Inquiry Regarding Career Opportunities in HVAC Design

[ahmed alsanie]

Dear Sires

I hope this message finds you well. I trust that this forum provides valuable opportunities for exchanging experiences related to the engineering job market across various fields.

I am a recent immigrant to the United States, now residing in Jacksonville, Florida. I hold a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Power Engineering, and in my home country, I worked for 14 years in the maintenance of various HVAC systems (including chillers, packaged units, DX systems, and small split units).

Currently, I am aspiring to transition into the field of HVAC design. I have studied the HAP software and achieved a proficiency level of over 80%. Additionally, I have some knowledge of AutoCAD, though I estimate my proficiency in it to be around 20%. I also possess an American equivalency certificate for my degree.

My question is, what licenses or certifications are mandatory for working in this field (if any exist)? Furthermore, could you advise me on potential organizations or companies where I might be able to work as a trainee with partial pay to gain further experience?

Thank you for your time and assistance

 

[HVAC-Novice]

If you just work for a company as an employee under their supervision, you can start with whatever they require. They would have a senior engineer supervising and stamping the design.

If you do design on your own, you need a license (PE etc.) depending on what your locale requires. But that isn't an issue for a beginner. note that obtaining a license also requires 4 years of experience and references. so the above beginner work will be necessary.

How did you determine 80% and 20% proficiency?

I would start using Revit asap. AutoCAD is dead in the modern World. Unless you are 1 year away from retirement, don't use AutoCAD. Also forget HAP. There is this Ripple HVAC plugin for Revit and that actually integrates nicely with the BIM (Building Information Modeling) workflow.

 

[SAK9]

I would suggest a course in Revit MEP and look for opportunities to work as a Revit MEP designer with either consulting or contacting industries. As you gain more experience as a designer you can move up to an engineer role. You can utilise your operational and maintenance experience to create designs that are easy to operate and maintain. This is what what you should be pitching to future employers. Think up a few examples of situations where you improved an existing design or resolved a technical problem which could have been avoided with a different design approach etc and these will be very handy in your interview discussions.