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?

 

[DayRooster]

Nurse practitioner get 120k? And that’s considered the lower end worker compared to a Doctor…just going to take this all in slowly while sitting down…

 

[phamENG]

IRstuff - I think there's an argument to be made that it doesn't really devalue the end product there. I think that shows in your statement "Specialists are in a separate category." If an NP can provide the standard of care to nearly all of the patients who come through the door at a family practice, what extra value is added by having an MD in the same place? Assuming the NP is properly trained to recognize his/her limits, they should be able to handle what they can handle and refer the remainder to the physician in charge. If that weren't the case, why don't you see the same thing in specialties? I don't dispute the fact that you're salary is built more on being a medical office manager than a doctor in that position, but it is a means to provide more care to more people for less money (or at least that might be the case if we didn't have a really screwy health insurance system - but that's something else entirely). So long as the standard of care isn't reduced in the process, the value will at least remain constant. I realize this is somewhat idealistic - my wife is in the medical game and not me, so I only know about it through what she tells me and what I occasionally read myself. So while the application will be polluted by the implementation, I'm confident the economic principles behind it are sound.

Back to engineering: with technicians who are knowledgeable about engineering and design and not just geometry converters, you can shift some of the labor off of the engineers. This would allow them to 1) produce more in the same amount of time, 2) produce the same in less time and have improved mental health (where people suffer from such deficiencies), or 3) produce less in the same amount of time but can be more thorough in the areas that need it, resulting in better designs and work product. Through proper QA/QC procedures the standard of care can still be maintained, and through competent management/administration the salaries of the engineers can be increased while either maintaining or even increasing value to our clients and to end users.

A lot of the complaints in this thread can be traced back to the manpower shortage that engineering is experiencing. Engineers with about 10 years experience are unicorns, and have been for a few years. They simply don't exist in the wild. Biggest reason - we're 13 years post 2008. A lot of potential junior engineers never even got on the boat, and a lot of junior engineers either jumped ship or were thrown overboard to keep the ship afloat. Combine it with pandemic and a lot of people throwing in the towel and retiring and the sudden surge of work and we're all feeling a tight squeeze. We have an opportunity to shape our profession. We can either force open the flood gates and produce an excess of young engineers now who won't be able to contribute much as engineers for the next 10 years (and then we have to deal with a surge in supply and probably further reduction in fees and/or salaries in 10 years), or we can explore alternative business structures that leverage other labor sources to accomplish the work within or above the current standards of care and, if done properly, increase our salaries. I vote for the latter option.

 

[IRstuff]

Assuming the NP is properly trained to recognize his/her limits, they should be able to handle what they can handle and refer the remainder to the physician in charge. If that weren't the case, why don't you see the same thing in specialties?

NPs are only required to be RNs and about an extra year's worth of training, while MDs require a full 4-yr medical school degree plus a minimum of 3 years of residency training, which the NPs get only 6 months, I think. Specialists require a minimum of 4 years of residency plus typically some number of years of fellowship training, so nominally about 7 years of on-the-job training in a hospital. Most specialists perform surgeries, so that's something that NPs are likely never going to get.

Moreover, the specialists' lobby is particularly strong; they've been able to resist any reductions in fees, while family practice has continued to see their fees getting reduced.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[kipfoot]

phamENG: I think you're describing something that perhaps used to be more common. I started out in a small office where a retired drafter worked part time. He could layout a set of drawings from an architectural set, start roughing in sections, and, once he had some member sizes from an engineer, draw the details. Old school pencil on mylar. impeccable lettering. <sigh>

Also, it used to be that one could become licensed as a PE through 12 years of training in an office without a degree. It was an acknowledgement that practical training had value. Not all the people with such experience could pass the exam, but it shows that there were technically proficient people working productively in offices... even if they didn't have a degree that showed they could pass differential equations.

 

[WARose]

phamENG: I think you're describing something that perhaps used to be more common. I started out in a small office where a retired drafter worked part time. He could layout a set of drawings from an architectural set, start roughing in sections, and, once he had some member sizes from an engineer, draw the details. Old school pencil on mylar. impeccable lettering. <sigh>

Yeah, the old-school designers were pretty good. These guys today can't do anything. They are just red-to-black. And when you tell them how lousy they are....they act like the ability to do layout is some ancient, lost art. (Like I am 100 years old or something.)

 

[phamENG]

kipfoot - you got me. I'm a skeptic when it comes to traditions and past practices. I refuse to accept them simply because they are or were. But an undervalued part of being skeptical is being open minded to the idea that it could be you who is wrong. So when I hear complaints from 'old-timers' about how great it used to be, I started asking around about how things were structured and what people disliked most about the way most offices are run now. And what you brought up is usually in the top 3. Drafters/designers who had to know how to layout framing and do the basics. With hand drawing, their time and the materials were too valuable for them to do a preliminary layout and have the engineer come up and say 'nah - let's do it like this...'. So I started looking around to find ways to recreate that setup in a more current context.

IRstuff - not sure if you're trying to debate my take on the structure of the medical professions or use the particulars of how it's structured, insured, paid, and regulated to show that my ideas for structuring a structural engineering consulting firm won't work. Either way, I was just using it as comparison/analogy. My last words on the subject unless there's a more substantive comparison drawn - you're in California (great state - love it and have family there, so don't take that the wrong way). A lot of the strong lobbies are in California and not so much other places. PAs, SAs, and NPs are in operating rooms all over the country. There are only a handful of states (CA, NY, etc.) that don't allow them to assist or take the place of a second surgeon.

 

[IRstuff]

Specialists typically are in the $300k+ range, depending on the specialty

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[DayRooster]

We should be clear that the above salary number is for the medical profession. Specialist in SE are getting 1/3 to 1/2 that number. Only way you’re getting anywhere near that number in SE is to own a business. Unless anyone knows of some secret. If so, do share with the group

 

[Tomfh]

Medical specialists are where engineers ought to be looking for inspiration. Getting the equivalent of NP to do the work is the other direction.

 

[phamENG]

Tomfh - that's exactly what I'm suggesting. Go to a specialist, the specialist takes a look and develops a diagnosis and a plan of care. Plan of care is then carried out largely by their nurses and PAs, if surgery is required then the surgeon does the surgery (but occasionally supervises an assistant who does the surgery for the simple cases), and followup visits are taken care of by the PAs and nurses and the specialist gets involved again if needed. In some more serious and complicated cases, the physician will keep tight control over it all the way through. (This is based on my experience with working with specialists in medicine and having surgery, and conversations with family and friends who are specialists and work in surgery - I realize that others may have had other experiences.)

In my engineering version, the project goes to the engineer first to develop an overall plan and identify the most critical/challenging areas and creates a plan to complete the project. That plan is handed off to a tech who can do the preliminary work while the engineer is focusing on the critical stuff for other projects. Once the 'grunt work' is done, the engineer gets it back, reviews what has been done and completes the design with the critical pieces. Then the tech wraps up the drawings, QC is performed, and out it goes. If there are problems in the field, the engineer develops a solution.

I'm not suggesting we cut engineers out of it - I'm suggesting we establish a workflow that improves efficiency and gives engineers time to do what is most important - engineering. A lot of these design tasks I'm saying should be delegated down are things that will probably be done by a computer algorithm in the next 15 years anyway. Iterative development and optimization of spacial layouts is already being used by practicing architects. It won't take long for somebody to use it in structural engineering to do a building design for a building of moderate complexity. It'll cut design/drafting time for preliminary drawings from a few days to a few minutes.

 

[DayRooster]

Phameng - I 100% agree with your opinion.

That being said, here is another example of how the future could turn out…

In my engineering non-engineering business version, the project goes to the engineer project manager first to develop an overall plan and identify the most critical/challenging areas and creates a plan to complete the project. That plan is handed off to a tech who can do the preliminary work poorly off-shored while the engineer is focusing on the critical stuff for other projects completely unaware. Once the 'grunt work' is done, the engineer gets it back, reviews what has been done and completes the design with the critical pieces fumes in anger while he fixes everything at the last minute. Then the tech wraps up the drawings, QC is performed, and out it goes project executive gives himself a bonus. If there are problems in the field, the engineer develops a solution is yelled at.

 

[phamENG]

Why do I suddenly have the urge to curl up in the corner and cry?

 

[DayRooster]

You and me both

 

[Eric C.]

This thread reminds me of the 5 phases of engineering projects:

1-Excitement
2-Disillusionment
3-The search for the guilty
4-The punishment of the innocent
5-Praise and honors for the non-participants

 

[phamENG]

I just thought of an even better analogy.

Because of the amount of information we need to really do our jobs well (we need reasonably complete architectural drawings, geotech needs to be finished, we need mechanical information to support units and ensure there's a place for them to put duct work without cutting out webs of joists/floor trusses, etc.), we end up at the end of the line with all of the schedule compression landing on us which puts us in these difficult situations. So if we take the time to do it right everyone hates us and if we rush it out to meet the deadline something will get missed and everyone hates us. Either way, everyone hates us, getting anything done is like pulling teeth, and most of us end up depressed.

Forget MDs and surgeons and all that....we're the dentists of the AEC world.

 

[WARose]

Classic post Eric C.