Advice on PE Licensure

[cm566]

I'm an early career mechanical engineer (graduated last year). Since graduation I've been employed at a large company in an operations/services role. It's a good start and I'm making the most of it, but I would eventually like to be in a more design oriented job. I'm interested in pursuing professional licensure and I am wondering how to go about finding PEs to endorse me once I accumulate enough experience. My current employer places almost no value on licensure and I've only been able to find 1-2 PEs on different teams that I really don't interact with. Is there any good way to get endorsement outside your employer?

 

[jpankask]

Did you work with any PE's at an internship? Any of your professors PE's? Maybe join a local ASME group. When I started working and gaining experience for my PE examination, I had NO PE's at my company. My state had another form to fill out for my work that was not under a PE and fortunately I had worked with several PE's during a coop that served as my PE references.

 

[Gymmeh]

Have you taken the FE yet? I would recommend taking that as soon as you can.

The PE is intentionally set up to take time to get, so do get to impatient, and learn as much as you can.
In my state, I needed 4 years of work experience doing "qualified" work to sit for the PE. The first couple years of my career, I had no interaction with PE's, as I became more knowledgeable and a leader of teams which had interaction with customers and vendors, I made a lot of contacts that were PE's.

If you consider changing jobs, look at getting into an Engineering Consulting Firm, this is where you will have a lot of exposure to PE's and actually see the point of being a PE.

Best of luck to you.

 

[cm566]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm already an EIT.

 

[HornTootinEE]

CM-

I was in a similar situation when I was approaching PE. Our state only required that 3 of the 5 references be PEs, and I had several colleagues who had just recently gotten theirs-it helped I was part of IEEE so I'd agree with the ASME statement. Should find some PEs there that once they get to know you would be willing to reference for you. It's hard in a company that places zero value or they don't even understand why you would ever get it. Now I'm at a consulting firm where if you're an engineer without a PE you're stuck to a career as an Eng. I doing entry level drafting forever. Or you don't even get an Engineer title, you're moved into an Engineer Tech role because you can't take responsible charge of anything. Rare does a non-PE move up the ranks at a consulting firm. If you want more design, go to a consultant. If you want to get deeper into operations and maintenance, stay in a similar position to what you have. Don't expect much where you work for your PE, I had to get mine out of personal and professional satisfaction while my superiors were angst to pay the testing fees even.

It's good to hear you are planning to get it even though your company doesn't have a culture that supports it. Not saying they discourage, but it's not supported. Personally I think we all owe it to our profession to get licensed, but I digress...

Good luck!