Are these trends happening anywhere else? 34

[DayRooster]

I am noticing some trends that are making my head scratch. Maybe it’s just my region but I’m curious if others are seeing similar trends. First off I’m a structural engineer with 12 years experience in the US. I am happy where I’m currently employed (hasn’t anyways been the case). That being said I know they are trying to hire other structural engineers (entry, mid and senior) and it has been tough. Really hurting for some mid-level engineers. I have talked to the few colleagues that are still in the profession and it’s the same situation at their current employers. I looked online and the local job listings are flooded with job after job in structural engineering (mainly mid level and senior). Also, all I see are good structural engineers, that I know, either retiring or leaving the profession after 5-10 years. The ratio of people leaving to coming in is not adding up. From everything I have seen the ranks are getting thin. At the same time I’m not seeing pay go up to really incentive people to stick with the profession. In addition, I know of certain employers just forcing more work on their already overloaded staff. Also, every effort of offshoring I have seen has gone horrible due to poor design and coordination (not on my projects). Maybe I’m in some weird bubble but this seems like red flag after red flag. Is anyone else noticing these same trends? Or is the rest for the US more stable?

 

[oengineer]

Speaking of possible salary increases due to lack of available Structural Engineers, has anyone looked at the 2016 Pay Report NCSEA SE3 by the Structural Engineers Association?

Here is a link to the report:

https://files.engineering.com/getfi...b2646c30fe&file=2016_Pay_Report_NCSEA_SE3.pdf

Would anyone be able to provide information on if the salaries for Structural Engineers, at various stages of their career, still seem valid for 2021? Are the salaries shown lower than the current market?

For example, it shows the following data:

 

[DayRooster]

Well not much has changed since I’m right in the middle ground for a senior engineer still. Now I have to imagine a little bit has change with regards to inflation rates. Curious to see what other say…

Also, I’m over here eyeing up that sole proprietor number range. Just dreaming is all.

 

[theisland808]

Maybe I can chime in here on what I notice as one of the younger engineers...

I think we can all agree here that the reward in terms of fees and compensation for this profession is not remotely close to where it needs to be compared to the risk and mental strain that comes with the work. There is little to no incentive for bright minds to keep practicing structural engineering other than our passion for it in this situation (but bills and stress don't get relieved with passion alone.) To make things worse, the ones who do stay because of their passion and ability regarding the work are ran down with the amount of responsibilities they have. These 10+ year engineers are responsible for preparing fees, attending meetings, overseeing design, training new engineers, going out in the field, and sometimes doing the design work themselves.

If you're an engineer who has 4-10 years of engineering experience, and you see what the 10+ year engineers are dealing with, does this incentivize you to become a leader in the company? Of course not! Why would someone want to take on all that responsibility for such little increase in reward. You either stay at the position you're at, job hop for pay increases, or leave the field entirely for the many other fields that offer more reward for less effort. I'm not saying the grass is always gonna be greener, but chances are you won't land in a spot that's browner.

When this happens, you have what I like to think is the downfall of structural engineering. You have senior engineers who are overworked to the point where a $100k compensation doesn't really make up for it. After all, we're humans not vending machines. You have managers who's only goal is to take on more projects to create more profit for the company (ignoring the fact that this isn't sustainable long term.)

In the end, it's a losing scenario. Managers desperately try to keep the company afloat. Senior engineers overwork themselves to keep producing projects. Mid level engineers do just enough to stay employed. Freshly graduated engineers walk into a burning building. Who is going to give these fresh engineers PROPER TRAINING in this situation? This is more important for the life of structural engineering than compensation itself. The next generation of engineers need to be properly trained, and this new era of design/construction combined with profit incentive DOES NOT allow for that in the slightest.

What we need to do:
- Raise our fees, slow down the work, a safe building does not get built without structural engineers end of story, and we need to stop undercutting each other for the work. IT ONLY HURTS THE FIELD AND FELLOW ENGINEERS
- Emphasize the need for PROPER TRAINING of new engineers. An engineer who is compensated nicely and properly trained is THE BEST THING that can happen to our field

Anything else is a distraction.

ps. sorry if there's some typos or incoherent thoughts. Writing this after I pulled a 70hr week as a second year engineer. Also, I realized this made mid level engineers sound bad but I meant it in a way where mid level engineers really have no incentive to ask for more work than what is already assigned to them. I know a couple mid level engineers who I'm proud to call my colleagues.

 

[human909]

Hey theisland808. I'm sorry to here of your negative experiences. They contrast significantly with my experiences and I'm curious on how normal your experiences are vs how abnormal my experiences are.

I think we can all agree here that the reward in terms of fees and compensation for this profession is not remotely close to where it needs to be compared to the risk and mental strain that comes with the work

I don't think we can all agree with that. We are a diverse bunch of engineers practicing in different countries, companies and environments.

Though my experience may not reflect the majority. I do live in a country that does generally has companies that treats their employees better than North American companies (which probably account for the largest cohort on this forum). I also work for a niche company that has meant I have an abnormal pathway into structural engineering.

Writing this after I pulled a 70hr week as a second year engineer.

Your experience sounds pretty bad from my perspective. That isn't conditions that I'd put up with in unless I'm being paid much more. But maybe that is the norm in many places.

These 10+ year engineers are responsible for preparing fees, attending meetings, overseeing design, training new engineers, going out in the field, and sometimes doing the design work themselves.

You say that like it is a bad thing. To me that sounds an interesting and diverse role!

 

[DayRooster]

Theisland808 - I was nodding my head pretty much your entire post. It is quite impressive that you have been in the field for a short time frame and can see everything with that much clarity.

Human909 - that’s good that you have a different view of the industry. Hold on to what you have right now.

Also that last part about the role of a 10+ engineer sounding interesting: let me expand. Imagine that all those roles takes 60+ hours to complete. And at ten years you have responsibilities outside of work. Important ones like taking care of your young family. Now you aren’t going to get any relief from any of those tasks. Something has to suffer and be neglected.

If you neglect preparing fees, going to meetings or going to the field then you will be yelled at by project stakeholders. If you neglect design work (completing or overseeing) then dangerous things can happen. At 10+ years you are working on very critical items. And your utilization rates are expected to be very high. If you neglect training younger engineers then the team suffers in the long run. Turn over problems and furthering poor working conditions. If you neglect your life outside of work then this can often result in lack of sleep or poor mental health that could break you down as a human being. Now which one will you choose to neglect? Often I see the 10+ engineers that make it are the ones that dig their feet in the ground and tell the higher ups that they will not being doing something “for their sanity”. The most popular choice I see selected is neglecting training younger engineers. Even after neglecting that though then they are still overworked…

 

[human909]

Hold on to what you have right now.

I plan on taking that advice.

Human909 - that’s good that you have a different view of the industry.

I have a poor view of the industry as the engineering company I work for isn't in the structural engineering business. Part of the reason why I am participating and reading this thread is to understand more about peoples experiences including those from outside of North America. But overall it does seem more negative views than positive.

I participate generally in Eng-tips to broaden my exposure. It has been a valuable source of discussion and information for me about other engineering challenges of which I'm not exposed to. This thread broadens my understanding of other people's career paths. My path is FAR from your typical structural engineers. A couple years ago I wasn't happy that I was heading in the right direction. Now I still don't know what direction that I'm heading in but I am now in a position of greater autonomy and I'm continuing to gain valuable experience and enjoy doing it.

 

[phamENG]

human909 - you're fortunate. I had a similar opportunity a couple of years ago. I tested the waters but ultimately let it go. It was more of an industrial/mechanical role with some structural sprinkled in. It was really interesting, but having already changed careers once (military/nuclear to structural) and just really hitting my stride with structural (and I'd like to think getting pretty good at it), I wasn't willing to make another change like that.

I experienced a good deal of what DayRooster and theisland808 have mentioned. The consulting firm where I got my start and the bulk of my experience has a set of great people running it, though they don't run it the way I think it should be in a lot of ways. They went out of their way to try to help their people when they needed it, but doing it often meant shifting the pain arbitrarily, or dropping quality of service/product with the accompanying long term business problems. My response was to try it on my own - that way I wouldn't have to fight the existing culture or wait for the bosses to retire. I was operating with nearly full autonomy anyway, so the level of oversight really didn't change much, and I have a greater degree of control over what work I do - and a greater appreciation for the difficulties my former bosses faced.

Now I still have to write fees, go to meetings, coordinate drawing production, do the design, and all of that - but now I can set my schedule so if I'm "in the office" all week, the office can be a balcony of a beach house while my wife and kids play in the surf. And even when I don't do that, I get to eat all three meals with my family, get my son off the bus at 2pm, and all the other stuff that working from an office would require 2 hour breaks to do. I can take a 10 minute coffee break and help my son build Legos. I get to enjoy the wages of a manager and the profits of the company and have more time with my family. Makes it a lot more worthwhile.

Not so say it's all sunshine and roses - while we watch TV in the evening I'm usually writing proposals and balancing books, and there's a different kind of stress involved. It's not for the faint of heart, but I love it and don't plan on going back.

 

[WARose]

- Raise our fees, slow down the work, a safe building does not get built without structural engineers end of story, and we need to stop undercutting each other for the work. IT ONLY HURTS THE FIELD AND FELLOW ENGINEERS

Agreed. But part of that is this offshoring stuff. Until we get a handle on that.....the rest of this is just academic.

 

[DayRooster]

I agree that offshoring is happening. Honestly I feel that a fair amount of large companies are investing quite a bit in offshoring structural engineering over paying the current structural engineers better. Won’t be surprised if the future of engineering in the US is done by engineers not even residing within the US.

That being said, I have seen offshoring attempts go horribly wrong at two previous companies. Costing money in design and construction. Could those be worked out? Sure, but likely that will be high ups waving hands to make thing work.

I would not be surprised if in 5-10 years, I am booted from being a design engineer because I’m too “high dollar” and forced to become a forensic engineer solely investigating insurance claims from various structural issues.

 

[phamENG]

I tried offshoring my drafting. That went sideways real quick.

 

[DayRooster]

Phameng - At one of my past companies, he were able to train just one “off-shore” designer to be good. Within a month he left our company for a higher paying job. The higher-ups were baffled. I laughed my ass off at how logic it all turned out. Good for that guy, he won.

 

[Enable]

-snip-

Just to add to the perspective from someone who also went on their own: if I could find employment working for someone else who I genuinely enjoyed working with I would do it in a heartbeat. I truly enjoy the work but the added stress of working for oneself is immense and the money doesn't compensate, at least not for me. The reason I work for myself is more out of necessity than any innate desire to do so.

I am also in a business with many employees so I am constantly worried about feeding the machine (and I am a pretty small machine at 5-10 employees). If I don't have projects rolling through the shop / field my payroll can eat up all I've worked to save so fast it makes me cry to think about it. But of course I cant just dismiss people when / if that happens, as they wont be there for me when I need them when things pick up.

To be fair, it's my foot in contracting that adds most of the employee pressures. However, the same is true (albeit to a lesser extent) of a sole engineering practitioner as soon as you hire secretarial help. It's crazy how much you have to drive through the door to just be able to keep people.


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[WARose]

[blue](DayRooster)[/blue]

That being said, I have seen offshoring attempts go horribly wrong at two previous companies. Costing money in design and construction. Could those be worked out?

At one (large) EPC outfit I worked at, they did the bulk of the work overseas.....and unscrambled the mess locally. (With less personnel.)

[blue](DayRooster)[/blue]

I would not be surprised if in 5-10 years, I am booted from being a design engineer because I’m too “high dollar” and forced to become a forensic engineer solely investigating insurance claims from various structural issues.

Depending where you are in your career (and who you think you might work for)....I'd count on that happening. (I.e. it's not a matter of "if" but "when".) I'm already resigned to the fact that I will likely never work at a few big ones here in town again (as a direct employee). (That is, unless their seals for certain states retire.)

[blue](phamENG)[/blue]

I tried offshoring my drafting. That went sideways real quick.

You have to wonder if it really is a net savings.....but as long as the bean counters think so.....and we keep letting it happen as a profession.....I guess it's gonna happen.

 

[DayRooster]

Also on a related note, if structural engineering was completely off-shored then I would love to see project managers, clients and contractors have to coordinate that effort. They complain about structural engineers all the time but don’t realize how much behind the scenes stuff is done.

Sure I would be partially bummed about being booted from design engineering (and partially relieved, I’m a complex person) but I would be secretly laughing to myself about the coordination part.

 

[phamENG]

WARose - I was referred to an outfit that one of my clients (an architect) uses and is happy with. His drawings look pretty good, and they had a structural drafting department, so I decided to give them a try. I don't need a draftsman full time, they're tough to find as a part time employee, and this group offered their services several dollars below the rate for a decent draftsman. For that narrow requirement I still think it could be made to work with the right people at the other end. Just so happened these folks promised one thing and delivered quite another, destroying my schedule in the process. So no, there was no net savings in my case. Net loss of several hundred bucks in direct costs, indirect costs (from lost projects due to schedule interruptions to time lost and added stress) were nearly incalculable.

I've since found a local person to do it on a contract basis. She's really good and not very expensive. The added value of being able to sit down and go over something in person today rather than trying to coordinate across 15 time zones makes it more than worth it.

I don't think we'll be pushed completely offshore. And DayRooster has the reason why. For really specialty stuff where its worth paying the $500k engineering fee for the one specialist in Taiwan - sure. But for your average shopping center, the architect and developer will want to talk to and coordinate with somebody who can be on the site in a reasonable amount of time if needed. Now that engineer may offshore rather than hire underlings, but we'll have to reach some sort of equilibrium (eventually) that maintains a certain number of engineers with a pipeline of replacements.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a growth in CET degrees and the emergence of Structural Engineering Technicians or something similar - sort of like medicine and the PA/Nurse Practitioner. People with an in depth technical knowledge of engineering and design who can do 85% of what full structural engineers do, but SEs will still be needed for the unique and really challenging cases.

 

[WARose]

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a growth in CET degrees and the emergence of Structural Engineering Technicians or something similar - sort of like medicine and the PA/Nurse Practitioner. People with an in depth technical knowledge of engineering and design who can do 85% of what full structural engineers do, but SEs will still be needed for the unique and really challenging cases.

That's what I suspect that "raise the bar" movement by ASCE was (in part) intended to stop. But at least to me.....it's all moot if you (still) have a munch of people with MS degrees stamping stuff done overseas.

 

[phamENG]

If anything I think that's what will drive us toward having techs do more. And I'm really not all that opposed to it. Especially if we push to requiring masters degrees, one of two things has to happen: either the value of the master's degree will have to decline to solve the future problem of not enough engineers with which means the 2081 raise the bar campaign will be for only PhDs getting their PE, or the stock of PEs will be reduced and the labor will have to be picked up by some other/new 'class' of worker in the industry.

Looking only at the supply side of the economic balance, this should - in theory - elevate engineering salaries. Higher educational requirements coupled with a reduction in the supply of potential EORs should mean wages go up. We'll also 'look' more like some of our professional counterparts in other industries whose salaries we so often covet - Doctors have PAs and Nurses, Lawyers have paralegals and law clerks.

Some CAD techs can already fill this role. I've met guys running CAD and Revit who could out design half the engineers in the office. They're few and far between, and immensely valuable. From a business perspective, I think there's value in cultivating more of these individuals. People who don't have grand aspirations of stealing all of my clients and running away with my business (because they can't), want an 8-5 workday with occasional overtime and a healthy family life, and are smart and clever and can take some initial design input from the EOR and then design a building to 60 or 70% before I have to really take over and make the final detailing decisions and confirm their work. Wow.

 

[IRstuff]

Doctors have PAs and Nurses,

This is not quite accurate. Doctors are now competing with nurse practitioners, who get paid much less, but can legally do the majority of the tasks that doctors do. That squeezes doctors into hiring a herd of NPs, and only managing them, and living off the skim.

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[phamENG]

IRstuff - that's exactly what I'm talking about. That's essentially the role these people would be filling. If I have two techs who can design 85% of my buildings up to a 70% completion, that's one junior engineer I don't need and probably a 60% boost in my productivity - even more over time as they get better/faster.

At the end of the day, nurses and PAs can't open their own shop and offer medical services to the public, can they? They still have to be under the supervision of a physician (I realize NPs in some states can out on their own - it's an analogy; never perfect).

EDIT: The trick, of course, is ensuring this doesn't result in a devaluing of the product. For this to be really justified, the Engineers that are left really need to be top shelf.

 

[IRstuff]

The end result is precisely that; an NP would be pretty happy at $120k/yr, while an MD typically desires closer to $200k/yr, depending on how hard they want to work. An MD is essentially a piece-part worker in a PPO/HMO system, paid by the head; however, they don't get paid to fill out the electronic medical records (EMRs), so more patients means more unpaid work/time filling out charts. Specialists are in a separate category; this is about family practice; NPs typically can't compete against specialists. Hiring NPs, who will demand to get paid for doing the EMRs is feasible, but you'd need to run a shop of 3 or 4 NPs to make a comparable salary, but adds to the headaches of management, and not getting to do any of the fun work yourself.

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