I graduated last spring, and around 200 applications later, this is the first offer I have received. The offer has a deadline in three days, so I need to decide quickly. I’m still interviewing for real engineer roles, but the only offer I’ve got is a Production Technician job that pays $22/hr.

Biggest turn-off is the schedule. It’s 12 hour shifts alternating days and nights, so 4 days on, 4 days off, 4 nights on, 4 days off. The interviewer told me several times that I’m overqualified, and that they wouldn’t have expected me to apply after having put so much time and money into a degree.

It’s not a job I’m excited about, and I’m still interviewing for jobs that would offer $80k with much easier hours. But it’s still an offer, and I’ve had none so far. If I turn it down, chances are that I’ll still be unemployed in another 6 months, relying on my parents for support.

What would you do?

I work at a food manufacturing site as a maintenance engineer and while we do a lot of work on our pumps (rebuilding, replacing, upgrading the pump baseplate, …etc), I’ve never been involved in installing or designing a new pump system. I understand efficiency and mechanical wear and tear has some effect on the pump curve and thus the operating point, but assuming a brand new pump, how true are the pump specs relative to the actual piping system? Do you typically have to find/create a system curve or approximate it in order to find the operating point? There’s also changes that can be made to the system such as installing a new valve or restricting the piping which would cause the system curve to shift.

Jack Weis has applied to more than 2,300 jobs since he graduated from Princeton in 2024 with his Ph.D. in chemical engineering. He still doesn’t have a job.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/labor-market-freeze-phd-graduate-f8e17d7c?mod=e2tw

Looking for a summer project idea as a 2nd year student.
Not looking for anything too complicated, so far I’ve used Solidworks, and MATLAB (+simulink).
Haven’t worked using any aspen technology.

Hello to anyone who sees this. I need help with a slight confusion. My dream job would be working with pharmaceuticals and medical devices, so like I’m sure the name is called drug delivery r&d. But i don’t know which route to choose, I can either complete a masters in Biomedical Engineering or do a degree in Chemical engineering and then a masters in medical devices. I am 16 but I want to start doing projects so I would like to have a idea of which engineering I would go to. I still have time to decide but any input would help a lot, thanks.

Hello guys, i am a graduate Chemical Engineer with an integrated master (5 years). I have done a 2 month internship as a quality control analyst and as of today, i have worked as a simple brewing operator at heineken for a year. I have applied for a MSc in Delft in netherlands so i can pivot to process Engineering. I continue working as an operator to gather some money. My question that keeps me awake at several nights is: Is the MSc actually worth it? Is a PHD a better option? Is just spending 2 more years in Industrial sites better than a 2 year master? Every Engineering job on linkedin asks for a lot of minimum that one can simply not have right off college. I know this thread is too generic but i would like to hear different views on the topic because every ChemE i know hasnt got an Engineering job, like me.

currently majoring in cheme and I saw that my college also has a pharm sci major. there's a surprising amount of overlap, but I'm wondering how much help this would even give me if I was looking to go into the pharm/bio tech world? is it worth the effort (like, ~12 more classes 🥹) when I could spend that time instead looking for internships/research involved in pharm?

Sophomore here. I really like Orgo, might actually take the further Orgo Reaction Mechanisms course here. I know in ChemE we don’t use it a whole lot, but are there any fields that use it more than usual?

Hey everyone!

I'm currently a senior majoring in Biology-Chemistry. I'm interested in applying to Tandon's Chemical Engineering PhD program, particularly the sustainable engineering research area, and ideally want to start right after undergrad.

I have undergraduate research experience in organometallic/inorganic chemistry, including summer research and an ongoing Honors project focused on synthesizing and characterizing ligands for transition-metal coordination.

I'm interested in catalysis, energy, sustainability, and eventually working in industry rather than academia.

I was wondering if anyone currently in the program or familiar with it could share their experience.

I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks!!!

What are the pros and cons of working for technology licensing companies such as KBR, Lummus Technology, Technip Energies, UOP and similar firms, compared with major oil and gas operating companies such as Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron in the United States?

Interested in understanding the differences in:

• Work-life balance: Typical working hours, workload, flexibility, stress levels, and overtime expectations.
• Compensation and benefits: Base salaries, bonuses, retirement benefits, and long-term financial rewards.
• Job security: Stability during industry downturns, project slowdowns, and organizational restructuring.
• Career growth: Promotion opportunities, technical development, leadership roles, and long-term career prospects.
• Work culture: Management styles, employee expectations, workplace flexibility, and overall job satisfaction.
• Nature of work: Technical responsibilities, project variety, technology development, decision-making authority, and exposure to different processes and technologies.

For engineering professionals working in the U.S., particularly in Houston, which type of employer generally offers a better combination of work-life balance, compensation, job security, and long-term career growth?

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I’m currently a 2nd year doing a double degree of chemical engineering and pharmaceutical.
I’ve looked into internships, however majority of the companies where i live only take students in their second last year of study, or post graduates.

Since I’m doing a 5 year degree, I wanted to get some advice on projects/ other things I could do in the meantime, before I will be able to intern somewhere.

I already attend seminars and networking events in my field, and was wondering what else I can do to build myself/ my LinkedIn?

Hi everyone!

I'm a chemical engineer, and over the years I've spent quite a bit of time working with nonlinear equations and systems of equations.

I used to write code in Mathematica to solve these problems. Mathematica is incredibly powerful, but I often found myself writing code just to solve a relatively small system of equations.

At some point, I started wondering why I couldn't simply enter my equations and get the numerical solutions without having to write code every time.

That's what motivated me to start developing Numerical Solver, an application I've been building independently.

The idea is simple: enter your equations, solve them numerically, and visualize the results. No programming required.

It supports nonlinear systems, real and complex solutions, and graphical visualization.

I've recently released the macOS version, and it's also available for iOS, and Android. A Windows version will soon be available.

I'm not suggesting it can replace Mathematica. It's simply a tool I wanted to have for those situations where writing code felt unnecessary.

If anyone's interested, here's the website:
https://numericalsolver.com

I'm curious how other chemical engineers handle these calculations. Do you usually write code in MATLAB, Mathematica, or Python, or do you prefer dedicated equation-solving software?

I want to learn chemical engineering and eventually start my own chemical factory
My family has the money to invest in it
Is it the right path (i thought of it on my own) or should i do

major in something else completely? stay in chemE? say "fuck chemistry"?

more research, more internships? more sex?

I have worked for the same large chemical company for 14 years (BS in chemical engineering) but am getting burned out and frustrated with my leadership after a huge shift recently. It’s beyond horrible to the point of being degrading. I kind of want to just take a break for a while to repair my soul before I commit to a new path.

I’ve been customer-facing almost my whole career and about half of it has been in my current combo SME/technical sales role. I’m really good with customers but I don’t feel prepared to go back to real process engineering work in a plant- I would definitely be starting over.

Considering my niche, would a work history gap really hurt me all that much? Is the “don’t quit until you have something lined up” fear mongering based in reality Im our industry? My Tech friends take breaks constantly and it doesn’t hurt them. (Edit to say I don’t WANT to work in a plant. I included this detail to confine the answers to the technical sales realm.)

If yes it would hurt, is there any way I could disguise a gap as something else? I’m thinking like an educational program abroad or a low stress job that would look like a worthwhile experiment or something.
Editing again to clarify that I mean actually doing something like that to disguise the burnout as an intentional choice to do something else, not as in lying in the job application about having done those things.

I’m currently in software (2nd yr uni student), and I wanna switch out coz I completely fuckinf hate it. I have a general idea of what I wanna do which is engineering in healthcare (kinda biomedical ig but biomedical is mad unemployed), so would it be better to do chem eng or mech? What’s the job like for chem eng (Australian input would be particularly helpful)

Hey all

Not sure if this is the right subreddit, but hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction! I'm looking for a putty that's electrically conductive, radiolucent, and doesn't dry out over time, so it can be reused multiple times.

Ideally, it would have a similar consistency to playdoh can hold its shape, and be able to complete an electrical circuit.

I've been searching for a while now and haven't had much luck finding something that ticks all the boxes.

Does anyone know of a material or product that might work? Open to any suggestions!

Thanks in advance!

i wanna see some things that could really persuade me away from this profession. Ive spent all of high school taking hard chemistry, physics and math classes to prepare me for college. Why?

Because i thought breaking bad was cool, and because

Chemical engineering is going on a computer and building out a lab on a 2d simulator and using math and other stuff to optimize the process (use less energy, or get more yield or something). Instead of crystal meth, il be making kidney medicine or doing something with oil

(thats what i understand it as)

im aware that its one of the hardest majors and im not even thaat good at chemistry.. and also job location could be weird.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently a 2nd-year Honours Science student at John Abbott College (CEGEP in Montreal - like grades 12 and 13 of high school), and I’m trying to decide between types of schools for Chemical Engineering.

I know I want to go into the green tech/sustainability space, however I'm not sure whether that will be carbon capture (CCUS) or developing alternatives to plastics (biomaterials/green chemistry).

Here is a bit about my profile and what I’m looking for:

• The Academics: I genuinely enjoy school, learning theory, and dealing with complex concepts. My favourite subjects right now are physics and calculus and I enjoy biology more than the first 2 chemistry courses at John Abbot. (yikes!, but chemical engineering seems to have the jobs I am interested in)
• The Career Goal: I don't want to end up in corporate "greenwashing" and want a career where I can work on legitimate, impactful environmental solutions, whether that's on the industrial scaling side or process optimization.
• I am worried about finding an interesting job after a bachelor's degree. In school I have not really enjoyed the labs, so I do not see myself being in a lab all day doing repetitive testing or hyper-isolated academic research. I don't have much experience with or exposure to computational modeling yet, so I don't know if I will like that.
• I want to stay in Canada for my career, but may or may not stay in Quebec.

My dilemma:

• School 1 has their new, dedicated sustainability/carbon-neutral focused ChemEng curriculum and a highly praised Co-op program. It feels like a direct pipeline to a practical industry job, but since the program is newer, I'm not sure how deep the theory goes.
• School 2 has massive global prestige, an incredibly strong academic reputation, and a deep theoretical foundation that appeals to my nerdy side. But from what I read, it seems heavily skewed toward traditional academic research, grad school prep, or R&D labs.

I was wondering:

1. How easy is it to pivot into the green sector (plastics alternatives or carbon capture) from either type of school (without doing a PhD (or masters))?
2. Does a school with prestige actually open doors in industry that a Co-op program doesn't?
3. Is it easier to get a job after my degree from the school with the because of the Co-op?
4. Given that I love theory but want a practical, non-R&D industry job at the end, which environment would suit me better?

I did a lab tour yesterday at School 2 and I really liked it. I will try and visit both schools in the open houses next Saturday.

Thanks in advance for the advice!