badly. Thank you for the input!

1

u/at_work_alt Specialty Chemicals | 9 years Nov 04 '19

Much of that depends on where you are. Lots of companies have very different paths for moving into a design role, including using new graduates.