Thinking of coming back to structural engineering after 4 years away 1

[P205]

Hi,

I left structural engineering in April of 2019 (in Ontario, Canada) to pursue a career as a software developer. It has been a great career in a lot of ways, but I was recently laid off due to economic forces. I'm sure most of you have heard of the mass lay offs happening lately.

This has me reconsidering going back to structural engineering and I wanted to get some opinions and thoughts from the community about re-entering the profession. I still have a lot of desirable skills, 9 years of engineering experience, and it seems like the market is desperate for good engineers.

What are your initial thoughts? Think I could get hired again?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[skeletron]

INITIAL THOUGHTS
Were/are you a P.Eng. or E.I.T.? Are you still registered, or did you resign?

If you resigned in good standing, there is a 3-4 year period where you can reacquire your license/title with little more than a few forms and 2x the fees. Beyond that point, my understanding is that you would need to re-write the NPPE and reacquire your competency experience as per whatever the current association requirements. If you are/were an EIT, I think the competency/experience still carries over the gap. But there is a 7-8 year limit before the association "forces" you to either get licensed or start anew (this may be quasi-correct). Check with the PEO for your ins and outs.

My experience is:
-took 7 years to finally accept my destiny of getting the stamp
-took 3 year hiatus, voluntarily resigned, and then returned
-got my P.Eng. back about 2 weeks before the deadline

RE: GETTING HIRED
My experience after returning:
1. The gap surely is an anomaly. I think you handled it well by going into another industry (software) that is also desirable in structural engineering. Myself? I worked as a math tutor and in a warehouse...truly non-transferable work skills to the engineering environment.
2. Returning actually felt like a bit of a re-awakening in terms of regaining confidence and drive.
3. It was difficult to get hired, but I'm also in a difficult locale. And I don't have a graduate degree. And I was originally from a non-seismic province before transplanting to an active seismic province.
4. I did eventually get hired. Our experiences are likely different (see #1) and I would expect a software developer to have an easier time than I did.
5. I dove head first into intense Continuing Education. Partly to get my brain-legs moving. Partly because I was helplessly underequipped to compete (see #3). Partly because I wanted to (#2). And partly because I was challenged by some old guy in an interview to do it before trying to apply for a job again.

 

[KootK]

1) I don't think that you'll have any difficulty finding employment.

2) Nine years of experience is lots, especially if it's quality. After that much, most folks are starting to move into non-technical aspects of the work anyhow.

3) At that level of experience, it might even be an attractive time to attempt to go out on your own.

4) The Canadian economy is still pretty hot right now which is a bit odd in my opinion. My suspicion is that that we're still headed for a significant, post-Covid downturn. Because of this, I'd take care to try to assess genuine workload demand in your potential employers, particularly if they do a lot of private sector, developer work. I've seen people get hired before and during recessions and winding up having to bounce around a lot from firm to firm because they're always low man on the totem pole from a seniority perspective. A recession is a difficult time to be un-established.

 

[dik]

Good luck... If you've maintained registration, you shouldn't have any issues... if not, there may be a bit of paperwork. I had dinner, a couple of nights back, with one of the engineers I used to work with. He's applying for Ontario registration... the wait time is 23 weeks. When I registered in Ontario, a little over 40 years back... I had my registration in less than a week... times have changed.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[P205]

Amazing feedback so far, I really appreciate it.

@skeletron, I was licensed, yes and I would say my experience was really quite good. I also plan to dive head first into professional education. Honestly I'm quite hard charging into whatever I do, so I'm not worried about getting up to speed, performing well and making my employer happy, I am mostly worried about being hired in the first place. Love the brain-legs analogy haha

Good points @KootK,especially about the types of work thata potential employer may have. I'll definitely keep that in mind.

I've sent an email off to PEO to get specific information about reinstating my license, we'll see what they say.

 

[KootK]

@P205: how did you like software development? That's always been an attractive career path for me. Although I worry about the ever present competition from the developing world.

 

[canwesteng]

I think ARUP actually have some kind of structural software division where they do programming in. Might be a tough slog at first but you should be able to get your foot in the door somewhere. Some employers might question if you'll want to get back into software when it inevitably bounces back though.

 

[P205]

@KootK, great question, I have a lot to say about that. This will also address @canweteng's comment.

Software development was everything I dreamed it would be. What I enjoyed most about structural engineering was building out spreadsheets that automated a lot of my work. I thought if I could do that all day long, it would be the best job ever, and in a lot of ways it was. software development also involved rewiring my brain to think in different ways. Lastly, I can't complain about having worked from home this past 3 or so years. It's been great.

Actually, one more really important note, the feedback loop is so short. I really love that. The ability to iterate quickly on an idea feels so good. This was something that I found was quite different from structural engineering.

Now, why am I thinking of going back to structural engineering?

- It's tough being a code monkey. No one values all the soft skills you bring. Especially in the interviewing stage. Interviews for a company are typically 4-7 stages, including several coding tests. Despite what many companies say, it's all about the tests. The smarter you are, and the better you do on those tests determines if you get hired.

- I miss being valued as a senior engineer. My knowledge and expertise were highly valued.

- I worry about what the tail end of my career will look like if I don't make it out of the lower ranks. I'm in my late 30s and I'm competing with people in their early 20s.

- Because software pays so much (especially in the USA, not so much in Canada, where it's on par with engineering salaries), it attracts the best and brightest. And although I'm very smart compared to the general population, I'm very much average in the software world. This is tough when, as I mentioned, in the lower ranks you're basically only valued for your peak output and intelligence.


Anyway, that's it in a nutshell. Both career paths are good. I'm just looking at the second half of my career and deciding what I want that to look like.

 

[KootK]

Thanks for that. It confirms some of my worst fears regarding software development as an employee. Relative to common folk, I have a bit of a knack for database work. But I don't imagine that I would be too special in that respect amongst specialists either. And, if you gotta make it into management to make a go of it anyhow, it doesn't matter too much what the "product" you're managing is anyhow. Might as well be structural engineering.

 

[kissymoose]

Software development was everything I dreamed it would be. What I enjoyed most about structural engineering was building out spreadsheets that automated a lot of my work. I thought if I could do that all day long, it would be the best job ever, and in a lot of ways it was. software development also involved rewiring my brain to think in different ways. Lastly, I can't complain about having worked from home this past 3 or so years. It's been great.

Actually, one more really important note, the feedback loop is so short. I really love that. The ability to iterate quickly on an idea feels so good. This was something that I found was quite different from structural engineering.

Oh no, I did not need to hear that. Those are all things I want and would hope software engineering could be. Guess I'll save this thread for myself 4 years from now.

 

[P205]

Why do you say that @kissymoose?

 

[ggcdn]

@P205, I think there are many structural engineers that fantasize about become software engineers (I'm one of them).

Right now I tinker on hobby projects and have lots of fun doing it. One of my fears is that the enjoyment gets taken out of it when it becomes a day job. Did you find that?



-JA
try [link calcs.app]Calcs.app[/url] and let me know what you think

 

[P205]

One of my fears is that the enjoyment gets taken out of it when it becomes a day job. Did you find that?

Not for me, it never felt like a chore. By the way, I'm checking out your calc.app site and it's awesome! Well done. Done with React too, did you have someone helping you or you learned all that by yourself?

Doing something similar would be one of the first things I did if/when I come back to structural engineering.

 

[ggcdn]

That’s good to hear.

And thanks - The site was started as a pet project to learn react, but I’ve been tinkering with web dev for a few years.

-JA
try [link calcs.app]Calcs.app[/url] and let me know what you think

 

[kissymoose]

P205 - mostly in jest. Now is not a great time for a push into starting down a different career path.

 

[milkshakelake]

I'll echo the sentiment that it's kind of my dream to do software stuff. I love writing code; I'm just nowhere near good enough at it, nor do I have enough time.

If you have entrepreneurial bones, you can try to combine engineering and software design. It seems like that's what got you started in the first place with the spreadsheets. You have a combination of skills that might work great in today's market. If you look through posts here, there are tons of complaints about the state of modern day engineering software, especially wood. It wouldn't have the steady paycheck of a typical job, though. And it would probably be very tough to do as a side hustle, though it's possible. There would also be a ton of marketing, accounting, management of employees eventually, and business stuff to deal with.

 

[NorthCivil]

If you interview, and lay it out to us as you have above, im sure you will be a shoo-in.

I'm a pretty average design engineer. But i love talking to people, hearing their story, sharing my story, and finding common ground/connecting. It's always been well received in this business.

If you share your experience, and lay down honestly your thoughts and visions regarding your future career path. And get it across clearly and sincerely as you have here, there is no way you wont be hired.

If i was running a decent sized firm, i would probably start by getting you in the door to review/tweak/improve all in house company spreadsheets. that could be a 6 month job in itself.

I'm sure when you are back working at an office, you will spot low-hanging fruit that could lead to a business venture. Down in NZ, a new software called checkwind has basically found itself into every engineers subscription expense over the last 2 years. its a software that determines wind pressures according to relevant standards, using geographic inputs depending on address. Even with a spreadsheet, it takes an engineer half an hour to do a wind load calc, as the engineer needed to interpret and type out information from google earth or other GIS programs. this software automated it. I imagine it couldnt have been that hard to build.

 

[P205]

@GaryHStr thank you for your kind words.

@NorthCivil thanks for the kind words as well.

I do think about ideas now and then for creating software that could help structural engineers. Your example of the wind calculation software is a great example, it's simple and has a clear value proposition.

I'm still in the middle of trying to figure this all out. In the meantime, I'm looking for startups that are trying to build construction related software as an avenue to apply my unique skills and knowledge.

 

[Celt83]

Some of the newer players on the software side that may be worth reaching out to are:
Skyciv: Link
ClearCalcs: Link

From the sounds of your background I imagine you would not have too much difficulty finding a design position within a few months. There is a significant hole of available engineers in that 8-12 yrs experience tier, you may just need to brush up on current code provisions.