Terratek
Geotechnical
- Oct 17, 2014
- 269
I have more than 5 but less than 10 years experience in geotechnical engineering and manage my department in a branch office of a relatively successful company in our region. I make a good salary for my level of experience and position. I like what I do for the most part and feel I have a natural affinity and intuition for it. While I'm no 30 year seasoned guru, I'm pretty good at what I do and think I could practice on my own without landing myself into trouble due to incompetence. I know what I don't know when I see it. My level of technical competence is probably about 90 to 95 percent what it could be, working within the business model of my employer which would fall somewhat short of some (but not necessarily all) national and/or global corporations offering geotechnical services - in regards to rigorously technical projects. While I respect that I need to be fully competent in the work I perform, my ego does not require me to have much deeper knowledge/expertise than my current level for self fulfillment. That is, I am content working on typical residential, commercial, local infrastructure and occasional high rise type projects. I also highly enjoy the management aspect of what I do as well as being the guy that clients call when they need something. I enjoy teaching what we do to new engineers and I like being "the boss" even if I am a lowly middle manager. I really like being able to help and I like the feeling of my hard work being appreciated even more. But I doubt I am unique here....
The main thing I don't like about the daily grind are ungrateful, fee pounding clients and endless requests for letters and addenda that clients, contractors or other consultants want everyday yesterday for their file since they confuse me with an insurance policy writer who has nothing better to do than tend to their one little request - but I digress. What gets me is that often times other engineers (other disciplines) on a project team try hard to beat us down FOR the client, regardless of whether or not we are under their umbrella or working directly for the client. And while I thrive on the challenge of my department meeting multiple deadlines and love to report big revenues and complete lots of projects, I also hate being overloaded and consistently missing contractual deadlines (due to too much work load). Kind of a catch 22. Although I know we all face these problems to some degree, I feel like the geotechnical engineer is at the bottom of the hill which the dark matter rolls down. Some days I wonder why our branch of engineering exists considering how much more about my job every non-geotechnical engineer knows than me. Can you write a letter stating that for my file?
Here is the cross roads. I think I could probably make a life long career as a geotechnical engineer, but feel I might be short changing myself by not learning other disciplines. Plus, if I ever want to start my own business, geotechnical engineering would be the most capital intensive to start (from what I gather about other consultant asset requirements) and would be tough to make a living from in the beginning due to the relatively low fee per project. I would definitely need to hit the ground running. And I don't know if I have the ambition to make that work. In addition, I have no love for the CMT portion inevitably required to be truly marketable to most clients. This one is a biggy. I have zero interest in running a CMT operation. Talk about incompetence in the industry. Anyway, that is another topic for another day.
Okay, so here is the cross-roads (really this time). I have an opportunity to work with/for a semi-retired engineer who is a registered engineer, architect and surveyor (old school). He has his own firm which he has ratcheted down but not fully closed. He could teach me civil site design, MEP and structural engineering (for light wood framed structures). This could lead to me buying him out eventually and he would be available for technical support for years to come provided health allows. He is in his mid 60's, so I figure he'll be around for at least 5 years, likely more based on his family genetics. He doesn't have enough work for me to leave my day job, so I would be working part time for him, "learning the trade", while working my day job full time. I know it would be a lot of work, but I think I could treat it the same as how I did my master's degree which I earned while working my same day job. I would dedicate one Saturday and two week nights per week to learn. He would seal documents and I would not attempt to bring any clients in as long as I work for someone else (particularly since that would put me in competition with my own day job clients, rather than my day job employer), so I don't need a lesson in ethics. I would basically work in the capacity of a CAD tech, assistant or whatever. That being said, it would certainly affect my ambition during the day (there's only so much energy in a body) and I think I would progress less quickly where I am than if I just concentrated on where I am. So the downside is possible stagnation in my current job which all signs indicate relatively high ($$$)future promise otherwise. The upsides are multiple, but more ambiguous. They would include having a much more diverse base of knowledge than most civil engineers which could prove useful in soft economies. It also opens the door to ownership of an established firm (which is already insured) since the ultimate plan for both me and the owner would be a transition of ownership. I could always add geotech to the fold if I made the full plunge, too.
So I guess I have nothing to lose by trying this new opportunity to see where/if it goes. I am curious what other thoughtful/introspective engineers might put out there for me to consider. I am particularly interested in input from business owners.
The main thing I don't like about the daily grind are ungrateful, fee pounding clients and endless requests for letters and addenda that clients, contractors or other consultants want everyday yesterday for their file since they confuse me with an insurance policy writer who has nothing better to do than tend to their one little request - but I digress. What gets me is that often times other engineers (other disciplines) on a project team try hard to beat us down FOR the client, regardless of whether or not we are under their umbrella or working directly for the client. And while I thrive on the challenge of my department meeting multiple deadlines and love to report big revenues and complete lots of projects, I also hate being overloaded and consistently missing contractual deadlines (due to too much work load). Kind of a catch 22. Although I know we all face these problems to some degree, I feel like the geotechnical engineer is at the bottom of the hill which the dark matter rolls down. Some days I wonder why our branch of engineering exists considering how much more about my job every non-geotechnical engineer knows than me. Can you write a letter stating that for my file?
Here is the cross roads. I think I could probably make a life long career as a geotechnical engineer, but feel I might be short changing myself by not learning other disciplines. Plus, if I ever want to start my own business, geotechnical engineering would be the most capital intensive to start (from what I gather about other consultant asset requirements) and would be tough to make a living from in the beginning due to the relatively low fee per project. I would definitely need to hit the ground running. And I don't know if I have the ambition to make that work. In addition, I have no love for the CMT portion inevitably required to be truly marketable to most clients. This one is a biggy. I have zero interest in running a CMT operation. Talk about incompetence in the industry. Anyway, that is another topic for another day.
Okay, so here is the cross-roads (really this time). I have an opportunity to work with/for a semi-retired engineer who is a registered engineer, architect and surveyor (old school). He has his own firm which he has ratcheted down but not fully closed. He could teach me civil site design, MEP and structural engineering (for light wood framed structures). This could lead to me buying him out eventually and he would be available for technical support for years to come provided health allows. He is in his mid 60's, so I figure he'll be around for at least 5 years, likely more based on his family genetics. He doesn't have enough work for me to leave my day job, so I would be working part time for him, "learning the trade", while working my day job full time. I know it would be a lot of work, but I think I could treat it the same as how I did my master's degree which I earned while working my same day job. I would dedicate one Saturday and two week nights per week to learn. He would seal documents and I would not attempt to bring any clients in as long as I work for someone else (particularly since that would put me in competition with my own day job clients, rather than my day job employer), so I don't need a lesson in ethics. I would basically work in the capacity of a CAD tech, assistant or whatever. That being said, it would certainly affect my ambition during the day (there's only so much energy in a body) and I think I would progress less quickly where I am than if I just concentrated on where I am. So the downside is possible stagnation in my current job which all signs indicate relatively high ($$$)future promise otherwise. The upsides are multiple, but more ambiguous. They would include having a much more diverse base of knowledge than most civil engineers which could prove useful in soft economies. It also opens the door to ownership of an established firm (which is already insured) since the ultimate plan for both me and the owner would be a transition of ownership. I could always add geotech to the fold if I made the full plunge, too.
So I guess I have nothing to lose by trying this new opportunity to see where/if it goes. I am curious what other thoughtful/introspective engineers might put out there for me to consider. I am particularly interested in input from business owners.
