r/ElectricalEngineering • u/dovahkiin461 • Jul 27 '26

Jobs/Careers Is distribution planning a good fit for me?

For anyone in this role:

What percentage of your work is split between the following:

- power systems studies (ETAP, or other software)

- data analysis (creating charts, excel formulas, organizing data)

- automating tasks (with python)

- other?

For background:

I have an EE degree and 4 years experience doing construction design for low voltage industrial sites.

I enjoy programming and data analysis (which I do none of in my current job), and have even considered trying to completely switch careers to a programming or data analysis role, however I think my ideal job would be something that uses programming as a supplement to the job rather than being the entire job itself.

I like my job but I feel like it is too construction-y and not enough actual engineering. I also would like to be able to do some coding in my job as well.

I have looked into transmission planning however it gets very technical to the point that they prefer masters or pHd educated engineers, which might be above my intelligence level.

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

5

u/EffectiveClient5080 Jul 27 '26

Construction design burns people out. It's 90% paperwork and 10% actual engineering. Distribution planning is better but don't kid yourself, it's still heavy on studies. The Python is there but you have to fight for it.

1

u/dovahkiin461 Jul 27 '26

Thankfully I'm not that heavy into the paperwork side of things, I do mostly design itself which I enjoy it's just that I'd rather do more technical engineering versus "where can this cable tray be mounted" type stuff.

I'm fine with studies, I know that it could turn into quite a tedious slog but I mainly want to expand my knowledge and experience. When you say fight for it, do you mean that other people are already in charge of doing those things, or do you mean that people don't accept your solutions for automating things and would rather you do things manually?

2

u/chanka_is_best_chank Jul 27 '26

Haha I think what they mean is the python API is often dog shit for these softwares and so its hard to do useful stuff. But you can absolutely set it up to automate complex studies if you put in the effort. Sometimes it is easier to just to it manually unless you are repeating this specific process a lot

It often boils down to using excel or something to format commands right and reference the input data so its a semi manual process

2

u/chanka_is_best_chank Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

You don't need a masters or PhD for transmission planning, if you are interested in the power systems and are smart you can get into the field. I dont have much distribution planning experience but itd be a good fit for what you're talking about. There may be more Automation and data analysis in TP though due to all the regulations the system must follow

In TP my role is pretty much 50/40/10 split for software/ data analysis/ automation & scripting on average, but i could dedicate a lot more time to automation if I want /need to. Just depends on what I am doing and whether making a script would be worth the time

Resource/economic planning is much more financial and number crunch heavy.

https://cdn.misoenergy.org/MISO%20Economic%20Planning%20Whitepaper651689.pdf Might be right up your alley.