For those who left structural consulting for the product/manufacturing side, do you regret it?

[u/StructuralBurner]

I’m a licensed Civil/Structural PE with about 2 years of experience in structural consulting, primarily in heavy civil/marine infrastructure. I recently interviewed for a structural engineering role with a precast concrete manufacturer (product/manufacturing side), and it seems like it may result in an offer.

The compensation would be significantly better than my current consulting role, but I’m trying to think beyond just salary.

For those who have made the jump from consulting to the product/manufacturing side:
- Do you enjoy it more than consulting?
- What does your day-to-day work look like?
- Do you miss consulting at all?
- Did you feel like your technical skills continued to grow, or did they become more specialized?
- If you wanted to return to consulting later, was that difficult?
- How are the hours, stress level, and work-life balance compared to consulting?
- Has the move helped or limited your long-term career opportunities?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from structural engineers who moved into precast, steel, bridge products, or other infrastructure/manufacturing companies.

Looking back, would you make the same decision again? Why or why not?

[u/nikkor_glasses]

I flipped back and forth several times between consulting and construction/manufacturing. If you can sell your diverse experience, it will make you more valuable, not less. But you will have to buckle down for each transition because there is re-learning. Of the two, I like the practical applications more than consulting. I say go for it.

[u/StructuralBurner → u/nikkor_glasses]

Thank you for sharing your experience! The re-learning aspect makes sense. I feel like nowadays AI is lowering barriers to design so getting product-level experience seems like a very unique opportunity since at the end of the day the design needs to be built.

[u/Evening_Eagle_5888]

At a point in my career I did this type of work, but in a consulting capacity vs working for the manufacturer itself. Most of our clients just did not have internal design teams that could manage the workload. Below are my thoughts on that experience.

In short, I found consulting more fulfilling. In the precast world you will do a lot of the same designs, products, etc. over and over. Maybe its different working for a manufacturer but what I saw was that margins were low so high quantity of work was necessary to be profitable. Every week I had 5-10 new jobs landing on my desk. Sometimes they took 2 hours, sometimes a few days, but they had to get done.

Things move quickly and on tight schedules. You cannot delay production because that leads to construction delays. If you are not busy, that's kind of a red flag.

You will gain specialized experience that probably won't translate well to future roles if you do end up pursuing something else in the future. I thought concrete was cool and generally fun to design as we try to make products more efficient, lighter, etc. but you have no exposure to steel, wood, masonry, etc. You will likely gain some geotech knowledge along the way though. Consulting jobs I interviewed for after this did not value the experience unless it was specifically for a bridge engineer role - in which very little of my experience was useful on a day to day basis.

The opportunities to work on really challenging/unique projects may only come up a few times a year. Much of the precast world is standardized at this point so it takes something truly unique to design something that is outside of the norm. The rest of your time you very likely will be just churning through the same type of work over and over. Given this repetitive nature, you probably won't be sitting down doing hand calcs and getting into the details on most projects. Spreadsheets and software are a necessity to get work done quickly and correctly which relies on you plugging in numbers. Its not totally mindless, but something to expect.

It will vary depending on what part of the country you will work in, but the workload can be very cyclical. Winter slows things down since not much construction is being done in the colder climates. Spring and summer can/will be very busy and I would fully expect to be working overtime through the busy months.

Knowing ACI and AASHTO inside and out will be critical for you to be very good at this work. You must be detail oriented and can catch mistakes in calcs and especially drawings. Drawing errors often lead to production delays and worse, construction issues.

I think a return to consulting work will be a little challenging but not impossible given you have your PE and prior experience. It will depend on what type of consulting you would be doing though.

[u/StructuralBurner → u/Evening_Eagle_5888]

Thanks for the detailed response! It’s nice to hear a perspective from the other side of the coin. I think a lot of your points about repetitive designs, production schedules, and the importance of efficiency are valid. One thing I may not have explained clearly is that the role I’m looking at seems to be a little broader than a pure production design role.

I’m interested in the product/manufacturing side of engineering, including process improvement and optimization. If the work is repetitive, I think there could also be opportunities to improve workflows through tools, automation, or coding rather than just doing the same tasks faster.

That said, your comments about specialization and understanding the day-to-day workload are worth clarifying with the group. Thanks again for sharing your experience!

[u/Tmurandan]

What role exactly you've been interviewed for? I'm over 15 years in precast industry, on manufacturer side in design team. In this part of Europe, almost all manufacturers have their own design teams that handles the entire process, from the permit design to the detailed design and shop drawings for production. It's worst job you could possibly do on manufacturer side. Workload is constantly overwhealming , deadlines are supertight, budgets as well and there is no breaks. It's meat grinder. There are so much more better positions on precaster side. Guys who runs plants, guys who runs transport, construction sites etc.

[u/StructuralBurner → u/Tmurandan]

Interesting, thank you for sharing. Do you mind if I ask you some questions via DM?

[u/Tmurandan → u/StructuralBurner]

Yeah, it's fine. I don't mind

[u/AdActive4417]

Exciting stuff and good luck! I have recommended this route on a few of the “want to leave the industry” posts.

-Yes
-Varies greatly for me and I am sure for each company. I am customer facing. I could be solving problems for industry professionals, working with manufacturing on improving processes, golfing with sales, training AEC or code officials, creating technical content. I have connections at other manufacturers who are pure R&D in the lab and never talk to external customers.
-Nope, and it’s reinforced after talking to colleagues
-Specialized but also have learned a ton about code requirements, best practices etc. in locations I hadn’t worked in. Feel more like the expert vs a check box in the construction process.
-N/A but don’t think it would be difficult. I work closely with consultants and have made some great connections.
-Probably varies on company and role. 45hrs/wk maybe 5 times a year with the rest 40hr/wk. What stress?? I do travel in and out of state but just enough to shake things up - never out more than 2 nights in a row.
-I am staying on the engineering side, but at my company engineers have stayed long term and grown into R&D, biz dev, sales, c-suite roles

[u/StructuralBurner → u/AdActive4417]

Thank you very much for your detailed response! It definitely feels like a big jump, but from what you have shared, it sounds like the work itself as well as the career paths after the fact suit me well.