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.​

 

[KootK]

But you might be a genius too, certainly in terms of your outlook, which I think is at the root of all success.

Unfortunately, my "outlook" is really just a perspective that I parrot from what I read and see in better men. I'm as anxious as anybody I'm afraid, even though I see the flaw in it. It's cliche but, truly, I believe that fortune does indeed favor the bold. The big challenge for me will be seeing if I can change myself from what I naturally am into what I clearly need to be.

 

[KootK]

I have some experience with glass design. Pretty much have to conquer any latent anxieties to survive there.

 

[KootK]

Our accountant was a small firm, and he bought up a few firms wanting to retire. Now he has a great retirement plan since he has a medium sized business that someone like KPMG might be interested in.

When it comes time to sell your firm, consider selling to me. Seriously. We're geo-cohorts of a fashion. Based on what I know of you from our interaction over the years, I'd have every confidence that your business would be honest and sound.

I am a bit tired of some of the things I still have to do now and likely for the next 15years.

This is a very big fear of mine as well. Although I'm coming at it from the opposite direction and hoping not to land there. It went like this for me:

1) I loved being a structural designer but, obviously, the pay is untenable over the long term for a family man.

2) I didn't mind being a project manager but was not set ablaze by it.

3) I utterly loathed being the manager of a structural department. I was a middle manager constantly squeezed between upper management wanting to hit performance targets and worker bees forever screwing up and whining about work life balance. I think that C-suite management would be fun but middle management just 'aint for me.

So my rather insane business plan is this:

1) I strive to be the world's highest paid EIT and have probably already succeeded in that (doesn't take much).

2) While glamorous project are tough to secure, I find that modest work is not. I strive to bring as much modest work under roof as possible and sort out ways to have it done by others so that it can exist as mostly passive income for me.

3) Once I get #2 up to a reasonable level, I plan to only do real work about 1/2 time and spend the other 1/2 of my days:

a) Developing my own suite of web based structural engineering tools. Kootware!

b) Designing lateral systems and other neat stuff for other consultants, either for free or at a ridiculously low rate.

c) Doing architectural projects with people I like and just accepting that they'll never be big profit generators.

I know, Warren Buffet I am not. I've come to the sad conclusion that, almost by definition, cool engineering assignments don't pay unless you really do have a great niche service offering like glass99. And that's simple supply and demand. There's a veritable army of talented, power nerd engineers out there happy to pay their employers for the privilege of taking a swing at the next Burj Dubai. Supply... greatly exceeds demand. So I'm not even going to try to position myself such that I'm making great money doing cool things. Instead, I mean to split the streams and make great money having others do modest things and do cool things myself nearly pro-bono. Or maybe I'll just get lazy read a lot out on the patio. One of those.

 

[glass99]

Buying up smaller firms is definitely something I have been interested in over the years. I would love to hear more about how that works in the real world.

We do cool projects for a decent fee, but we still struggle with a lot of the same stuff. The big one for me is the lack of linearity and repetition and therefore scalability of my practice.

 

[KootK]

The big one for me is the lack of linearity and repetition and therefore scalability of my practice.

That's sort of the trouble with genius-ing. It's not easy to convince other geniuses that they ought to be your worker bees. It's almost always got to be a partnership arrangement.

Buying up smaller firms is definitely something I have been interested in over the years. I would love to hear more about how that works in the real world.

I've done this once and attempted it two other times. All disasters hinging on two things:

1) It's all but impossible to agree upon a price that a retiring founder would find fair and, simultaneously, wouldn't represent too much of a cost burden for the buyer.

2) Any firm that I could afford to buy is going to be small. And that invariably means that the bulk of the real value of the firm is the reputation of the departing owner. That tends to feel a lot light buying nothing at all from the perspective of the purchaser. In this sense, I could see buying out your current employer being a more viable thing.

 

[Craig_H]

I will share my own limited experience here. I made a similar choice to yours a little more than a year ago. I am 28. I was in a stable job, in a specialized SE/CE (Construction Engineering) industry. The industry had a limited career path, and I was becoming bored with it. Looking at my superiors, I wasn't inspired by the thought of sitting in those positions for the rest of my career. At the same time, I had friends who are general contractors, and were having a hell of a time finding a structural engineer to help them with their projects.

I did some market research, gave it some thought, and with a very understanding life partner (we're Quebec-married, new age shacked up), we moved 400 km & started the business at the same time. This meant starting the business with very few existing clients - we definitely did not make it easy on ourselves. My darling even took a crap-job at the start so that we could pay rent and eat ramen without any income from me. Previous job training in personalities, communication, and self-awareness paid huge dividends in those early months, as I figured out how to get the business off the ground, and also how to keep my sweetie from freaking. The challenges, as many have suggested, are two pronged. There is the technical challenge of running a professional practice, not exceeding your knowledge/experience while satisfying clients, and the challenge of running a business.

My biggest challenge is with money. Without formal business training, figuring out what fee structure my client will prefer (and which will give me the fewest ulcers) is a challenge. That's mainly a challenge in reading the client's personality & situation. It's also sometimes a challenge to persuade your client that the value you create is valuable to them. Persuasion skills pay off big in focusing your clients on your abilities/experience/other-distinguishing-traits rather than on price. As many on these forums have complained, competing on price is a race to the bottom and a race towards poor quality and hurt feelings. Best of all, if you can provide a unique service, and eliminate any competitors, that's ideal. That's where we are - somewhat remote, and the only service provider in the area.

My other largest challenge has been handling situations where I would have normally bounced ideas off of colleagues. This forum has helped somewhat, as have my former colleagues. Sitting in that grey cubicle farm, they are often happy to pick up the phone and "shoot the sh*t" about a cool challenge. I do the same for them in return. Don't see your former colleagues as dead to you - they are everything but.

Many consultants seem to struggle with getting paid. I seem to have largely avoided this issue, and I don't think it's coincidence. When working hourly, I always provide an estimate, and update the client if that estimate is becoming invalid. Same when working fixed-fee and coming up against a change. I do my best to not surprise clients with bills that are out of line with what they anticipated, and that seems to be appreciated. That personal touch sets me apart from the big firm, where billing issues tend to get forgotten until the month's end.

We've been incredibly lucky/fortunate/supported-by-the-community. Keeping your karma account topped up seems to go far. Both myself and my partner are now working for the business, and we've got a growing client base who are starting to return. We are also super happy with the benefits of working for ourselves. I answered a call from a client halfway up a rock climb yesterday. Life could be worse.

 

[Enhineyero]

I'm also thinking of going on my own and have read all the post above, it is all inspiring.
I have realised awhile back what bookowski said above regarding the chances of a young structural engineer ending up on the street and how things might pan out, but still I'm antsy of going on my own for various reasons.

I, like most people above, didn't have training on the business side of things but took part-time study in business to have a better understanding of finance/management/markets/economics. However, what I really think is my weak spot is me being someone from overseas and not having the same kind of connections as those who are locals. I've been practicing where I currently reside for about 5 years and have about another 5 years in another country. While I been able to get my license to practice here, have assimilated well, established a good working relationship with my colleauges (and clients), and made friends with a few people, I can't help but feel that as a non-local, looking for projects might prove to be more difficult (my potential client list aint that long).

Anyone who has a similar experience? What are your thoughts?

 

[KootK]

Anyone who has a similar experience? What are your thoughts?

1) Bad news first. Yes, it is always better to have more local contacts and you're most definitely in a weaker position where they lack. In terms of business development, much of your low hanging fruit will be your existing contacts. And my recommendation to anybody getting started would be to make a concerted effort to reach out to everybody that you know straight out of the gate. Tell Facebook, LinkedIn, and your goddam grandmother's bridge partner that you're in business now and looking for work. You'll be surprised how much love will come pouring in. That karma thing mentioned above. I have to turn half of this stuff away because I've determined much of it to be strategically disadvantageous. But I've been most grateful for the other half.

With respect to assignments that are strategically disadvantageous, my opinion has settled on this: unless I'm starving, I don't want any assignment that doesn't stand a reasonable chance of either a) leading to repeat work or b) significantly enhancing my reputation. That, because:

a) Learning to do new work with a new client is almost always a money loser for the first few projects and;

b) Time spent satisfying one off clients is time not spent satisfying repeat clients. Pretty obvious in retrospect.

So no, if your neighbor is a dentist, I probably do not want to come look at the crumbling retaining wall in their back yard.

2) Good news second. As far as I'm concerned, absolutely every successful entrepreneur needs to be able to conjure new work, practically out of thin air. Existing contacts and relationship based selling are great but are usually just the start. So, in this respect, you're no worse off that anybody else. One of the more useful business books that I've read is shown below. This is geared towards hardcore sales people but still gives a sense of where your head needs to be at once you step out. One could sum the whole book up as this:

a) Have the ovaries to reach out to strangers and ask for work constantly. Constantly. You're either hunting or soon to be starving.

b) Be strategic about how your reach out to people for work because you won't get many chances to make your play. But don't overthink it to the point of inaction.

c) Have an ego strong enough to allow you to hear the word "no" nine times out of ten.

I read this book at least once each year, one chapter at a time. Sometimes, I feel inspired and empowered. Other times, when I'm faced with the limitations of my native proclivities, I want to projectile vomit. Unless you're a natural / Don Draper type, the name of the game is killing off the person you were born to be so that you can become the person that you want to be.

I'm a marketing wus by nature which has been a challenge. I've made it a personal goal to make this my first act of every day: I reach out to one person and ask for their work. That will be:

1) an existing client.
2) a client from a past life.
3) a school friend or former colleague working in the construction industry.
4) a random project team member from a past project.
5) a random LinkedIn connection who's interest, I feel, might intersect mine.
6) a fabricator or supplier of any damn component that I feel might merit structural engineering.
7) a friend from Eng-Tips that I know how to contact.
8) a cohort from a technical society.
... on and on.

Out of the gate, I felt as though my Rolodex couldn't be more than 50 contacts deep. With some emotional fortitude and creative thinking, I've realized that it's nearly infinite. To be honest, this effort takes me only 5-15 minutes a day and it still takes enormous self discipline for me to do even this. That, in contrast to the sales guys in the book who do about six concentrated hours of it a day. And I hear "no" a LOT. I don't think that my hit rate is any better than 1:50. However, there are 250 business days in the year which means five new clients for me every year. Which is plenty. As they take great pains to point out, aggressive sales is a) doable by anyone and b) truly a numbers game.

This part is uncomfortable and makes me feel sleazy at times. The book actually has a technical term for this that I like: "rejection intensive work". And truer words have never been said.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

You'll be surprised how much love will come pouring in.

I'll second this. 90% of my work has been referred from previous employers, old work contacts, or other people I know providing references.

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

 

[KootK]

I, like most people above, didn't have training on the business side of things but took part-time study in business to have a better understanding of finance/management/markets/economics.

Good for you with respect to the part time studies. Like most engineers at good companies:

1) I participated in proposals and business development.

2) I went to some seminars etc on sales and client management.

3) I was constantly exposed to the trickle of business development advice. Zipper effect and such.

4) I thought that I understood the importance of being client/solution focused.

5) I thought that I understood the importance of monitoring project financial performance.

6) I thought that I understood the importance of maintaining morale within a team.

As it turns out, #4, #5, and #6 were things that I only knew in my head. Now, I know these things in my bones which is different. And, should I ever find myself an employee again, I suspect that I'll be the world's greatest employee for knowing these things. Interestingly, I know of a few guys and gals that struck out on their own, hung it up in favor of cubicle jobs, and then succeeded wildly in those jobs. I suspect this is why. It's just hard to really understand what is important to your employer until you've truly walked a mile in their shows. Or even a few yards.

So, despite items one through six, I still found myself woefully unprepared for the business world. And, for better or worse, I'm one of those foolish people that thinks that all of the answers can be found in a book if only I could find the right book. And I've found that finding the right book has been hard. There isn't really a "how to start a structural engineering firm" book out there and much of what exist for entrepreneurs assumes that you're a business consultant, a tech startup, or a "real" company in the sense that you're gong to have set up a $1B factory and start outsourcing labor to Mexico.

Given the amount of interest that this thread has generated, I thought it might be helpful to list some of the resources that I have found to be gems.

1) The Business of Design. This is basically "how to start an architecture firm" which has been the closest thing that I could find to "how to start a structural engineering firm". It has the added benefit of having helped me to understand my clients' business models better which is, of course, a good thing. I actually converted one startup, architectural friend into a small architectural client by sharing this information with him. It is somewhat universal that simple generosity is a pretty good business development strategy.

2) The Personal MBA. In my opinion everybody needs some core business training. Also, in my opinion, an MBA is a waste of time unless it's a job prerequisite or you go to Yale/Rotman and milk the snot out of good old boy connections. Otherwise, all I want is the information which seems to be easily accessible to anyhow capable of reading. So I googled "Give me an MBA in one book" and got this. And it is as advertised. It's got me, in a very short span of time, thinking about the right things in the right ways. And it provides gobs of references should one wish to dive deeper on a particular topic.

3) The Accounting Game. Initially, I thought accounting to be utterly beneath me. My brother's an accountant, available to help, and it's really just adding and subtracting, right? That... was wrong. There's something to basic accounting philosophy that every business owner should understand. And, if you're trying to do some of your accounting yourself out of the gate, knowing these things is key to making good, time saving decisions about how you structure things out of the gate. And I caution anyone about thinking that this book is too "accounting for dummies" to be worth their time just because it deals only with the development of a single lemonade stand business. The presentation is nothing short of brilliant in that it uses the simplest possible example, taken ad nauseum, to explain very sophisticated business finance concepts. In my opinion, this is actually more information than I need but presented in such a clever and entertaining way that it was about as taxing as reading People Magazine. Interestingly, even though my own brother is a accomplished finance guy, even he couldn't "reach" me when it came to explaining some of these things in the way that I needed them explained. As with our profession, accounting has it's own jargon and foundational dogma. And after 20yrs in the game, my brother's really unable to filter those things from his language in a way that would make sense to me. I needed to know some of the things that he takes for granted and this book is what got me there.

 

[Yao1989]

The thread is quite inspirational. I better hit my local library soon to find some useful personal MBA books.

 

[KootK]

I'd like to contribute an additional thought regarding the timing of one's entrepreneurship adventure. To recap a few previous comments, leaning towards the bold, and to bring them together into a cohesive whole:

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.

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?

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.

I would suggest to have a better plan than we did. We should have acquired another firm or two along the way to normalize the workload so we could have more employees. I am a bit tired of some of the things I still have to do now and likely for the next 15years. Our accountant was a small firm, and he bought up a few firms wanting to retire. Now he has a great retirement plan since he has a medium sized business that someone like KPMG might be interested in.

My 2 cents is if you've got the itch then go ahead and do it. I wouldn't get bogged down in the details at this point, it'll just discourage you. You'll work it out. You're 27. The only thing you can be sure of is that you'll likely be dead in about 60 years (if you're lucky). I'd say its pretty unlikely that in 50 years you'll look back and kick yourself for that time you tried to start a business. Realistic bad case scenario(maybe not worst case) is that it's not a knockout, maybe you plug along and make 85 one year, 120 the next, and 70 the next, and then bail. In the long run the difference in finances won't mean anything. I'd say the odds of you ending up on the street are near zero so your potential downside is really pretty small.

I very much appreciated your comments about risk aversion holding people back. We live in an anxious world.

It also helps that I am a genius (!) But you might be a genius too

The additional thought that I'd like to table for consideration is the real life case of this firm: WHM

1) One of the founders of this firm is a friend. We went to school together, used to work at the same firm, and he occasionally tosses some work my way as, effectively, an act of charity. He's a good guy in many respects. He's my age with, like me, about 20 yrs left on the work clock.

2) A quick tour of the firm webpage will reveal that he's got a stable of employees and works on a lot of excellent projects in a number so sectors. Not Burj Dubi but modest residential highrises, schools, exotic homes etc. I would consider what he's accomplished to be the 80/20 version of about the best that I might hope for. But he got started fifteen years ago and I'm just getting started now.

3) My friend will be able to enjoy the considerable fruits of his labors for the next twenty years whereas I, if I'm lucky, might get to the same place about 15 minutes ahead of retiring.

4) My friend's firm is plenty big enough now to represent a viable retirement plan. Either he sells it for big a payout or, more likely, he transitions it to a distributed ownership model internally. I know nothing of his succession planning personally so I couldn't say with any certainty. But he most definitely does have some attractive alternatives available.

My point is that there's almost nobody in all the world that I'm more envious of than this guy. You know, in a real world sense. Obviously, I'd also like to be Beyonce, Putin etc. I don't regret going out on my own, I regret not going out on my own sooner. And I believe that, coming from a truly entrepreneurial perspective, this is how it should be viewed. One shouldn't fear the clock because today's possible lost earnings won't compound over time. One should fear the clock because, all too soon, we'll be dead, retired, or otherwise unable to capitalize on our own genius and entrepreneurial spirit. We all need to figure out how to maximize our own happiness and, for most of us, that means mitigating the snot out of risk. However, for anyone that is fairly certain that they'll be stepping out eventually, most signs point toward the wisdom of arriving to that particular party nice and early.

 

[Enhineyero]

I don't regret going out on my own, I regret not going out on my own sooner. And I believe that, coming from a truly entrepreneurial perspective, this is how it should be viewed. One shouldn't fear the clock because today's possible lost earnings won't compound over time. One should fear the clock because, all too soon, we'll be dead, retired, or otherwise unable to capitalize on our own genius and entrepreneurial spirit. We all need to figure out how to maximize our own happiness and, for most of us, that means mitigating the snot out of risk. However, for anyone that is fairly certain that they'll be stepping out eventually, most signs point toward the wisdom of arriving to that particular party nice and early.

I very much appreciated your comments about risk aversion holding people back. We live in an anxious world.

Those two things have been playing in my mind. Most engineers are thinkers and most entrepreneurs are doers. I'm on the process of building up my battle chest (money, skills, and mindset) to brace myself on what I will be facing, but have yet to cross that line. I do believe that money is not the most precious currency but time is, and hopefully I will get the courage to actually pull this off, as it in my opinion the most meaningful way of spending my 'working' time.

Thanks for the references you have posted above, I don't know alot of engineers who went on their own and couldn't ask anyone for useful references. I've been searching for awhile but its difficult to find a needle on a haystack, particularly in the internet. Most of the senior people in the office don't even bother with such things as work comes to them.

 

[Ron247]

Here are some places to look for additional work.

1. Find a general Civil firm that does not have structural ability. I know of 1 or 2 in my area. Talk with them about them referring you or using you when they get structural requests. You reciprocate when you get Civil calls. I do that now. They do not want to send the Client to a Civil firm competitor that has in-house structural.

2. Not every engineer is good at everything. Think out your 2 or 3 strongest areas and likewise you weakest areas. Find structural firms with somewhat the opposite and swap work. You should have no real desire to begin a new company with your weaknesses. I actually do work for other structural firms sometimes in a few areas because I have a strong background in these areas. As an example, since cold-formed and masonry are not taught in college, some firms do not take many of these type of projects if better stuff is available. If someone calls me about a multistory concrete building, I may send them to another firm since I do smaller jobs and one like that would eat up my time. Likewise, larger firms sometimes do not want some smaller job.

3. If you see areas that no one is good at but there is a market for that skill, LEARN IT. Some companies get a larger job they want but it can tend to have portions they are not really interested in or are not good at. They do not want to lose the big job. I used to do a lot of smaller fabrication for larger fab shops that were not interested in 10%-15% of what they bid on. I was involved in a smaller shop that was tickled to get the smaller jobs.

Basically, see competition as a potential Client.

 

[Ron247]

I forgot this one in my previous post.

4. Find firms in small towns nearby and contact them about calls they get that they are not capable of handing. There are a lot of really small firms that only do 1 or 2 things in small towns.

 

[kingnero]

Having read through the entire thread with much interest as I was in a similar situation some years ago.
Being a one-man show for some years (and since 2015 I've got a partner), I was not taken seriously by some of my clients in the beginning, even though at that moment I was well over 30 yrs old.
You've got some great advice, however at 27 yrs old, no matter how exceptionally good you may be as an engineer (and no, I'm not being sarcastic or smug), you lack experience. I've got 15 yrs of experience, and still hesitate to accept some jobs because they contain new challenges for me. Experience tells you at that point whether you are right to be confident to tackle the job, or whether you should be wise enough to let that one go to your competition, risking to lose any following jobs from that customer.

My son is still going to school, but my advice will be to have at least three different employers for some years (with some > 4) before (if he wants) to venture off alone. I worked at a small company, a large one and one public company, each has tought me things that I use everyday. Not just engineering, but mostly how the world works.

 

[glass99]

Ron: I like the concept of the "frenemy". Everyone is a potential collaborator, client, or competitor. When my client decides to bring engineering in house, they are my competitor. When the glass engineering firm across the street is the contractor's engineer on my design, we are collaborators. When the big engineering firm needs a specialist, they are my client. When my contractor offers design assist to my architect, they are taking work from me.

 

[KootK]

Most of the senior people in the office don't even bother with such things as work comes to them.

To swing the pendulum back the other way, in hopes a a balanced perspective, that sounds a bit like the "business within a business" model of career progression. Basically, you do what everyone should be doing and treating yourself like an entrepreneurial entity within somebody elses' entrepreneurial entity. And that's pretty tough to beat when it's working well. Frankly, if ARUP called me up this afternoon and offered to make me a principal with some serious equity, I'd be pretty darn tempted. The B-in-B is a pretty great balance of risk and reward. That said, there's a lot that needs to go right for this to work:

1) Gotta be a company where you like the work, the people, and the management.

2) Gotta be a company with good equity offerings.

3) Gotta be a company with a convincing succession plan.

4) If you've done any job switching, you may have to pay your dues for a decade or so before it starts to rain.

#4's really the one that got me. At my first decent structural job, I was well regarded and felt that I probably was the "heir apparent" so to speak. Big fish in a mid-sized pond. Family circumstances required me to leave that job and move back to Canada. I naively assumed that I'd wind up the heir apparent most anywhere because, you know... I'm awesome. Not so. I wasn't ever able to replicate that again and other firms tended to view me as a nice, clever guy destined to be a worker bee of the long haul.

It was actually one of those personality tests that caused me to leave one of my better jobs. My profile came back B-tard and I could tell that, despite their admonitions to the contrary, they were going to let that taint my progression. I am/was a B-tard for sure. But those tests only speak to natural proclivity and do not speak to drive, passion, and one's ability to change. And I'm not one to be artificially limited on the basis of some goofy HR test. Nobody puts KootK in the corner damn it.

I interviewed extensively with a firm that wanted to a acquire me after I'd been on my own a while. And they did the personality test thing. Interestingly, that time, it basically came back that I was the Don Draper of structural engineering and that my talents would be completely wasted unless I was doing something entrepreneurial. That's BS too though, I'm still a B-tard. By way of an Eng-Tips colleague, I do sort of have a business coach and he's taught me how to talk the talk. Part of my struggle with the personality tests is that it's impossible for me to be honest in the taking of them. I can't turn of the part of my brain that wants to game the system. The HR nerds swear these test are immune to attempts to cheat by I put exactly zero stock in that assertion.

 

[KootK]

Being a one-man show for some years (and since 2015 I've got a partner), I was not taken seriously by some of my clients in the beginning, even though at that moment I was well over 30 yrs old.

Not being taken seriously is a likely, and painful, consequence of going solo. I've had numerous people tell me that having a physical office is pretty important to getting taken seriously as well (a step I've not yet taken). I've got a good anecdote to share with respect to being taken seriously. I need to boast a bit first though. Here's me:

- Graduate degree.
- Two decades experience.
- Canadian license.
- California SE.
- Worked for the two most high powered firms in my market.
- A few of the marquee buildings and LRT stations locally bear my name.

I've got this one client, that I love, who uses me for small stuff. He'd like to use me for larger stuff but can't because it's always public works stuff where the proposals are qualifications based. And my firm has jack for qualifications.

So when this guy calls me up for a job, it always starts like this: "Great news! I've got this project coming up that doesn't require any qualifications. So you're in!". Imagine. How that. F*ing feels? I laugh about it now as I've relaxed some but I sure wasn't laughing the first few times.

 

[TLHS]

The office space thing is something that can be worked around these days with all the co-working and office share things out there in most cities. Even if you don't want an actual shared office, you can get a business mailing address at the place and then rent meeting rooms whenever you want at a reasonable price.