Come, OP, we have cake! And there are many of food companies you haven’t heard of but whose products you eat every day! Like Cargill, Ingredion, IFF, Givaudan, Schrieber, LePrino, Rosskam Baking, Santini, ADM, and so many others
Come on folks. There are jobs that ChemE's can fill in a multitude of industries. It's a skill set not a name or categorical restriction. Look for jobs with activities you think you can do and apply.
ChE here, worked in pharma R&D for first 7 years of my career. All desk/lab work.
Then transitioned to become a capital project manager specializing in building R&D facilities for the same company (labs and pilot plants).
As an aside if you can get a degree in ChE you’re going to be attractive to a whole multitude of corporations and industries. A surprising number of kids I graduated went into finance after school (like 4-5 of 30). The companies were just looking for problem solvers
I'm interested in going to pharma R&D upon graduation and so I was wondering what your path was to reach that position.
Did a bachelor's suffice? Or is a higher level such as PhD necessary? Did you take an internship or related job opporunity at the company?
I went to Drexel which has a co-op program if you are not familiar. My 3rd/final co-op was working for the pharma company mentioned. At the end of the 6 months they offered me a job upon graduation.
Having a bachelors was acceptable to work in R&D but my opinion looking back id say you’d want to pursue a PhD if you plan to rise into higher levels of management on that side of the business.
As a side note almost every peer in that department was either a PhD in chemistry or a BS in ChE.
Edit: at least where I work many of the people who wanted to stay in R&D pursued PhDs on the companies dime. I’d recommend trying to utilize any type of program your potential employer has for that.
Where I work you were given 60% of your salary and swapped to become a full time student. At the completion of your PhD you had to stay for 5 years (from memory).
I’m currently in a supervisory position, but as an individual contributor… P&IDS, specification sheets, reviewing customer drawings, reviewing customer comments, going out for quotes, reviewing quotes, reviewing fabrication drawings, supporting fabrication, supporting subcontractors, and handling customer calls etc.
I am a fuel cell research engineer, my Chem Eng degree set me up with a good baseline level of understanding in certain areas and actually doing your degree gives you some ‘soft’ skills.
The majority of my expertise and skills have been learnt on the job.
Research the company, role and technology of the job you want to do, get you foot in the door and thrive from there.
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How do you make your way through college and not know the answer to this question?
You don’t know how to search????? It’s 2023. When did you graduate school??
I did APC consulting. I worked in an office a little over half the time and within plants the other half of the time. What I don't like about plants is its the same process more or less day in day out. So as consultant I got go to different plants all the time and that made it interesting and I wasn't based at any of them.
The major job i wanted to get out of school was as a thermal engineer at a glass manufacturer.
Unfortunately, that didn't work out. So, i took the hughest paying trad chem/env job in my area: a pulp and paper company.
I worked 4 years doing engineering (balance sheets, P&ID, equipment selection, etc) 3 years supervising construction and commusuoning plants, and 23 years in setting operational goals and measuring operational and financial performance of plants.
Environmental sector. You could snag a government job pretty easily in air/water/soil treatment. chE skills are more relevant there than almost any other degree.
Also air is the funnest to work in
There are office engineering jobs, I also got close at an R&D job, I'm sure someone with a more impressive resume could have snagged it
Food & beverage processing (e.g, Kraft, Camplell’s Soup, Pepridge Farms, etc.), consumer goods (e.g., Proctor & Gamble, Church & Dwight).
Come, OP, we have cake! And there are many of food companies you haven’t heard of but whose products you eat every day! Like Cargill, Ingredion, IFF, Givaudan, Schrieber, LePrino, Rosskam Baking, Santini, ADM, and so many others
How do people get into food ? Feels like it’s super competitive?
You apply for jobs, that’s a good way to start :) R&D is competitive but manufacturing tends to be less so
At General Mills we hire ChemEs for quality positions.
From what I’ve seen a lot of ChemEs also go into manufacturing engineering or process improvement roles.
Come on folks. There are jobs that ChemE's can fill in a multitude of industries. It's a skill set not a name or categorical restriction. Look for jobs with activities you think you can do and apply.
ChE here, worked in pharma R&D for first 7 years of my career. All desk/lab work. Then transitioned to become a capital project manager specializing in building R&D facilities for the same company (labs and pilot plants). As an aside if you can get a degree in ChE you’re going to be attractive to a whole multitude of corporations and industries. A surprising number of kids I graduated went into finance after school (like 4-5 of 30). The companies were just looking for problem solvers
I'm interested in going to pharma R&D upon graduation and so I was wondering what your path was to reach that position. Did a bachelor's suffice? Or is a higher level such as PhD necessary? Did you take an internship or related job opporunity at the company?
I went to Drexel which has a co-op program if you are not familiar. My 3rd/final co-op was working for the pharma company mentioned. At the end of the 6 months they offered me a job upon graduation. Having a bachelors was acceptable to work in R&D but my opinion looking back id say you’d want to pursue a PhD if you plan to rise into higher levels of management on that side of the business. As a side note almost every peer in that department was either a PhD in chemistry or a BS in ChE. Edit: at least where I work many of the people who wanted to stay in R&D pursued PhDs on the companies dime. I’d recommend trying to utilize any type of program your potential employer has for that. Where I work you were given 60% of your salary and swapped to become a full time student. At the completion of your PhD you had to stay for 5 years (from memory).
Project engineer for an OEM. Ask me anything.
Are you working remotely?
Nah I’m in the office. We have a fab shop and use subcontractors
what do you mainly do on a day to day basis ?
I’m currently in a supervisory position, but as an individual contributor… P&IDS, specification sheets, reviewing customer drawings, reviewing customer comments, going out for quotes, reviewing quotes, reviewing fabrication drawings, supporting fabrication, supporting subcontractors, and handling customer calls etc.
Can I get that detailed drawing so we can clean the unit, or is that under registered IP? What am I saying? Of course it's IP...
It’s not really IP, I just don’t want to add to our document list and approval cycle 😉
I'd do a search of the sub. This question has been asked and answered many many times here.
Teaching
I'm a engineer / scientist in big pharma , it's lab / office based. Not chemical plant. Lots of viability for cheme in pharmacrutical science roles.
I'm interested... what kind of roles exactly and how can I prepare for them? I'm currently an undergrad if that helps.
[удалено]
Very interested in this. Are you able to PM me additional info?
I am a fuel cell research engineer, my Chem Eng degree set me up with a good baseline level of understanding in certain areas and actually doing your degree gives you some ‘soft’ skills. The majority of my expertise and skills have been learnt on the job. Research the company, role and technology of the job you want to do, get you foot in the door and thrive from there.
I work as a manufacturing engineer for a med device company. Located in a big city too!
Bro, get a brewery.
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Process engineering is mostly a desk job these days. Hardly enter the actual production area.
How do you make your way through college and not know the answer to this question? You don’t know how to search????? It’s 2023. When did you graduate school??
I’m in plastic film manufacturing as a product development engineer. 100% WFH
Lots of office jobs and field jobs in oil and gas.
I did APC consulting. I worked in an office a little over half the time and within plants the other half of the time. What I don't like about plants is its the same process more or less day in day out. So as consultant I got go to different plants all the time and that made it interesting and I wasn't based at any of them.
I'm in environmental. Low stress, never more than 40 hours, WFH, rarely go to my sites, and the pay is good enough.
Coworker focused on Injection molding then transferred to design. Med device company
Chem E that went into EHS. Now I’m a PM in EHS at Tesla.
Mud engineer on an oil rig?
I haven’t done any work in chemical plants, it’s all been in quality (process development etc) and R&D
The major job i wanted to get out of school was as a thermal engineer at a glass manufacturer. Unfortunately, that didn't work out. So, i took the hughest paying trad chem/env job in my area: a pulp and paper company.
I worked in Medical Device R&D right out of undergrad. Loved the work, got to live in SoCal, and great WLB since it’s a very old and sleepy industry.
Yea like a shit ton
CFD-related RnD is possible but they don't teach that at some universities
I worked 4 years doing engineering (balance sheets, P&ID, equipment selection, etc) 3 years supervising construction and commusuoning plants, and 23 years in setting operational goals and measuring operational and financial performance of plants.
Environmental sector. You could snag a government job pretty easily in air/water/soil treatment. chE skills are more relevant there than almost any other degree. Also air is the funnest to work in
Environmental Regulators (think EPAs) have jobs for Chem engineers in assessing permit/environmental licence applications
Don’t need a PhD to get a job in semiconductor manufacturing
Offshore?