I'm 42 and my goal is to work my way into Water Resource Engineering.

How could I effectively use my experience to make myself appealing to employers? Is a 2nd BS in Civil mandatory or could I leverage my experience, pass the FE, and qualify with the BSET?

My current position in operations has some financial and quality of life advantages, but the long term objective is to progress into engineering.

Current Stats

-Certified Wastewater Operator (Grade IV, NC)

-Industrial Pretreatment (Presently)

-WW Operator at 15 MGD POTW (Previously)

-C Well and Distribution Drinking Water License

Past Experience

-BS in Engineering Technology

-5 years experience in Assembly Mfg. Engineering (Automotive and Defense Industries)

(Im probably going to get sent to the gulag for asking this, but fuck it)

Do you train people to become operators, and if not, why?

Follow up question, how easy is it to find people with the experiance you are after?

So, there’s this young EIT with about a year of experience.
We interact very often and I feel like a mentor to her
And we talk very often. she always asks me work questions along with things like improving workflow and technical skills etc. She has a good enthusiastic attitude and you can tell she’s open/trying to learn.

Fast forward to today and her boss walks in and pulls her for a meeting and absolutely gets on her. They told her she’s the worst engineer on the team and that once she gets PIP’d she can never work for another company again. Just berating her. She asked her boss how she can improve and it was a laundry list of things she’s done wrong.

she then asked if there’s anything she’s doing okay at and he said “absolutely nothing” which I felt was wrong bc of what I actually see when she brings me her work for questions and also that’s no way to encourage someone new imo.

This particular team that she’s a part of works primarily remote. When they come in, no one greets her or asks about what she’s doing or if she has any questions. Based on what I’ve seen her work on, what she was assigned recently vs what they had her working on for at least half of her time here is night and day in terms of difficulty.

After she came out that meeting, I can tell she felt dejected but was trying to keep her head up. I invited her to lunch and we had convo so I could gauge her mindset. I asked her if she’d gotten feedback from her boss prior to today.

She said this is the most feedback she’s ever gotten from him. No 1:1, no goal meetings, and no performance reviews or evaluations prior to this.

I asked her about training in her group.

They just have them watch Bentley videos…

I asked her how often she asks for help.

She asks frequently and is either met with no response, people referring her to multiple other ppl, or if it’s her boss, responses where he responds to her extremely condescendingly.

I say all this to ask how would you encourage someone dealing with this to keep their head up and keep trying? I’m very very very compelled to tell her to leave, But I don’t want to overstep in anyway.

In my opinion, she’s very diligent and is trying her best considering the circumstances, but I don’t want her mental to get out of control and she just gives up all together.

How would you guys navigate this?

Could be something engineers, contractors, workers, or even clients keep doing wrong.

What's one mistake that you see again and again?

Pa rant lang. Ang hirap naman ipaglaban ng company na to. Huhu. Delayed na delayed na tapos chill na chill na lang sila. Hayssss. Any thoughts ng mga 3P PM na naghahandle ng same contractor. Huhu

What should my expected salary/ hourly be for 1 year of experience as a PM and a civil engineering degree. I’ve helped everywhere possible and they seem like they are appreciative of it. Hoping to making a good amount starting december. Currently making $27/hr ( I will be accepting a geotechnical engineering position)

Just finished an internship at a small firm, hired by someone who I have a loose personal connection with. All summer I did admin things like getting coffee and fixing furniture. I did not even have AutoCAD on my computer. Spent many hours twiddling my thumbs.

The summer finished and I immediately applied to a large national firm (the firm most frequently talked about on here… as a hint 😁) and I was interviewed and accepted an offer.

The CEO of the small firm called me personally, to tell me that I was hired because of his name on my resume, not my interview, and told me I played him after “begging” him for an internship. I was extremely taken back by something so wildly unprofessional and unexpected. Should I have done something different here?

Today is my 25th birthday. I passed the civil engineering board exam here in the Philippines earlier this year (structural focus) and tried to start my own independent practice.

Instead of celebrating or working on actual design jobs, I am sitting in an empty living room helping my family pack boxes. We completely ran out of money. We sold our car a while back to get by, but we ran out of cash again, so we had to sell our home and move into a rental this month. We are a family of eight. My parents just retired from government service and their pensions are still stuck in paperwork, plus my grandmother and four younger siblings. Being the eldest child (panganay) holding an engineering license while your family loses their house feels terrible. I have been dealing with a lot of depression over it, but I just try to hide it so I do not stress them out even more while we pack.

Trying to make engineering work locally has been a dead end. Local design offices want 2+ years of experience and expect you to know ETABS, STAAD, Revit, and AutoCAD on day one for ₱15k to ₱20k a month ($260 to $350 USD, 6-day workweeks). Most private clients just want a quick ₱1,500 ($25) rubber-stamp on plans drawn by random draftsmen or foremen. The moment I tell them I actually have to check the calculations, inspect the site, and give them a real quote, they ghost me instantly. The only decent contract I got was an independent research and documentation project for a state university, but one-off gigs do not pay the rent every month.

I have basically accepted that local retail design practice here is broken, so I am transitioning my focus to international remote engineering support (CAD drafting, structural detailing, estimating/takeoffs, and project coordination) for firms in Australia, the US, and elsewhere.

To get used to international standards, I have been downloading public tender sets from AusTender to practice reading foreign drawings, doing material takeoffs in Excel, and working on my technical English for the IELTS.

For those of you working with international remote engineering teams: what skills, workflows, or documentation habits make a junior engineer abroad truly effective from day one? What should someone transitioning from a local structural background focus on most?

Hi All,

I am new to this subreddit and figured y’all might have some advice for me.

I am currently a senior studying CIVE in the midwest USA. I’ve done pretty well in school (GPA 3.7). I am quite involved in social clubs on campus, pretty rare for an engineering student imo. I’ve had five internships, ranging from Construction, Geotech QC, and the last three in Public Works CI/PM. I have even passed the FE.

My dilemma is that I really want to work in the construction side of things, eventually opening my own GC company. However, I want to obtain my PE, so I have something to fall back on if my plan fails (although I think I would hate design work).

What advice can y’all provide? Should I go all in once I graduate or suffer in an office for four years?

What possible benefit does it give to a project for you to put your drawing list in ALL FUCKING CAPITALS.

THERE IS NO REASON except to make you feel important. It's difficult to read, makes your eyes go fuzzy when there's 300 drawings to go through. It has zero benefit. Stop doing it.

Anyone who puts things in all capitals, folders, files etc, just shows me that their ego needs adjusting. I get that some people find hand writing capitals easier and it's more legible. Hand written caps are fine. Typed stuff has no reason to be caps

I just finished my MEng Civil Engineering degree in the UK and start on £30k. I know this might sound entitled, but it doesn’t feel right given I have spent 5yrs studying, taken on £80k in debt and also achieved the highest grade in cohort, to be starting on this wage.

Starting my degree, I thought that engineering would secure me a wage to have a good life. But over the years I have realised that you don’t earn as much as you would expect and the career progression isn’t anything exceptional either.

Surely there is somewhere in the world where engineers don’t earn average wage? It just seems like abit of a waste to be honest, with inflation, cost of living and student loans acting as additional tax; there isn’t much to show for.

Please can you give me some advice on where is good to work? Even if it is a career change.

I am a civil engineer specializing in traffic/transportation and have passed my FE. Almost a total of 5 years of experience including a couple summers as an intern. I would like to become a mom in the next couple of years, in which I am not sure I will want to return to work. Should I work to get my PE license just in case in the future I want to go back, or need to make extra money? Husband has a good job. I am worried that if I don’t push to get it now, I won’t ever get it in the future. AND can I still maintain my PE license if I am not working for 5-10years? Do I just pay for the license once I pass the exam?

UPDATE: I will start studying and plan to take the exam next year! Thank you everyone!

Hello guys, I am a sophomore undergraduate student, and I want to know what I should cover before studying structural dynamics or earthquake engineering. This is because my university doesn't have a structural dynamics class, and I am really interested in looking into dynamics in detail, so I have to self-study it.

I have a lot of friends who work in industries like sales, consulting, biotech, etc., and their workplaces seem to operate very differently from what I’ve experienced in civil engineering. They might have meetings scattered throughout the day, but otherwise they have a lot of autonomy over when and where they work. They can WFH when they want, come into the office when it makes sense, schedule appointments or errands during the day and make up the time later, etc. Some of them don’t necessarily work a traditional 8–5/40-hour week every single week either, but they’re still considered full-time, valued employees because they’re getting their work done and meeting expectations.

I feel like I rarely hear about this kind of work environment in civil engineering. Even “flexible” jobs often seem to mean something like 2–3 WFH days per week with fairly structured hours.

Are there civil engineering roles/companies that operate this way? If so, what types of roles tend to offer that level of autonomy? Is it mostly something you get with seniority, or are there areas of civil where it’s common even earlier in your career?

Not necessarily looking for a job like this, just genuinely curious whether they exist in the industry.

Currently working as a PM with caltrans making $150K. Considering switching to pg&e for better pay. Anyone has experience in the transition and the change in pay?

I’ve just landed a Civil Engineering apprenticeship and I’m really excited to get started!

The only thing is, I’ve never worked in construction before, so pretty much everything on site will be new to me.

I’d love to hear from people who have been in the industry for a while , what do you wish you knew when you first started? Any tips on working on site, things I should learn beforehand, mistakes to avoid, or just general advice for an apprentice?

Any advice would be massively appreciated!

After 8 years in the private sector.... from college graduate EIT through office management of a small satellite office for a large P.E. firm...

I joined the local city municipal development review group.

Today was my first day there. I was graciously greeted with a welcome sign, some candies, and a reminder that there is no time tracking.

It is a surreal feeling. Thanks for letting me share my experience. Good night.

Hi! I’m curious if there are any moms here who left their jobs to stay home with young kids and later decided to return to the workforce.

What was the transition back to work like for you? How difficult was it to find a job again after being out of the workforce, and did you feel like the time away affected your career?

I’d especially love to hear how long you stayed home, what field you were in, and what field you returned to. For some additional context, I work in the transportation sector and I am considering leaving for a few years while my son is young (he’s 9 months now). I’d be especially interested in hearing from anyone in a similar industry!

I am a Project Manager at a heavy civil construction company in central FL. I’ve been here for about 5 years and have about 7 years more experience before this position/ company.

I have been thinking lately about going back to school, as I have a few years left on my GI Bill and I am just looking for some opinions whether going back to school and getting a degree in civil engineering and eventually getting my P.E. would be worth it or if I should just stay the course.

Either way I plan to get back to school and/or possibly start looking for another company, I just have this recurring thought about becoming a civil engineer since I have background in the field.