Inner Turmoil - Salaried Employee vs Self Employed 24

[cal91]

Reading through "First Solo Project"

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=455362

prompted me to make this post. I was gonna write a comment but it got too big and I didn't wanna steal the thread.

I'm starting to get a little itchy to leave my current job and set out on my own.


Current Side Work

I do smaller non-competitive engineering on the side (wood, cold-formed steel, concrete, etc.). Currently I only have one client, an architect. I average around one $2000, 20hr, job a month through him. I think I can charge a lot more, but have no way of knowing. I do the work before or after work, and my employers know and approve of it because it gives me the required experience for my CA SE.
​

Current Employment

I work for a structural steel sub-contractor, have an $88k salary, great health insurance, 4% 401k matching (I put in 10%), and an ESOP. (My share of the company was valued at $13,000 last year, but after a bad year the ESOP is worth ZERO). Should I wait a year to see if the ESOP will get back before cashing out and leaving the company? My feeling is I shouldn't base my decision off the ESOP - in the end it won't make a big difference.

My employers say they want to have me in a leadership position in the future, and have had me listen in on calls with CEO and COO to train me to basically do what they do in the future. Our lead, senior engineer (~$150K), CEO and COO (~$250k+), and many others are going to retire in 5-10 years, so there's big potential for me. But work has been so slow this last year and still is currently. The ESOP is at zero because last year we had a couple horrible jobs and the company went from having $5M in cash to being $2M in debt.

Lately I feel I've just been wasting my time at work, as there's been nothing to do, so I end up making super awesome complex spreadsheets that I'll probably never use. It drives me crazy. It used to not be so bad because I could study for the PE/SE exams when there was nothing to do. A couple of times I've down work on side jobs when there's been nothing to do but it racks me with guilt so I try to not do that anymore, but I'll justify it in my head that my employer's paying me for my time to be in the office, and if the company has nothing for me to do then that's the risk their taking. I know that must be a bad attitude, and I should always be finding something to do. I just don't like wasting time and feel that if I was on my own I wouldn't have that dilemma. What do other employees do when there's nothing to do? I feel like it's gotta be a pretty common issue but either it bugs me more than most and I'm making a bigger deal of it, or no one else wants to talk about it.​

What to do next?

I'm 4 years out of college (master's degree). First couple years were not so slow, I was learning more, and working towards my PE, then my SE (just passed, but still need another year of experience to be licensed in CA). Now that I passed the SE exam, and work is slow I'm just feeling so itchy for the next thing. Maybe I need to talk to my boss about wanting a challenge to work towards, maybe I need to start my own business. I love the idea of being my own guy, fully responsible and in charge of my own income and not at the mercy of higher ups. Some of this comes from my Dad being a self employed contractor and growing up having the impression that employees were too scared to take risk to make more money and content with making okay money for having the security of a salaried job, while the business owner is the risk taker and more profitable and thus "better". I know that's flawed thinking and offensive and not true but it's in my head and I'm just word-vomitting and putting all my thoughts out there.

I've been thinking I should try to get more clients (I have a structural engineer mentor who is self employed, he says contractors are better clients than architects? ) I could pick up more side jobs until I can go off on my own, but I also don't want to not have anytime to be with my wife and kids, and I don't want to be dishonest with my current employer. I also don't have any E&O insurance, but my co-worker said that the companies E&O insurance covers any work we do on the side. That doesn't seem right to me though, and am wondering if I should get E&O insurance if I plan to do more sidework, or not worry about it until I'm out on my own. If I were to be on my own I'm not sure if I'd want to be my only employee or hire others.

I'm afraid of making the wrong decision. I don't know what I want more or what has more potential upside (be it money, satisfaction, freedom, spending more time with wife and kids, etc). I don't know what I'm going to regret not doing in 10-20 years. I don't want to work 15 more years making little more than I am now doing the same thing and being torn like I am right now, but I also don't want to quit my job and fail my start up, or realize the grass is not as green as it seemed from the other side, and realize I gave up a great opportunity at the company.​

Other pertinent info....

I'm only 27 years old but I also have a wife and soon to be four children plus a $220,000 mortgage (but no other debt) for a 1000 sf house we're quickly outgrowing (value of house is ~$310,000 and we've got $40,000 in savings, saving an additional $1000 a month). We're debating moving into a larger $450,000 2000sf house next year, but I'm unsure if we should do that if I'm thinking of starting my own business. My wife and I even think of leaving California to go somewhere less expensive, and probably would've by now if we didn't have all of our family in California (I've heard being a CA SE but living elsewhere can be a good deal). Just another decision tormenting me, but we'll probably stay in California - just tired of scrimping and saving with 10% retirement savings (+4% company match = 14% + ESOP), 10% tithing, and saving $500 every other week for starting business/buying bigger house.

Lastly, I hate sounding braggadocious but feel that I am an exceptional engineer and could be an exceptional business owner. I was top of my classes without having to put forth nearly the same effort as my classmates. Classmates always complained about how hard classes were and how much time they spent on assignments, and I never really struggled and was always able to complete assignments much quicker than they, and often got the highest score on exams. I passed the FE, PE, CA state exams, and SE all first try without feeling crammed on time. I did both parts of the SE simultaneously while having a wife, 3 kids, and doing side jobs and still didn't feel like I was over straining myself. I already feel more capable than the other engineer thats been working here for 15 years, and know my employers agree with that. I can get stuff done in a third of the time it takes other engineers, and I am thorough. I feel that my time would be so much more efficiently used having my own business and could potentially be very lucrative. On the other hand I know being an exceptional engineer doesn't mean an exceptional business owner, and my current job could also be potentially lucrative. But both also have potential vastly under performing expectations. I know after proof reading this paragraph how arrogant I sound and I hate it and don't talk that way in actual conversations.

Also is there no way to PM people on this site? It'd be nice to share some things privately instead of putting it all out on the internet for all to see.​

 

[Ron247]

How many hours a week do you currently work for your employer?
Are you salaried or hourly?
The mentor you mentioned, are they at the same company you are at?
How much actual structural engineering have you done at the steel fab business? 4 years of steady structural work is different than 4 years of semi-steady work. If your main experience is only steel, that can handicap you some.

Being in business has virtually no relationship to your engineering skills. Your engineering skills are what you use to complete the work you bring in. Potential clients' knowledge of your engineering skills can get you some work, but may not get you enough work. Once you take on the role of business owner, there is another hat you have to wear that some of us find painful to wear at times. How good are you at chasing work down or being creative at finding new clients?

You need to make your mind up first about staying in CA or moving. It is REAL hard to move somewhere that no one knows you and start a skill-related business. If you want to move, it may be wiser to first take another job with someone in the "more desirable" location and later start your own business there. Moving may cause you to lose good contact with your Mentor.

 

[CANPRO]

A couple quick notes:

[ul]
[li]$2000 a month in side work is awesome, best of luck continuing this pace and growing[/li]
[li]I would be extremely surprised if your current employer's insurance covered your side activities. I would confirm this ASAP.[/li]
[li]Maybe I'm not completely understanding this, but if you aren't fully licensed yet, how are you providing the side services? Are you doing this work under another enigneer?[/li]
[li]I know after proof reading this paragraph how arrogant I sound and I hate it and don't talk that way in actual conversations...You're stating the facts, I don't think you sound arrogant, just confident. I want to hire the confident engineer, not the guy that won't sell himself.[/li]
[li]Ron247 makes a great point about finding work - this appears to be a skill you haven't tested yet (not saying you can't, just untested)[/li]
[/ul]

It sounds like you could benefit from staying at your current position (or similar position) a bit longer - those phone calls you're sitting in on with the CEO/COO are boosting your soft skills (see above regarding finding more work), and in your current position you're probably making contacts with future clients.

There is no way to PM people that I know of, but it would be a great feature to add to the site. I'm in a very similar situation - similar day job, similar age (I'm a few years older), similar side business, similar family situation - when I get a juicy side job rolling through I always get that thought that maybe I'm ready to make the jump to being completely independent, but I figure I'm a couple years away from that. For now, I keep learning everything I can at my day job, meet as many people as possible, and keep using the side jobs to pay for daycare. It can be stressful at times, but I always tell myself that its a good problem to have. Good luck!

 

[KootK]

My feeling is I shouldn't base my decision off the ESOP - in the end it won't make a big difference.

This would be my thought at as well.

Our lead, senior engineer (~$150K), CEO and COO (~$250k+), and many others are going to retire in 5-10 years, so there's big potential for me

Mixed bag. Those numbers and positions sound great. On the other hand, if there's not a serious succession plan in place, this might just be where the company folds and you're kinda stuck holding the back (tough love, try not to be offended).

I love the idea of being my own guy, fully responsible and in charge of my own income and not at the mercy of higher ups. Some of this comes from my Dad being a self employed...

Whether entrepreneurship works out for you or not will be almost irrelevant to the decision I think. When I hear these kinds of statements coming from that kind of a family background, I feel that there is a very high probability that you'll never be satisfied unless you give entrepreneurship a go. A few things to consider:

1) Frankly, I feel that you're at the perfect age and experience level for this. Firstly, if you succeed, you've got lots of time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Secondly, if you fail, you've still got plenty of time on the clock to get a cubicle job and climb the ladder. If I had it to do again, I wouldn't have waited a day past 35 and, preferably, would have been closer to 30.

2) I believe, right down to my bones, that risk aversion is the number one thing keeping people from maximizing their true potential. Particularly so in affluent places like North America where, truly, what's the worst outcome that could possibly result?

but my co-worker said that the companies E&O insurance covers any work we do on the side. That doesn't seem right to me though...

It doesn't sound right to me either unless your employer is either a bunch of morons or incredibly generous. I'd get this confirmed before relying upon it.

or realize the grass is not as green as it seemed from the other side, and realize I gave up a great opportunity at the company.

It actually does take a pretty great self-employment gig to beat a decent job in my experience. You're going to have to contend with a lot of annoying admin work, business development and, most importantly, pretty scary levels of uncertainty in your early years on your own. You may also wind up working much more than you did as an employee but that doesn't sound as though it's likely to be an issue for you.

Lastly, I hate sounding braggadocious but feel that I am an exceptional engineer and could be an exceptional business owner.

Perfect, this is how it needs to be. To be successful you should either a) be bringing something new to the market or b) be confident that you can do something better than most everyone else already doing it. Cocky. Check.

..he says contractors are better clients than architects?

Agree 1000%. Developers are excellent too if a little more difficult to court.

Also is there no way to PM people on this site?

Nope. But you should really contact me. See my profile page and see if you can't work out my email address. Given that you're so rock-star resourceful, it ought not be a problem... Firstly, I've recently done what you're considering and would be happy to offer whatever advice I can muster. I may also know of an opportunity that might appeal to you.

 

[Rabbit12]

So for the guys that are on their own, what's a reasonable number for top end earnings for a guy self-employed? Can you make double or triple what you can working for someone?

I personnally know two guys that went on their own. Both are now back working for someone. From conversations with them, it was a lot more stress and time investment (marketings, admin, billings, etc.). What they were earning evidently wasn't enough to justify the added commitment.

When the OP talks about his companies plan for him (leadership role) that sounds like it would be just what he's looking for. Sure he wouldn't have started it and built it to what is is today, but he could take it to new heights. To Koot's point though, you better make damn good sure there is a good succession plan in place.

 

[KootK]

So for the guys that are on their own, what's a reasonable number for top end earnings for a guy self-employed?

1) My guess would be about $300K max before you start needing to involve other folks and profiting from the fruits of their their labor. And that's working like a dog throughout an exceptionally fortuitous year.

Sure he wouldn't have started it and built it to what is is today, but he could take it to new heights.

2) If you have a reasonable level of certainty that you'll be the guy (or guys) at a larger firm that continues to be a successful business entity, that's tough to beat. Because of #1, the passive income part of it is all about leverage and, to that end, it's helpful to have a gaggle of capable worker bees from which to extract profit. There's a catch22 to it though. If you're on track to be the guy, odds are good that you are that guy precisely because you would have had what it took to do it on your own. In which case, you probably should have done it on your own as the whole structure of career progression in a larger firm is meant to create a lag between when you get your cake and when you first started deserving your piece.

I personally know two guys that went on their own. Both are now back working for someone.

3) This is a reflection of #2. Many that go out on their own do so because, on some level, they've realized that they're not going to be that guy at their firm. Or their just entrepreneurial cowboys that simply have to find out what they could do on their own. And the result of that exploration for many people is that they find out that they are, indeed, not that guy. This may well be how it pans out for me, we'll see.

4) A very big part of the stay/go conversation is the ultimate cost of the "stay". You don't make serious money until your some version of an owner. That can be shareholder rather than proprietor but it still has to be some meaningful version of equity. And the folks that retire from viable business concerns of their own creation rarely do so on overly generous terms. It's usually some version of liquidation and the folks that carry forward carry that burden as they go.

5) Related to #4 is the rather interesting situation of the "work from home" self employed entrepreneur. This is me at the moment with 1.5 junior guys helping me out and also working from home. With overhead shaved down right to the nuts, I almost have to try to have a poor fiscal year. I only need handful of mid-sized projects, and some smaller stuff around the margins, and I'm good. The minute I take on a physical office and employees with benefits etc, however, I could see that going up in smoke in a hurry.

 

[NorthCivil]

KootK,

Between your thirst for knowledge, your absolute need to get to the bottom of things, and the immense amount of time you spend on this forum, colour me surprised to hear that you are self employed.

I guess the next question is, with your reading/posting/studying habits, and your business, how do you remain married?!?

 

[KootK]

Between your thirst for knowledge, your absolute need to get to the bottom of things, and the immense amount of time you spend on this forum, colour me surprised to hear that you are self employed.

I know it. Time will tell if it's sustainable.

I guess the next question is, with your reading/posting/studying habits, and your business, how do you remain married?!?

Married another structural engineer with a very generous heart. Naturally, she's a bit more sympathetic than your average gal probably would be. Let's just say there's not a lot of clubbing going on.

I've also had to split myself in two intellectually. Batman works the forum; Bruce tends the business. They're philosophically opposed and not fond of one another.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I'm probably one of the closer people to your situation who has recently jumped to the self-employed route. I'll definitely share my thoughts on how it's worked out for me and what my challenges were.

I left my employer at 33 years old, my wife doesn't bring in much income (deliberately as our plan is to start a family soon and she does the housewife gig giving me more time to spend on work) but we similarly have low debt (only a house mortgage of $140,000 but bigger than yours, yay Maine). My previous employer paid just shy of $80,000 / year with medical for myself, a similar 401k to yours, but no other benefits. You'll need to adjust my figures for cost-of-living of Maine to California.

I started up with only a handful of clients but I timed the market well and there's a lot of contractors and fabricators in the New England region who are hungry for small engineering shops so I've had no lack of potential work. That said, you will spend a lot of time on non-billable things. Accounting, bringing in new work, advertising, heck even little things like checking the mail and reading emails adds up. Overall I probably average about 50 - 60 hours of work each week but I've had some weeks where I'm putting in 70 hours and some where I took a few extra days off. My first three months I only made about $4,000 each month, but now that I'm a few months into it I'm pulling in about $8,000 - $10,000 per month. This is sustainable but I'm skimping on things (no medical insurance right now, keeping expenses low, not adding to a 401k, etc.), plus we don't have kids yet so we can survive on less easily enough. Ideally I need to start bringing in at least $10,000+ each month to make this truly worth it and I can definitely see me maxing out around $150,000 at which point I'll probably start bringing in other employees, which sounds great. I started off with only $10,000 in initial office, accounting, and other expenses, plus $4,000 for E&O insurance. My expenses probably went to around $13,000 in the first few months with some added software, books, state licenses, and other expenses.

My biggest hurdle right now is bringing in repeatable work that I can do efficiently. If you're doing something new or time consuming each job then you'll never become profitable. Thankfully a good portion of my work is repeatable so I currently only see my profits going up to my target. KootK has given me a lot of advice on the side regarding my work and some of the best advice is to say "no" to potential work more than "yes". Take jobs you're good at or that you can do profitably, don't try to learn on the clients dime.

I encourage you to search the forums for other past topics on people starting out on their own. One big piece of advice I've found to be true is you must start out with 5-6 months of personal expenses saved up. I dipped into this a bit but overall didn't need it thankfully; however, I can easily see a few bad months happening and you definitely need this cushion to avoid falling flat right out of the gate. On top of that I didn't see profits until about 3 months in so you definitely need something to keep the bills paid during this transition.

All said, I'd say evaluate your personal finances and make sure you can afford to take the cut in pay that you'll initially have being self-employed. If you think you can suffer that combined with the potential stress knowing that you no longer have a steady paycheck, then I'd say go for it. It's been hugely rewarding for myself and I've enjoyed it so much more than working for someone else. It's been a learning process and it's definitely a lot more work, but seeing the big picture really helps motivation and the personal satisfaction of seeing a job completed. The make your own hours and spending more time at home is fantastic. KootK is 100% correct that if you do want to do this then do it sooner rather than later; before you get too entrenched in a good paying job or have too little time left if it doesn't work out.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL, HI)

 

[Rabbit12]

TME, when you are saying 8-10k per month is that gross profit before taxes?

Also, you're braver than I to roll without health insurance. I despise our healthcare system, but really don't want to go bankrupt should something bad happen to myself or my wife.

 

[KootK]

Also, you're braver than I to roll without health insurance.

I should speak to this to give an accurate picture of my own risk picture:

1) Canada has decent, free health care. Kind of a nice feature for spurring entrepreneurship, no? Sorry, couldn't resist.

2) My wife has kick as healthcare and dental care. And I get to back door purchase lucrative shares in her firm which rocks.

3) I had kids unfortunately young which has the one advantage that I'm mostly done with that now. Only my own life really remains to be screwed up.

So, yeah... I've got some things much easier than other will have them.

 

[Rabbit12]

Koot, that gives a lot more clarity to your situation.

I have no doubts I could be my own boss and probably make some decent money at it, but I'm not sure running without health insurance and not contributing to any sort of retirement account is a wise decision. The money into a 401k/IRA in your 20's and 30's is huge because it works over and over for you until you retire. Tough to make that up later on.

To clarify my position, I'm making a base salary + bonus of just over 100k. We are an ESOP so every year I get shares and the company matches a portion of my 401k deposit. Health insurance and dental are good. It'd be really tough for me to justify going on my own. I get paid vacation and straight time OT if the project is under budget. I just don't think there is a big enough reward to take the risk.

 

[KootK]

The money into a 401k/IRA in your 20's and 30's is huge because it works over and over for you until you retire. Tough to make that up later on

Surely, but that right there is the golden handcuff phenomenon. A die hard entrepreneur would rephrase your statement as something like.

Man, when I get out on my own, I'm sooo going to kick some ass and dwarf my salaried earnings. I'd best get started on that adventure before I'm 35 so that those returns can compound over time.

Fundamentally, entrepreneurs are possessed of such extreme self confidence that betting on themselves becomes the rational choice. Is that self confidence always justified? Certainly not. Most people are, and ought to be, employees. Particularly so when those people hold very attractive positions such as your own. Being an employee isn't the bizarre anomaly, being the entrepreneur is. And, truly, I'm not implying that one path is any better than the other. Both can be good and both can be bad depending on the person and situation. I, for example, am definitely of a somewhat anxious disposition which often makes entrepreneurship more difficult for me than it probably needs to be. I learn a lot of difficult lessons on a pretty regular basis.

What follows is just for fun so, please, nobody read too much into it. I have this posted in my home office as a little pick me up reminder when I'm plagued by self doubt that I may have ruined my own career for no good reason. Yeah, I may come to regret not driving hard towards a partner track position at Thornton Tomasseti etc. But, whether that is true or that is false, I still make more money, more comfortably, and with greater freedom than probably 95% of the other humans that walk the earth and 99.995% of the other humans that have ever lived. Taken in a global/historical context, I'm a goddamn home office Pharaoh. And the person who needs to not forget that... is me.

 

[skeletron]

Yep. The golden-handcuffs. Watch out. They never come off, but they're never really on. You know what I'm sayin'.

If you think you can do the solo thing, do it. Be good at it beyond the financial. Security in someone else's hands is nice but you really can hold your own survival quite well when everything is squared up.

 

[IRstuff]

Just a word of caution; most engineers tend to be introverts and are not good at marketing, particularly themselves.

Which is actually good news, for those who can; their job and income prospects would drop if, say, twice as many engineers could and would decide to go solo.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

TME, when you are saying 8-10k per month is that gross profit before taxes?

Affirmative. I wasn't sure how technical I should get in my finances before my post would start looking like a profit/loss statement.

Regarding health insurance my wife and I are both healthy and I have some additional savings in a HSA that could cover some medial expenses. Getting profitable enough that I'm comfortable saying I'm a successful entrepreneur and affording some basic health insurance is my first priority. My hope/plan is to only be without healthcare for about 6-12 months. Seemed an acceptable risk.

The money into a 401k/IRA in your 20's and 30's is huge because it works over and over for you until you retire. Tough to make that up later on.

After health insurance and all my general finances are at 100% strength I plan to evaluate whether to continue to invest in a 401k or invest in my own business. KootK gave me some great advice that my business can be considered a nest egg if I set it up right. I could potentially partner up and then sell my share to partners. Or I could just slowly wind the business down and semi-retire and just work till I'm 90.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL, HI)

 

[Ron247]

cal91:
You are trying to decide if you should go into business for yourself. Several posts have mentioned the difference in engineering and business. Someone astutely commented on Introversion, several on marketing etc. I am going to add to the business related comments the following:

-Since this is a forum filled with structural engineers, do you think we all communicate the same? Do you think we all value the same things to the same degree and in the same order?
-How much do you know about communication? Do you know how to converse with an Extrovert as compared to an Introvert? Do you know how to spot the difference? Do you know the difference in people (i.e. Clients) who make decisions based on Logic versus Feelings? Do you know how to spot the difference?

The reason I am posing just these very few and basic questions to you has to do with Business. As far I see so far, you may not be suited yet to start your own business. You may need to work on items similar to what I just asked you about rather than your engineering skills. Here is why:

-You posted 3 days ago. You have not interacted with anyone who has responded to your posts. Some of the audience will be put off by that.
-I was the first to respond. I asked you 4 questions. You have not responded. Some of the audience would be put off by that. I was nice enough to take time out of my day to assist where I can, to some, you would not appear appreciative enough to at least respond.
-These thoughts are business. You must be able to assess who you are reaching out to, figure out how to most effectively communicate with them and then sell them that you are the solution.

The following is a survey done years ago about why people hire consultants (Architects & Engineers). Learn this list and see how well you stack up. Also note #7. Number 1 and Number 2 are the ones that sound easy when you read them but in fact are VERY hard to do.

[ol 1]
[li]Awareness and Understanding of Client’s needs and wants. This would include Time, Cost and Quality.[/li]
[li]Ability to Solve the Client’s Problems or Accomplish their Goals.[/li]
[li]Experience in Project Type.[/li]
[li]Ability to control schedule and costs.[/li]
[li]Interest in Job.[/li]
[li]Your Price.[/li]
[li]Qualifications of your staff. This includes licenses, grades, and experience.[/li]
[li]Repeat business.[/li]
[li]Professional recognition of your firm.[/li]
[li]Ability to control a remote project.[/li]
[li]Capital to cover expenses of business.[/li]
[li]Availability.[/li]
[li][/li]
[/ol]

 

[Ron247]

The list I just posted is in order of importance to the Client.

 

[KootK]

Some additional thoughts en route to what I hope is a balanced perspective.

1) Business development is hard and scary but that has not been the biggest challenge for me. For me, the biggest challenge has been reconciling myself to what are, on average, lower caliber projects with lower caliber clients relative to how things were when I was a big dog at a big firm. It's not like anybody's calling me up to do the next Guggenheim etc. And, certainly in the short to medium term, I don't see getting this aspect of my work back to where it once was. Working for an established firm is nearly impossible to beat in this regard in my opinion. Once you set out on your own, I think that your happiness depends, utterly, on your being able to view the solution of your business problems as your primary technical interest. And I struggle with that.

2) The flip side of #1 is that interesting business problems are plentiful and accessible to all entrepreneurs. In fact, you couldn't escape them even if you wanted to. Even when working at large firms as an established veteran, I still only had one or two projects a year that I thought were cool enough to fall in love with. 20% of my workload at most. So, in a sense, I was always starving a for more cool work even though there was some. External supply never met internal demand as it were. If you can train yourself to value technical business problems above all else -- and that's a big if -- you will find yourself awash in them in a way that can be immensely satisfying for the right people.

3) I get asked constantly if I think that self-employment is better than normal employment on a day to day basis. And my answer is that, it's probably about the same on average but, with self-employment there are much higher highs and much lower lows. Some months, $30K worth of checks with my name on them roll in and I feel like a god. Other months, $4K roll in and I feel like a chump. Once in a while, if there's a big snow dump the night before, I'll go skiing on a Tuesday which is awesome. Other times, I'll be much busier and have gotten myself into much more trouble than I ever could have as an employee and it will be an insane nightmare with me working every weekend for months. It takes a lot of mental discipline to stay cool and happy when operating under this much uncertainty and, for me, that pretty much offsets most of the "I'm my own boss" perks.

4) Even for introverts, engineering is really a team sport. I've found self-employment extremely lonely at times. Part of the reason that I've taken on partners and grown the business to include some employees is to address this and make it more fun for myself. In some ways, I almost think that the loneliness part is worse for introverts. My wife and most of my closest friends are structural engineers and, obviously, that's not a coincidence. Putting myself in a position where I don't meet any new SE friends unless I hire them has been challenging for me socially. That said, forums like this one help out immensely in this regard.

5) Family is a big deal to most folks considering this decision and I've had some truly unexpected results in this arena. Firstly, when I am crazy busy (#3), I'm no fun to be around and my family suffers. Fortunately, this aspect of things has been fairly minor and I'm getting better at compartmentalizing all the time. What's not been minor has been my ability to acquire what I call "kid moments". Anyone who's raised kids full cycle will confirm that your relationship with them really hinges upon the summation of all of the great, but somewhat rare moments when you're spending time together and something good/fun happens. Especially with older children, it's not as though you're just hanging out in group hugs for two hours at a time. You're really more like roommates or office mates interacting in short doses. Assessing this as an engineering problem, your odds of success go up drastically by spending lots of short burst of quality time with your kids on a regular basis. More rolls of the dice.

Back when I was a big company guy, I left the house before 7AM without seeing my kids and rarely returned home before 7PM at which time I'd bump into them briefly but, mostly, I'd be exhausted and just want to relax and watch some TV. We'd plan some grand adventure on the weekend to compensate but even that had it's limitations as we would usually be in a stressed "NOW we're going to have fun" state of mind. It's very different now. I start early and take a break around 8:30 AM to drive the kids to school. I'm not rushed in this, trying to get somewhere in a hurry. We invariably tease each other, tell a couple of jokes, and discuss our lives. No big deal but, often, a kid moment. When the kids get home at 4:00 PM I take a break (or just finish if I can) and we do some math/science homework and maybe grab an ice cream up the street. It's still pretty early in the day so everybody's energy levels are high and we're relaxed. The homework goes much better than it does later in the evening and, again, I often snare another kid moment out of the deal.

The net effect of all these kid moments that I've collect has been that, astoundingly, I seem to have a much better relationship with my kids than even my wife does (she's a kid person and I really am not). I know what their hopes and dreams are, I know what's going on in their lives, and I'm the go to parent for discussing sensitive problems. It actually makes my wife quite jealous. And I get all of this done with less than an hour's worth of effort each day. It just turns out that it's the right blocks of time exploited consistently. If I ever do go back to regular employment, it most definitely will not be until all of my kids are done with school. This aspect of things has been a huge win for me and was completely unexpected. Kind of like how my business is now my glamour project, so too are my children.

And, please, no one take these comments as my implying that anyone's a bad parent for holding down a day job. This is just how it's worked out for me. I've probably been somewhat in of a sociopath in the past with regard to my prioritizing my work over my children. I'm sure that most folks with regular jobs are doing a much better job of parenting than I used to.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

KootK: Regarding #4; you should join a local engineering society or two; solved the social problem for me quite nicely. Decent networking as well.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL, HI)