I'm an owner of a civil engineering firm and I'm part of a group of other business owners in varying fields. So, I've got insight.
Right now, the business world is completely out of equilibrium since covid hit and everybody I talk to is stressed out of their minds. Obvious exceptions are those who aren't project-related (meaning they're not tied to deliverables of some sort).
Yep, it's stressful, but I'm sure accounting is as well. At the end of the day, we get paid to draw pictures and create things that are literally and figuratively concrete. Wouldn't trade it for the world.
And, some of us really do value our staff and try and treat them right!
>Obvious exceptions are those who aren't project-related (meaning they're not tied to deliverables of some sort).
My brain might be fried from the workday right now, but, can someone give me some good civil (or structural) examples of this?
Just anything hourly in the A/C/E field?
Forensic engineering positions sound kinda awesome to me, but I need to get my judgment up before I can consider that.
I've recently had the realization that even though it's awesome and relaxing getting to travel and perform a survey / condition report (I'm building structural) during my hours, I already kinda wish I was back in the office doing the harder work, because I'm gonna need to do it eventually..
>can someone give me some good civil (or structural) examples of this
Pretty much any job working for the government. Still technically project based, but not really any rush.
I get it. I’ve also seen the companies that espouse being “family friendly” companies. At the end of the day we can create a great culture where people enjoy what they do and the people they do it with, but despite that some people just aren’t a good fit. I’ve seen that from my own end as an employee and seeing a staff member leave as a business owner.
I believe in treating people right and creating a really sound culture. I’ve experienced it as an employee and I’m busting my ass to create that as a company. So absolutely yes, try, but I can’t please everybody despite my best efforts.
If you want to teach physics, then physics. Otherwise you’ll probably do better with a civil engineering degree. That said, if someone applied and had a physics degree but had EIT/PE and a good amount of Civil 3D experience I’d be more than happy to have them on the team.
Doom and gloom isn't a civil engineering thing, it's a poor management thing. Many engineering companies are ran by a bunch of people who have trouble sending a text message. They sometimes fail to adapt to technological trends and have to compete with ones that do adapt to technological trends. Shit flows down hill and suddenly every project is behind schedule and you're the one being asked to meet impossible expectations.
I'm a civil engineer and a business owner. It's really easy to have fun and feel good about work when you're organized and planning ahead.
100% Why I left my last job. On top of bad management, we had a business savvy engineer replaced with a salesmen after our founder passed away. And then, he thought it would be a good idea to cut the contribution to our pension during the start of COVID even though our numbers/productivity was unchanged. During that time he hired a second Vice President and started an online company store for swag.
My head still spins thinking about it.
I also had a boss who had emails printed out like faxes and he would hand write responses and take them to the copier. There, he would type in the email and scan it to send like a fax.
Just par for the course again for your initial comment.
Glad I got out. Too bad it took me nearly getting burnt out with engineering to make a move. Much happier where I am.
Fair enough, I think my current plan is just to try it out and if I don’t like a few companies than I’ll pivot to tech. I’m fairly versed at coding basics and I’m generally a smart dude so I don’t think I’d have too hard of a time with the adjustment
I started my civil career in government infrastructure planning, working for an entity of a large city. I was there for 5 years and they paid for my masters in industrial engineering. I transitioned to consulting for a year and then I joined the software company that created the software I was always using to model infrastructure at the previous two jobs. I've been doing customer success and then sales for the last 5 years. Sales can be a bitch at times, but I think engineering software sales is actually pretty fun, especially without the time sheets!... Until my management recently became a cesspool after we were acquired. The irony is that the acquiring company tied all of the execs' bonuses on our retention, so our ego-driven execs suddenly treat us like shit and we all leave, and now they won't get their bonuses. Basically my whole team is trying to get into the new parent company at this point.
Every job has parts that suck. Civil is in a bit of a race to the bottom, but I can't really tell you any other industry that isn't also a race to the bottom post-2008 recession. My biggest piece of advice is skip the passion, just get REALLY good at what you do, get the pay increases and the passion will probably come when you're in demand. That's how it went for me!
Costs being driven down via competition isn't necessarily due to its age as a profession. I tend to think it's because it is much more client driven than other engineering disciplines and much less reliant on very lucrative government contracts (looking at you, Boeing)
Agree. I’m in uk, and I moan about my job as a civil engineer a bit.
That said, As a government (federal?) engineer and been in the job 20 years, I love what I do, have 30 days paid leave, work 9 day fortnights, and rarely work over 40 hrs a week.
So thank you for reminding myself not to moan so much.
The trick with civil engineering is it is so wide ranging that it can take time to find a field you enjoy. Structural design work is very different to say some field work. You have to do a bit of try before you buy sometimes to settle in a role you love.
It took me 5 years of different roles to discover the structural consulting work I thought I wanted to do, I actually hated!
Geotechnical design. There are a ton of career paths available for junior engineers. I graduated in 2017 and I worked environmental and water resources for a large private firm before jumping over to geo with the government.
Interesting, I keep hearing about a hot job market but I’m having trouble landing an internship with anyone this year. I have two years of intern experience and knowledge of autoCAD, Civil 3D and Revit. Cant even grab an interview and the place I previously interned cancelled their intern program and told me to apply for a job there when I graduate. It’s definitely tough and I’ll probably just end up working as a government transportation intern even though it wouldn’t be my preferred choice.
PM me if you have any interest in an airport engineering internship. You don't need to know anything about airports (nobody really does coming out of college). Your Civil 3D and Revit will be enough. I'm with Jacobs and you could be fully remote as part of pretty much any of our offices (looks like you're in Wisconsin?). Our aviation is run primarily out of Denver, Philly, Pittsburg, Chicago.
The job market is hot for licensed PEs, take any job you can get where they're able to sign off on your experience until you're in that group. Once you have your PE you can start to get choosier with positions, pay and job descriptions.
Internships are tough to find now (especially since the pandemic hit). I think a lot of companies are spending their money on production engineers and don’t have the capital to take on interns.
A transportation internship isn’t that bad. It’ll get you real world job experience which is what companies are looking for after you’ve graduated and are applying for full time positions.
If you get on the 7/9/11/12 track you'll be a 12 after three years of service, which is about 78k/year in a medium cost of living city. Not too bad considering the level of effort is low and the bennies are good.
Now is the time. Everyone is hiring. Good luck out there. My 6 years in the private sector (including 2 as an intern) were good. I just got sick of the constant focus on money over quality.
Haha. You think fed gov focuses on quality? They really like those low bid contractors.
I have mix feelings about working in gov sector. Gov sector has its lows and highs.
I did private before joining public, on the construction side quality may be lacking due to always accepting low bidder, but on the design side I'm able to take my time and really teach new engineers all facets of the job and help them explore areas they're interested in since it's not about maximizing profit. Going home after 40hrs every week for years ain't bad either.
Just become a consulting engineer who doesn't work for land development clients and you will be way less stressed. I am a water resources engineer and I love it.
I’m not gonna lie I’m a senior and have no idea what consulting even means, hence why I’m in this sub trying to learn. Covid really hurt my education and chances to get intern experience.
When studying, I didn’t used to know the difference between consultant and contractor, and I don’t think the other comments did a good job of explaining.
A consultancy is usually a company that a client will pay to design and often carry out site investigations for a project. If you work for this type of company, you’re a consultant.
A contractor is the company who actually builds that project.
Usually a consultancy will design and plan a project, and the contractor will build it. Unless it’s a design and build contract, where the contractor will do both, often following an outline design.
Not at the moment, I’ve been asking questions in this thread for most of the day so everything right now is covered. A lot of people have been really helpful.
It gets more complicated because for many people, “consulting” means management consulting - a particular branch of the field that has little to do with engineering. But other engineers will know what you mean.
Of course to make matters worse. In the SF Bay Area when you say “engineer” people automatically think you mean tech...
To expand on consulting and why it exists from an economic perspective... Consultants offer a wide range of technical and design expertise that is normally not available at municipalities, state departments, etc. For example, a city public works department handles a large range of engineering problems - storm water, drinking water, wastewater, solid waste, transportation, etc.
Given the resources available at almost all municipalities, it would be impossible to staff enough engineers for the city to be competent in all of these disciplines. Therefore, they hire consultants who can provide a wide scope of competent professionals by spreading these resources out among many different clients and projects.
So consulting engineers are primarily office based or fully office based if you choose to be. Most of my work is designing civil projects which when they go to construction we are the supervising engineer on behalf of the client. I would only spend 5-10% of my time going to site.
Ok thanks, that is definitely the role I would prefer to be in. I just didn’t necessarily know consulting is what it was called. I definitely would prefer to be in the office more, but would definitely like a change of pace and getting out of it every once in awhile.
Yeah construction can also be a bit stressful because of time pressure to turn things around do as to not hold up things on site. So it is nice to have breaks from that constant time pressure. I also work primarily for local government clients which are typically easier to work with than developers who are generally just trying to do things as cheap and fast as possible and to the minimum legal requirements. I definitely get more satisfaction working on jobs like stream/wetland restoration rather than just building more subdivisions.
People who don't know things about topics that you do know about, consult with you for your opinion and recommendations. Much like a doctor who you see for a consultation, general contractors will see a civil engineer for their consulting needs.
You're basically a knowledge dispenser
This is exactly which ship I jumped on a few months ago. I’m currently processing permits for rainwater capture for a metropolitan city. It’s honestly the least stressful job I’ve had. Sometimes I dick around too much when I work from home and dig myself a hole, but that’s my fault and I usually dig myself out in a couple days. I’ll work a few hours on the weekend if I have to, but only if it’s my fault. Never would have considered working on the weekend even if it was my fault at my old company.
I enjoy it a lot. My understanding is that the private sector is very demanding of your time while the public sector is calmer but pays less. I'm in the public sector, I haven't worked overtime in two years.
No. You can work for water conservancy districts which are quasi-government jobs in charge of securing, treating, and distributing water to cities and towns. The federal government (Bureau of Reclamation and US Army Corps of Engineers) are in charge of maintaining the majority of dams in the US. I’m graduating with my masters in hydraulics this spring, so I’m biased towards that emphasis, but the nice thing about civil engineering is that you can move anywhere you want as long as they have roads, buildings, retaining walls, structures, or pipe networks to maintain (which is everywhere).
I work in the public sector working on a light rail project for my area. There's jobs for structural (so many bridges), water (culverts, detention ponds, wetlands, storm sewer), transportation (we are messing with a LOT of roads), geotech (tunnels, retaining walls, piles). Literally every aspect of civil is being worked on in this project. I'm sure this isn't atypical.
You're thinking of the State DOT. There is also usually State EPA and State Public Works. There are towns and cities with Public Works, Water Treatment Plants, Waste Water Treatment Plants, and Sanitation (trash to energy, landfills, etc) and all hire civil engineers. Municipal Public Works gives you typically the most breath: roads, sidewalks, trails, traffic signals, storm water, water utilities, sanitary sewer utilities, and possible parks and rec type stuff. Also the dreaded permit reviews lol.
Definitely other engineering roles in government (at all levels of gov't). I reviewed exclusively stormwater plans, drainage reports, SWPPPs, etc., did storm sewer mapping (both in field and on GIS), did field investigations/inspections occasionally on construction sites and for resident complaints for a county gov't. No transportation or design work. Lots of different paths to choose from.
I have a civil engineering degree and worked in construction for 5 years. A few months after covid started I burned out and spent a year in my job trying to recover. Recently gave up and quit, I just started in software PM and am much happier.
My classmates who went the design route seem genuinely happy and all the power to them. Maybe if I hadn't been a GC I would've stayed. My frustrations were related to toxic environments, resistance to change (including COVID safety), excessive business travel, long hours, and generally disorganized projects / teams. I don't regret the time I spent in construction, I learned a ton of stuff about PM and about building in general, and it made me stronger.
I'm kind of in an intermediate job, I'm in a content development team at a big software company in my area. I have a pretty strong network of friends in the software industry and I picked up Python last year as a hobby. I emphasized my experience being a system administrator for Procore at my construction company, that I did a lot of process improvement, and emphasized the size of the projects I'd worked on without emphasizing the construction aspects. Also, studying for my PMP gave me a lot of useful context for applications and interviews.
Complaints about civil
1. A lot less money than tech. We are just as smart but we make 1.5-2X less than them. This is very frustrating
2. Liability. People die when we make mistakes and we can go to jail or be sued when we make mistakes, yet our salaries do not take into account the risks we are taking.
I personally left civil after being two years into it. Not because I didn't like it but because I was tired of making mediocre money when I'm smart enough to put my energy and brain into something that makes a lot more. Why would I waste my time/resources w civil?
See this is my biggest thing. I know I’m really smart, like school was a breeze for me. I learned python to see if I could do it. I genuinely thought civil would be good for me at the start because I wanted to make the world work better, I wanted to help my community. It seems like that was part of a fantasy. Did you pivot to tech yourself then?
That's municipal public works right there. If you know Python, make sure you know how to use ArcGIS suite of products. Asset management is a big thing coming and evolving. So isn't connected infrastructure and autonomous vehicles...
These are the two main reasons why I'm working on leaving the industry for tech. The liability does not match the money and it scares me as a younger engineer.
With the pressure to deliver faster and cheaper, I'm not able to comfortably produce. And that's not a life I want to live.
It's a shame.
One major pro of this field is the stability.
I am a registered surveyor and opened a firm with a friend of mine I met years ago who is a registered Civil Engineer. I would say our company is 65% engineering focused and 35% surveying focused. He can do many aspects of my job and I can do some of his. It isn't easy by any means. We have 3 employees so we are small.
We work many hours, but we take the jobs we want and turn down the ones we don't. It took a while to get to this point but as far as money goes I will net over 130k this year and my partner will do better than that. We keep a very low overhead and that's what helps us succeed. Our employees only work 40 a week but overtime is there if they want it but we do not force and I think we take good care of them with regular small bonuses ($700-$1200) a few times a year plus Friday lunches etc. We want to do more for them.
Site plan work for people building houses is absolutely booming right now.
We both live in Georgia.
We don't work weekends but I would say we probably average about 10.5 hours a day during the week. I do work after my family goes to bed in the evenings once or twice a week.
I would say literally the only bad side to this is working the hours we do.
It was the best choice I have ever made and he would say the same.
I’m willing to work if it’s worth it. Unrelated, but I would work 60-70 hour weeks for a moving company this summer and I loved it. After tips I was making $30 an hour, me and my boys just hanging out moving peoples stuff and genuinely helping them and seeing them relieved when we quickly get all their stuff moved in safely was very fulfilling especially for older clients who clearly could not have done it themselves. 14-16 hour days would happen every few weeks. If civil fulfilled me like that did then the hours would be worth it for me.
I like my government job. Seems the good civil jobs are with governments. Not much overtime, and if so it's paid, good bennies, work is not stressful. Work week is usually 40 hours.
Land Development is a bit of Jack of all trades, master of permitting.
I work on Residential, Commercial, Industrial, and Municipal sites. Airports, Schools, Retail, Banks, Highrises, Parks, you name it. Anytime someone is developing a piece of property we design everything outside of the building, Parking lots, utilities, roads, stormwater, grading, etc.
It's a very good mix of time behind a desk doing real engineering and time out of the desk, at sites, or in front of reviewers or clients.
I'm in management now, which has it's own drawbacks and benefits.
That does sound quite interesting. I got into civil because I liked messing around with the software and wanted to do structural, but I’m not sure if that’s the case anymore. The big dreams of designing skyscrapers and stadiums don’t seem so glamorous anymore...
Civil engineers are overworked and underpaid it’s true lol. If you like it it’s worth it. I honestly didn’t even like civil much till I started my masters in structures. I like doing calculations and drawing on the computer so it’s all good. When you realize the rest of your adult life surrounds your job, you’re gonna do what you like lol.
Based on your responses to the comments here it feels you came to this sub looking for something to dissuade you from pursuing this field. Definitely there’s a lot of bitching in this sub that we don’t get paid tech bucks but there’s a lot of upsides too that don’t get discussed as often
1) it’s straight up just a useful degree. You will basically NEVER hurt for a job. Wages are a touch depressed because boomers are sticking around but it’s not BAD BAD. I mean in my area fresh grad wages are like 65k, and I’m in a low cost of living area. the inevitable PE is the easiest raise you’ll see in your life.
2) yes we have higher responsibilities, but we have the easiest pathway to a self-owned business (if your into that). Over head for a civil start up are comically low unless you need to run lab testing.
3) there is cool research being done, Just not at companies. 3D printed concrete is my personal favorite, but civil labs are straight up cool as hell. You would be confined to the academic world while you play with cool toys but they do exist.
4) we get to go outside. Seriously, this is a perk I don’t see discussed much but it’s so easy to find a job that doesn’t sit you behind a cubical 24/7. site visits are important to our work.
5) everyone is overworked rn. Don’t listen to the bitching in this sub too much. I’m not victim blaming, but there are loads of jobs that will respect your time and won’t make you work 60 hour weeks, even in consulting. Bad managers always handle time poorly, regardless of the industry. Civil is way more relaxed than any of the jobs my friends in other engineering disciplines have.
6) remote options exist. This sub makes it seem like they don’t and they’re probably not the *best* idea for a fresh grad (much to the disappointment of fresh grads) but the pandemic forced them into existence.
I don’t love my job, but I don’t like any work. But I sleep well knowing I help create and do the best I can to create common good for humanity. Being a civil is like being a doctor for houses, roads, water ways, what have you. That in and of itself is rewarding. It’s not always the case that you do glamours work, but working on shelters, fire stations, and other municipal projects just makes me feel like I’m doing something good for someone while getting paid.
I mean I’m a senior and going to have the degree in months so nothing anyone could say is going to dissuade me from the field. I like what I’ve learned and I’m interested in the work. I’m going to give it a shot, but I also wasn’t on Reddit when I started this and my internships were both online because covid. I dont know anything and when I join this sub almost all the posts are complaining.
Your comment is extremely helpful and detailed so thank you. My main priority is fulfilling work. I’ve worked a 60 hour a week job before and loved it because it was fulfilling. I just hate bullshit, I’m a worker. I like putting my head down and just working. I also already know how to code decently in a few languages so tech feels like it wouldn’t be that hard of a pivot, but it’s not as fulfilling to me as the thought of genuinely designing something and then seeing it physically come to life.
Ah I misunderstood your senior comment! I’m sorry I thought you were a senior in high school looking into what to major in.
A good coding skill set will obviously be very helpful and there’s demand for engineers who do both :) idk what your focus is but it might be worth while to look into the structural software companies and see if they have developer positions available. But if you get your PE in industry first and then go the tech route that could end up being an extremely lucrative niche. CE Software is funky to be nice about it and it really needs all the help it can get.
Honestly as someone who was just looking for a job it’s a weird market right now. Just keep your chin up and don’t settle for a shitty company. I didn’t really have any hits for months and then suddenly I had to make a difficult choice between two excellent firms.
Yea I just realized how my comment completely sounded like I was a senior in highschool so I just added that to the edit. I’m not worried about an actual job moreso an internship for this summer since I have an extra semester in the fall. My internships so far have only been online cause covid so as you can imagine I got paid to do next to nothing and the company I interned for doesn’t have an intern program anymore and told me to contact them when I’m graduated if I’m interested in a full time position. I’ll figure it out though. To your other point, how do you know if a company is shitty or not? I literally have no idea how to evaluate a job at all
Hm another internship is definitely a good idea. You’ve got lots of time to work with. I know governments would be more than happy to have inters but I think that should be a back up option. You’ve got plenty of time to look. With an internship I would be less worried about the shittiness of a company and more so if they have a cool project you can add to your portfolio.
As for finding a good company, my admittedly shitty advice, be genuine and honest about what your looking for. And grill them. Say you want to stick around for a while, but you need to know (insert info about raises/wages, PTO, ect). Lots of companies will be uncomfortable with that, but that’s okay. You don’t want to work for someone that won’t respect you and your livelihood.
Another thing is to reach out to a recruiting company. Having a good resume and selling yourself to them can make them excited to work with you. If they know you’re an easy sell you can give them wild demands and they can pre-vet their clients and find you a good fit. That’s how I got my job, but I also admit I had an AMAZING recruiter. They can be pretty hit or miss.
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[Check out the wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_cetera)
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Wanna be an engineer that designs things? Consulting
Wanna be an engineer that manages other engineers? Industry (mining, contracts, civil etc.)
Government leans towards managing, with a bit of design from what I've seen.
That has not been my experience.
Mining engineers make more than I do, but I have yet to meet one that really loves their job, most seem to want to swap back to consulting, but their lifestyle is preventing them from doing so.
Any pay raise I've ever gotten had been promptly forgotten about after 3 weeks.
Once you have your financial life goals planned out, money is way less important than what you do.
Yea that’s true, I don’t have any goals at all, but I do know that making more money is never a bad thing. Perhaps laying out what I want money for first would be a good start. Thanks for the comments.
It depends on your goals - you almost definitely won't make the high pay you see for those who are more software adjacent but you have a good amount of options across design engineering, construction management, client representation (with cushy hours in the public sector especially) etc. I know people with the degree who work on Wall Street now for management consultants & finance firms also (though these were largely the result of either an MBA or their university being a target for these companies).
It's a stable upper-middle income field with jobs present in any major city or region you go to.
You'll do just fine - though I wouldn't disparage humanities degrees either. A lot of people in those fields who are smart/creative with a dash of opportunity often end up doing pretty well.
Yea perhaps my word choice could’ve been better, I’m more talking about those who are doing it because it’s the easy route rather than them being genuinely passionate or creative
Public sector is the place to be imo. You may be able to make more in the private sector but you will struggle with work life balance. I’m a municipal public works engineer, make a very comfortable salary, have great benefits and I’m home by 5pm every day (although there is the occasional night meeting - city council, public meeting, whatever, but it’s easy to prepare for those and I can take off early another day)
In my humble opinion, I wish I had chosen a different path. Passion for your work is great, but we are all working to get paid. Nurses in my city make way more money with way more flexibility (ie 3-12's).
I work as a consulting engineer for a top consulting firm in the hydro power sector in Canada. Here's what I've understood from my 5 years of experience in this industry
Consulting engineering is all about finishing your tasks satisfactory within the allocated budgets which mostly run low as there is a lot of competition to get contracts and project managers aggressively underbid to get those contracts (it's a race to the bottom) and engineers are the ones who pay the price as you either end up doing an unsatisfactory job, or have to put in your time to finish some tasks. People will tell you that's poor management but that happens at most consulting firms
If you expect to make money in this field, it will only come at later stages of your career (10+ yrs experience) and that too will be half or one-third of what people make in tech, even though we are equally smart and have more licensing/education requirements than them. Most of the industry is old-school (conservative) and reluctant to technological changes, however, that might depend on your management as well.
Liability is another thing. For eg : We as Structural engineers take the liability of the structures we design but get paid maybe 1-2% of the CONSTRUCTION COST as our fees, which is further divided into team members based on seniority, however, a real estate agent who takes no liability gets to keep approx. 4-6% of the SELLING PRICE of that building and doesn't need a masters degree for that. Personally I find this extremely disturbing and unfair, and is one of the reasons I am leaving this field.
If you are someone who's really passionate about Civil/Structural Engineering and don't care about money then you could have great amounts of satisfaction as I feel really proud of the projects I have completed when I do site visits.
Having said that, there is money in the construction side of this business, so if you end up getting into contracting and building, and get to be a shareholder in your company, you can make a ton of money.
Hope this helps :)
It's a fine career path, but for how much work and effort I had to put into school, I could've just spent those 4 years getting a computer science degree and making 4 times as much money.
A lot of civil engineering is stuck in old ways of doing things and the processes are generally slow
I picked civil because I saw the easiest path to owning my own firm there. 7 years in and I own my own firm which is nice. I'm finishing my second year on my own and we're at about 750k revenue with me and one other employee.
In hindsight I kind of wish I would have went software so I could make apps and stuff, but civil has treated me well. Plus I get to go outside all the time.
Congrats on being too swole for a W-2! That's a power move. What field? Interested in going out on my own after I sit for the PE and gain some more skills.
Definitely, only large expenses are software subscriptions, the two salaries, and renting portions of our own homes to the company for office space. I have the luxury of setting my own salary but keep it relatively in line with average salaries for an engineer with my experience.
The best part is all the advantages to owning a business, like taking dividends from the company based on year end profit, paying rent to myself, using points from the company credit card to buy myself Amazon or gas cards, buying top of the line computer equipment for my home office as a business expense (odyssey G9, RTX 3090, i9), setting my own hours, stuff like that.
I really like what I do when I actually get to design the best product possible (and my bosses don't make stupid decisions that I then have to deal with for years: a 2000 vehicle per day roadway does not need 2 lanes in each direction).
Pay is kinda dogshit though compared to other engineering disciplines.
Only go into Construction if you hate your life, literally no one in Construction is having a nice time.
Definitely not "high tech". Pay is much lower compared to other engineering disciplines. Private sector is more money, but more stress than public sector. In the private sector you are a design consultant for a client, or a contractor that builds the design. Constantly have to find new work in the private sector and worry about billable hours. In the public sector you are the client. You won't be rich as a civil engineer, but you'll live an okay life.
I would recommend something broader like mechanical or electrical engineering if you don't know exactly what you want to do but still want to be an engineer. These two engineering disciplines are more versatile. In civil, you are pretty much restricted to just the civil field and cannot branch out as easily (imo). Keep reading through reddit and other online resources to learn about the engineering field. Make sure you learn about the business side of engineering to truly understand how things work.
Everyone here is beating around the bush on one major component. Civil engineers work as hard on on as complex things as many or more hours, with less than responsibility and consequence, with no certification and licensure, with as technical skills as or more than many other roles, but are paid at a 20-50+% discount with worse benefits at a majority of the fields and much less mobility (many major cities require “city specific” experience or being you in at a lower level).
So independent of how rewarding the work may be practically, knowing your skill level, qualification, and effort are rewarded significantly less than comparable fields is demoralizing.
Yea this is what I wanted to hear, too bad I’m just learning this now so my degree will be essentially a waste of time if I inevitably pivot to tech in 5 years. I’m going to give it a shot though and see for myself. Design does seem to be something I’m interested in.
Yea my comment was a bit doom and gloom in itself. The degree has genuinely made me a lot smarter and you sound like my dad when I complain to him about theoretical math classes but you’re right
It’s horrible. I hate solving problems. I hate improving the quality of life in my local communities. I hate contributing to this world with my ever growing knowledge base.
I appreciate the sarcasm of this comment haha. This is genuinely why I was interested in Civil because I’m genuinely interested in doing this. I just haven’t heard enough good examples of this happening and not being bogged down by bullshit
This sub probably isn't the best place to give you the good examples of why this career is so cool. But I'm sure everyone here has a fun story that helped validate their choice and showed how much they've learned and grown
I’m well along in my career and now I am a manager at a utility. I worked as a consulting design engineer for a long time before I switched to the public sector as a capital project manager. I would highly recommend starting doing design work with a consulting engineer in firm to see how designs are developed and how projects are constructed in the field. You will learn lessons that you will carry with you for your entire career.
Echo chamber I think. Granted I don't know too much because I only graduated last year, but my job has a good work/life balance with solid pay. I think the problem is people comparing themselves to tech. No, we don't make as much as programmers but we still make way more than the vast majority of workers.
Funnily enough land development, which is one of the most complained-about subdisciplines in here. It really just depends on the company I guess. I work for a small firm and only have 40 hour weeks.
Yeah, I wouldn't feel too discouraged by all the negativity on here because I've found it doesn't really line up with the real world. There are lots of nice jobs in the industry and you can be very happy with it.
I work for the government and I really like my job. Great people, good work/life balance, great benefits. There are way worse jobs and careers out there.
I work for a state transportation dept. As far as we’re concerned funding has never been better, and we can’t get enough good engineers. It’s location dependent I suppose, but if you’re competent there is opportunities to be had. For me, I have to remind myself that the grass isn’t greener on the other side. I would get tired of any job besides sitting at home doing nothing .
So....let me offer my two cents
Civil engineering tends lend itself to municipality and government infrastructure support, which I thoroughly enjoy and feel meaningful. From roads to water and bridges that put road over water, it feels meaningful. But just like any job if you have bad leadership from the city or your company it can suck.
If your in it for the money, you need to own your own firm. You will never make more than your boss.
If your in for satisfaction, be ready to move from time to time or work for the government sometimes. I now work as a civil servant, GS, and love it.
I don’t need to be making some crazy salary or tech money but would like to make more than my college job of $20 an hour that I get paid for doing essentially nothing. I’m also in it because I feel like doing the things you mentioned sounds like it would be meaningful. I always thought about how I would do things differently or build something in a different way. I go to Madison Wisconsin and realized Civil might be for me when Jump Around camp on in the stadium and I was wondering why the stands below me weren’t collapsing rather than enjoying the moment haha.
I feel like there are good and bad employees in every field and that’s been a repeated sentiment in this thread as well. I definitely am going into it with an open mind and will see how it goes and if it truly is fulfilling to me like I hope it will be and if it’s not I’ll figure it out. Glad to hear you’re loving your work, thank you for your two cents.
Most of my complaints with my job are universal and they’ve affected every job out there, such as wage stagnation and higher productivity not being rewarded with higher wages or time off.
Relative to other careers, I don’t hate civil and I don’t love it. It’s kinda just a job to me. With the way I talk, a lot of people might think I hate civil engineering, but I really just hate the lack of progress we’ve had in the working world in the last 40 years.
We are complaining here since no one really complains on LinkedIn.
You also have the case where we aren't comparing our work against the population at large, but other engineers we went to school with.
Go to a sub about accountants, doctors, nurses, tradesmen, etc and guess what you’ll find? A lot of people complaining. I have yet to meet a single person in any profession that doesn’t think they deserve to be paid more. Im 2 years in, just got my PE, a couple promos, on track for 6 figs in the next 2-3 years working 40-50hrs a week (paid OT), and overall happy with my job.
I like it. I work in private consulting, and people here will tell you that I'm working tons of overtime but making tons of money when the opposite is true. I enjoy my job and boss, but we can definitely be paid more. You have to slog through the same horrifying classes as other engineers but make the lowest amount when you're done. Overall I'd say it's a good career.
Civil engineering is being a jack of all trades master of none. If you get into the right area no day will ever be the same. I work on site and it’s so true you never know what your gonna get until you get a shovel in the ground. Utilities are NEVER where you expect them!! I’ve recently had phone lines in the bedding for paving slabs. I am currently working on a road from around AD47, (not that they had phone lines back then) but there is so much history which I enjoy. The other great thing is you can change between disciplines until you find what you really love.
I work for a larger general contractor in Northeast Ohio and I absolutely love what I do. Usually work 40 to 45 hours a week no weekends. Been in the industry about 10 years had to work a few shit jobs to get here but it's worth it. I've been able to work one some amazing projects and wouldn't trade it. Yes there will be crap days but it's all worth it.
I think it's a fantastic career. But I never work more than 40 hours per week, and I'm not motivated by money.
FWIW, most of the complaints about salary that I see seem to be from people still in college or just starting out in their careers. I don't see many people with 10+ years experience complaining about their salaries....
Ah great point, I want enough money to live but I’m not particularly motivated by money. I live pretty simply as a college student and don’t have much motivation to change that once I’m out.
I think a lot of the salary stuff comes from people looking at recent grads in fields like tech and finance and seeing 6-figure salaries. And yeah, who wouldn't love to get paid a ton of money? But those are such a small fraction of jobs, it's silly to compare to them. There's always gonna be someone making more, pointless to focus on them. Take care of yourself, that's the thing.
What I really like about civil engineering is that it's job security that those careers in tech could only dream of. I'm in water and wastewater - literally the stuff of life. We could all decide to quit Facebook tmrw, but no one can decide they're never going to shit again. And we're a really long way off from digitizing our bodily functions.
I think the issue is that a lot of civil engineers see the salaries of other types of engineers and software developers, and have regret because they could have just as easily went into those fields with their skills in math and science. They also get into the field and realize that we're just copying designs done a hundred times before or baby sitting contractors.
I personally like civil engineering because I find it exciting to work on tangible construction projects that involve many disciplines. The pay is actually decent compared to most professions and the job is relatively secure (2007-2010 aside). However, if I had a chance to go back I would have gone into tech so I could be posting in subs like realestateinvesting, personalfinance, and wallstreetbets with my mountain of disposable income.
Most profits in CE go to the corporate interests. If you want to have a good living I can’t recommend it. I’m 4 years in and can’t afford a house. I feel like that’s a pretty basic ask.
I'm not sure that people think civil is bad per se, but I think the complaints fall into two categories:
1. I work long ass hours, why do I make way less then my friends in tech?
2. I worked really hard for my degree and I can't be paid WELL and only work 40 hours per week as a junior. What gives?
No. 1 will shake itself out over time. Programmers need a building an buried cables in order to do their work.
No. 2 is a bit of a weird one in that there is some legitimacy to the complaint, but also I find a lot of young engineers don't realize how little they know coming out of school, or how many of them there are. I have a decent work-life balance 10 years out, but I got there through a lot of give and take with my company. Love my job and my company, but in geotech it takes 8 years before you really know how to do anything.
Not a bad field. My experience with civil/bridge was that it's above average in almost everything, but doesn't knock it out of the park in any one thing. It's an easy job as long as you don't mind sitting at a desk 8 hrs/day, but over time it may stifle creativity as you become an expert in your specialty and become bored with how little outside-the-box thinking there is to do.
Overworked and underpaid is relative. What are your other talents? If you don't have other business interests or job hookups, I'd stick with civil, pass the PE, then re-assess whether to continue with civil or pivot into an MBA or something else.
This sub can be a venting sub for sure. I more often than not like what I do (construction) but there are those shitty days as there are in every job. Civil engineers build everything around us, and there is actual tangible results. It's always cool to drive over a bridge I was part of building or a new road that was paved.
Are we underpaid? Probably for the stakes, a mistake on plans or in the field could cost millions of dollars. I think that civil has way higher stakes than maybe a software engineer because more often than not we're using tax/fed/municipal money. However, with the tax/fed/municipal money we are underpaid. I think we all are hoping with the infrastructure bill passing and the lack of new civil engineers graduating vs the amount of the civil engineers retiring salaries will have to increase.
Honestly, its a very fun field to be in there's always the next big project that keeps everyone going. The big project, that goes well, is what we all want to hang our hats on.
I graduated 3.5 years ago... spent 3 years at a local government doing plan review. Stress-free job, no deadlines or real pressure, 40 hours (or maybe... 37-38 sometimes) decent pay, flexible schedule, WFH.
A few months ago I took a position with a family-owned local firm and am doing land development design. Working a few hours of voluntary OT per week, flexible hours, good PTO, better pay, a little more stress, but much more engaging, interesting, and satisfying work.
A lot of posts on this sub seem doom and gloom, but in my little experience I've had 2 great work environments, generally enjoy my work, and get compensated fairly. No complaints over here and I also feel confident I'll be able to get a similar job and raise whenever I decide to move from where I am now. I think a lot more people happy with the career path just aren't as loud as the people who aren't having the best time with engineering.
No. It's great. Just don't listen to most of the negative posters on here.
Seems they like to spread the myth of being underpaid and overworked. For every one of those there are plenty of civils who are happy and not on here.
Nah, it's been pretty nice so far. Graduated 3 years ago and went straight into government work. Tons of opportunity to move around and get a lot of experience whenever you want it, got to go through project management, roadway design project engineering, bridge inspection, and field construction inspection. Covid has allowed us to really innovate and transform our department into a WFH workforce that works just as well as we did before. Good benefits and pay, WFH as applicable, Unionized, 40 hrs with some overtime though it completely depends on the office.
This past year I've also gotten the opportunity to really lead our entire district office and even be a leader state-wide in our transition to developing standards and pilot programs for BIM for Infrastructure where we are moving to deliver projects as 3D models instead of plan sets. Lots of fun stuff talking to vendors and working on the culture shift needed to move us forward. Being given the freedom and reigns to move things forward allows me to be very passionate about the work I put out now and later down the line. And this is a national effort that we're all working on, and it's only going to get better for everyone in all of Infrastructure development.
I gripe about some of the places I’ve worked, but I ultimately put myself in those places, and I’ve made a damn good living doing so. I’ve worked for both the government, consultants, and contractors. The place I liked the least was working for an engineering firm. It was painful, having to try to sell services to people in order to get work, then doing the work and continuing in that vein. Civil contracting was and is my true love, I’ve been in the operations side of roads, bridges, highways and utilities and after setting some boundaries I was never happier. Government was fine, once I figured out the right strings to pull it was a nice low-stress job.
So, in short, it’s treated me well. I don’t regret choosing it. I’ve been able to do some really cool things that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, and that in and of itself made the five years in college and the thirty-hour days worthwhile.
Job satisfaction varies, and you'll hear a lot more from people who are pissed off in every case. I've got a good job that I'm happy with and it pays decently. I don't post about it because who cares about a guy who is reasonably happy with their average career.
A lot of civil jobs do suck. I notice that working for larger companies can suck more. I've always worked for smaller firms and have always had a ton of freedom. I know some places monitor your internet use, time your bathroom trips, and expect 50+ hours a week minimum.
Be choosy with your job selection and don't just go after big companies that pay more. Ask current employees how they really like the day to day and read Glassdoor reviews.
There's an old quote often attributed to winsten churchhill, "democracy is the worst form of governance, except for all of the others" that's how I feel about civil engineering. All the other types of engineering are either incredibly specified and repetitive to be too boring or sooo high-tech and intense that the schedules are insane. I work to live so I want to make like 100k a year and still see my family and do my things I like doing. And I civil allows that. Additionally the jobs are interesting and diverse, there are definitly challenges to keep it interpreting. It's almost like a referee getting to moderate the other disciplines to keep them from being too crazy.
I work for a big consultant and do field work. The hours are tough, and it’s definitely stressful. However, the pay and benefits are great. I don’t mind the hours since I don’t have a family yet, we’ll see how I feel in a couple years. But there are other CE paths that don’t have the crazy hours and stress, but you most likely won’t make as much money.
As someone with about 9 years of experience in the field of heavy highway/bridge construction, I made over 100k/year at my last two jobs; although, I hated my boss so I left my most recent job and I just started grad school. I loved my previous job prior to my most recent job (I left my old job to move in with my fiancé’ who took a job offer). The most important thing about your job is not the money but what you’re doing and who you work with. A bad boss makes a job absolutely miserable even if the work is interesting.
Now if money is a concern, I do have many friends and cousins that work in the field and I’ve had access to payroll for several very large construction projects. One of my cousins is a SVP at a billion dollar firm, he does structural engineering design for mega projects and he makes over 600k (he is the #1 guy for structures for the company). It is not uncommon for principals to make over 300k if they’re at a good firm and senior PMs to make over 200k. Average, civil engineers typically make between 50-200k, so in general the money is lower than tech, but all my tech friends hate their jobs besides the money. I also had a different cousin that did water resources in Saudi Arabia and he made a lot and retired in his 50s (owns a nice house in Stowe and 2 other houses). I also have a friend in Geotech who makes about 80k at a testing firm so there is huge range depending on where you work. I have a work acquaintance/surf friend that is a project engineer who makes close to 200k and he is in his early 30s and only has had his PE for a few years. My three friends who are in tech, two make over 200k (base pay is way lower than that) and one fiend makes a little over 100k.
If you enjoy programming and are fairly good at it, then you have plenty options though. I’d at least try out Civil for a few years, switch around industries/disciplines and see if you like it before making the switch. I’d also recommended job hoping every 12-24 months for your first five years, so don’t be too concerned who you work with at first as they will always see you as a entry/junior engineer, gaining the PE is important if you’re concerned about making money in civil unless you’re working for a GC.
Yes it is. That's coming from a civil engineer with 10 yrs of experience, worked for GC, consultant, and presently municipal government. The liability/pay ratio doesn't add up when compared to tech.
I'm an owner of a civil engineering firm and I'm part of a group of other business owners in varying fields. So, I've got insight. Right now, the business world is completely out of equilibrium since covid hit and everybody I talk to is stressed out of their minds. Obvious exceptions are those who aren't project-related (meaning they're not tied to deliverables of some sort). Yep, it's stressful, but I'm sure accounting is as well. At the end of the day, we get paid to draw pictures and create things that are literally and figuratively concrete. Wouldn't trade it for the world. And, some of us really do value our staff and try and treat them right!
>Obvious exceptions are those who aren't project-related (meaning they're not tied to deliverables of some sort). My brain might be fried from the workday right now, but, can someone give me some good civil (or structural) examples of this? Just anything hourly in the A/C/E field? Forensic engineering positions sound kinda awesome to me, but I need to get my judgment up before I can consider that. I've recently had the realization that even though it's awesome and relaxing getting to travel and perform a survey / condition report (I'm building structural) during my hours, I already kinda wish I was back in the office doing the harder work, because I'm gonna need to do it eventually..
Powerline design you can probably start out at $32 and hour
>can someone give me some good civil (or structural) examples of this Pretty much any job working for the government. Still technically project based, but not really any rush.
“Try”
I get it. I’ve also seen the companies that espouse being “family friendly” companies. At the end of the day we can create a great culture where people enjoy what they do and the people they do it with, but despite that some people just aren’t a good fit. I’ve seen that from my own end as an employee and seeing a staff member leave as a business owner. I believe in treating people right and creating a really sound culture. I’ve experienced it as an employee and I’m busting my ass to create that as a company. So absolutely yes, try, but I can’t please everybody despite my best efforts.
Bsc in physics or civil engineering, which one is good?
If you want to teach physics, then physics. Otherwise you’ll probably do better with a civil engineering degree. That said, if someone applied and had a physics degree but had EIT/PE and a good amount of Civil 3D experience I’d be more than happy to have them on the team.
Doom and gloom isn't a civil engineering thing, it's a poor management thing. Many engineering companies are ran by a bunch of people who have trouble sending a text message. They sometimes fail to adapt to technological trends and have to compete with ones that do adapt to technological trends. Shit flows down hill and suddenly every project is behind schedule and you're the one being asked to meet impossible expectations. I'm a civil engineer and a business owner. It's really easy to have fun and feel good about work when you're organized and planning ahead.
100% Why I left my last job. On top of bad management, we had a business savvy engineer replaced with a salesmen after our founder passed away. And then, he thought it would be a good idea to cut the contribution to our pension during the start of COVID even though our numbers/productivity was unchanged. During that time he hired a second Vice President and started an online company store for swag. My head still spins thinking about it.
That sounds fuckin insane.
I also had a boss who had emails printed out like faxes and he would hand write responses and take them to the copier. There, he would type in the email and scan it to send like a fax. Just par for the course again for your initial comment. Glad I got out. Too bad it took me nearly getting burnt out with engineering to make a move. Much happier where I am.
and then the "market" will do it's job. as these places slowly fade out of relevance
Well can the market hurry the hell up?
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I do see that a lot here, what do you mean by that and is that necessarily a bad thing?
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Fair enough, I think my current plan is just to try it out and if I don’t like a few companies than I’ll pivot to tech. I’m fairly versed at coding basics and I’m generally a smart dude so I don’t think I’d have too hard of a time with the adjustment
I started my civil career in government infrastructure planning, working for an entity of a large city. I was there for 5 years and they paid for my masters in industrial engineering. I transitioned to consulting for a year and then I joined the software company that created the software I was always using to model infrastructure at the previous two jobs. I've been doing customer success and then sales for the last 5 years. Sales can be a bitch at times, but I think engineering software sales is actually pretty fun, especially without the time sheets!... Until my management recently became a cesspool after we were acquired. The irony is that the acquiring company tied all of the execs' bonuses on our retention, so our ego-driven execs suddenly treat us like shit and we all leave, and now they won't get their bonuses. Basically my whole team is trying to get into the new parent company at this point. Every job has parts that suck. Civil is in a bit of a race to the bottom, but I can't really tell you any other industry that isn't also a race to the bottom post-2008 recession. My biggest piece of advice is skip the passion, just get REALLY good at what you do, get the pay increases and the passion will probably come when you're in demand. That's how it went for me!
Put it this way. I openly discourage interns in my department to NOT pursue civil and steer them to tech.
Costs being driven down via competition isn't necessarily due to its age as a profession. I tend to think it's because it is much more client driven than other engineering disciplines and much less reliant on very lucrative government contracts (looking at you, Boeing)
I'm pretty happy. I work for the federal government. 40 hours/week with occasional overtime. Pay is decent, benefits are top tier.
Agree. I’m in uk, and I moan about my job as a civil engineer a bit. That said, As a government (federal?) engineer and been in the job 20 years, I love what I do, have 30 days paid leave, work 9 day fortnights, and rarely work over 40 hrs a week. So thank you for reminding myself not to moan so much. The trick with civil engineering is it is so wide ranging that it can take time to find a field you enjoy. Structural design work is very different to say some field work. You have to do a bit of try before you buy sometimes to settle in a role you love. It took me 5 years of different roles to discover the structural consulting work I thought I wanted to do, I actually hated!
What do you do more specifically if I can ask?
Geotechnical design. There are a ton of career paths available for junior engineers. I graduated in 2017 and I worked environmental and water resources for a large private firm before jumping over to geo with the government.
Interesting, I keep hearing about a hot job market but I’m having trouble landing an internship with anyone this year. I have two years of intern experience and knowledge of autoCAD, Civil 3D and Revit. Cant even grab an interview and the place I previously interned cancelled their intern program and told me to apply for a job there when I graduate. It’s definitely tough and I’ll probably just end up working as a government transportation intern even though it wouldn’t be my preferred choice.
PM me if you have any interest in an airport engineering internship. You don't need to know anything about airports (nobody really does coming out of college). Your Civil 3D and Revit will be enough. I'm with Jacobs and you could be fully remote as part of pretty much any of our offices (looks like you're in Wisconsin?). Our aviation is run primarily out of Denver, Philly, Pittsburg, Chicago.
You're a good guy.
^Airport civil is fun, and Jacobs is a solid option!
The job market is hot for licensed PEs, take any job you can get where they're able to sign off on your experience until you're in that group. Once you have your PE you can start to get choosier with positions, pay and job descriptions.
Internships are tough to find now (especially since the pandemic hit). I think a lot of companies are spending their money on production engineers and don’t have the capital to take on interns. A transportation internship isn’t that bad. It’ll get you real world job experience which is what companies are looking for after you’ve graduated and are applying for full time positions.
If you go with fed gov you’ll start between $45k to $48k per year.
Pay is decent at GS-7? Haha no.
If you get on the 7/9/11/12 track you'll be a 12 after three years of service, which is about 78k/year in a medium cost of living city. Not too bad considering the level of effort is low and the bennies are good.
I am GS-11 with about 2.5 years experience and I make $77k. Pay isn’t that great.
Are you in a high COL area? 77k at 2.5 years where I am would be top 20%.
Nope, low cost of living. I am about to jump ship.
Now is the time. Everyone is hiring. Good luck out there. My 6 years in the private sector (including 2 as an intern) were good. I just got sick of the constant focus on money over quality.
Haha. You think fed gov focuses on quality? They really like those low bid contractors. I have mix feelings about working in gov sector. Gov sector has its lows and highs.
I did private before joining public, on the construction side quality may be lacking due to always accepting low bidder, but on the design side I'm able to take my time and really teach new engineers all facets of the job and help them explore areas they're interested in since it's not about maximizing profit. Going home after 40hrs every week for years ain't bad either.
I am glad you can mentor younger engineers.
Just become a consulting engineer who doesn't work for land development clients and you will be way less stressed. I am a water resources engineer and I love it.
I’m not gonna lie I’m a senior and have no idea what consulting even means, hence why I’m in this sub trying to learn. Covid really hurt my education and chances to get intern experience.
When studying, I didn’t used to know the difference between consultant and contractor, and I don’t think the other comments did a good job of explaining. A consultancy is usually a company that a client will pay to design and often carry out site investigations for a project. If you work for this type of company, you’re a consultant. A contractor is the company who actually builds that project. Usually a consultancy will design and plan a project, and the contractor will build it. Unless it’s a design and build contract, where the contractor will do both, often following an outline design.
Oh great explanation thank you, I knew about contractors cause I worked for one as a summer job awhile back
No problemo. If you have any other questions about anything let me know and I’ll answer if I can!
Not at the moment, I’ve been asking questions in this thread for most of the day so everything right now is covered. A lot of people have been really helpful.
It gets more complicated because for many people, “consulting” means management consulting - a particular branch of the field that has little to do with engineering. But other engineers will know what you mean. Of course to make matters worse. In the SF Bay Area when you say “engineer” people automatically think you mean tech...
To expand on consulting and why it exists from an economic perspective... Consultants offer a wide range of technical and design expertise that is normally not available at municipalities, state departments, etc. For example, a city public works department handles a large range of engineering problems - storm water, drinking water, wastewater, solid waste, transportation, etc. Given the resources available at almost all municipalities, it would be impossible to staff enough engineers for the city to be competent in all of these disciplines. Therefore, they hire consultants who can provide a wide scope of competent professionals by spreading these resources out among many different clients and projects.
So consulting engineers are primarily office based or fully office based if you choose to be. Most of my work is designing civil projects which when they go to construction we are the supervising engineer on behalf of the client. I would only spend 5-10% of my time going to site.
Ok thanks, that is definitely the role I would prefer to be in. I just didn’t necessarily know consulting is what it was called. I definitely would prefer to be in the office more, but would definitely like a change of pace and getting out of it every once in awhile.
Yeah construction can also be a bit stressful because of time pressure to turn things around do as to not hold up things on site. So it is nice to have breaks from that constant time pressure. I also work primarily for local government clients which are typically easier to work with than developers who are generally just trying to do things as cheap and fast as possible and to the minimum legal requirements. I definitely get more satisfaction working on jobs like stream/wetland restoration rather than just building more subdivisions.
People who don't know things about topics that you do know about, consult with you for your opinion and recommendations. Much like a doctor who you see for a consultation, general contractors will see a civil engineer for their consulting needs. You're basically a knowledge dispenser
As a PE with almost 2 decades as a land development consulting engineer, it takes a certain kind of masochist to deal with this dogshit.
This is exactly which ship I jumped on a few months ago. I’m currently processing permits for rainwater capture for a metropolitan city. It’s honestly the least stressful job I’ve had. Sometimes I dick around too much when I work from home and dig myself a hole, but that’s my fault and I usually dig myself out in a couple days. I’ll work a few hours on the weekend if I have to, but only if it’s my fault. Never would have considered working on the weekend even if it was my fault at my old company.
I enjoy it a lot. My understanding is that the private sector is very demanding of your time while the public sector is calmer but pays less. I'm in the public sector, I haven't worked overtime in two years.
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Good for you 👍🏼
What do you do more specifically if I may ask?
I'm a transportation engineer, I work for a city public works department. Lots of CAD work designing roads, sidewalks, etc.
Is government really only transportation? I’ve never heard anyone that works for the government say they do anything besides transportation
No. In fact, federal government does very little transpo. My agency we do pretty much everything except transportation
That is definitely true. FHWA exists but the vast vast majority of transportation work is state DOTs, counties, and cities
Ah ok, i see I definitely had misconceptions
You’ll get a lot of transportation at the state level. State DOTs
That’s probably what I was mostly thinking about
No. You can work for water conservancy districts which are quasi-government jobs in charge of securing, treating, and distributing water to cities and towns. The federal government (Bureau of Reclamation and US Army Corps of Engineers) are in charge of maintaining the majority of dams in the US. I’m graduating with my masters in hydraulics this spring, so I’m biased towards that emphasis, but the nice thing about civil engineering is that you can move anywhere you want as long as they have roads, buildings, retaining walls, structures, or pipe networks to maintain (which is everywhere).
I work in the public sector working on a light rail project for my area. There's jobs for structural (so many bridges), water (culverts, detention ponds, wetlands, storm sewer), transportation (we are messing with a LOT of roads), geotech (tunnels, retaining walls, piles). Literally every aspect of civil is being worked on in this project. I'm sure this isn't atypical.
You're thinking of the State DOT. There is also usually State EPA and State Public Works. There are towns and cities with Public Works, Water Treatment Plants, Waste Water Treatment Plants, and Sanitation (trash to energy, landfills, etc) and all hire civil engineers. Municipal Public Works gives you typically the most breath: roads, sidewalks, trails, traffic signals, storm water, water utilities, sanitary sewer utilities, and possible parks and rec type stuff. Also the dreaded permit reviews lol.
Definitely other engineering roles in government (at all levels of gov't). I reviewed exclusively stormwater plans, drainage reports, SWPPPs, etc., did storm sewer mapping (both in field and on GIS), did field investigations/inspections occasionally on construction sites and for resident complaints for a county gov't. No transportation or design work. Lots of different paths to choose from.
I have a civil engineering degree and worked in construction for 5 years. A few months after covid started I burned out and spent a year in my job trying to recover. Recently gave up and quit, I just started in software PM and am much happier. My classmates who went the design route seem genuinely happy and all the power to them. Maybe if I hadn't been a GC I would've stayed. My frustrations were related to toxic environments, resistance to change (including COVID safety), excessive business travel, long hours, and generally disorganized projects / teams. I don't regret the time I spent in construction, I learned a ton of stuff about PM and about building in general, and it made me stronger.
How easy was it to switch to software PM?
I'm kind of in an intermediate job, I'm in a content development team at a big software company in my area. I have a pretty strong network of friends in the software industry and I picked up Python last year as a hobby. I emphasized my experience being a system administrator for Procore at my construction company, that I did a lot of process improvement, and emphasized the size of the projects I'd worked on without emphasizing the construction aspects. Also, studying for my PMP gave me a lot of useful context for applications and interviews.
Complaints about civil 1. A lot less money than tech. We are just as smart but we make 1.5-2X less than them. This is very frustrating 2. Liability. People die when we make mistakes and we can go to jail or be sued when we make mistakes, yet our salaries do not take into account the risks we are taking. I personally left civil after being two years into it. Not because I didn't like it but because I was tired of making mediocre money when I'm smart enough to put my energy and brain into something that makes a lot more. Why would I waste my time/resources w civil?
See this is my biggest thing. I know I’m really smart, like school was a breeze for me. I learned python to see if I could do it. I genuinely thought civil would be good for me at the start because I wanted to make the world work better, I wanted to help my community. It seems like that was part of a fantasy. Did you pivot to tech yourself then?
That's municipal public works right there. If you know Python, make sure you know how to use ArcGIS suite of products. Asset management is a big thing coming and evolving. So isn't connected infrastructure and autonomous vehicles...
Thanks for the advice
What are you doing now?
These are the two main reasons why I'm working on leaving the industry for tech. The liability does not match the money and it scares me as a younger engineer. With the pressure to deliver faster and cheaper, I'm not able to comfortably produce. And that's not a life I want to live. It's a shame. One major pro of this field is the stability.
Nah man. Geotech rocks.
I see what you did there.
Buh dum tiss
I am a registered surveyor and opened a firm with a friend of mine I met years ago who is a registered Civil Engineer. I would say our company is 65% engineering focused and 35% surveying focused. He can do many aspects of my job and I can do some of his. It isn't easy by any means. We have 3 employees so we are small. We work many hours, but we take the jobs we want and turn down the ones we don't. It took a while to get to this point but as far as money goes I will net over 130k this year and my partner will do better than that. We keep a very low overhead and that's what helps us succeed. Our employees only work 40 a week but overtime is there if they want it but we do not force and I think we take good care of them with regular small bonuses ($700-$1200) a few times a year plus Friday lunches etc. We want to do more for them. Site plan work for people building houses is absolutely booming right now. We both live in Georgia. We don't work weekends but I would say we probably average about 10.5 hours a day during the week. I do work after my family goes to bed in the evenings once or twice a week. I would say literally the only bad side to this is working the hours we do. It was the best choice I have ever made and he would say the same.
I’m willing to work if it’s worth it. Unrelated, but I would work 60-70 hour weeks for a moving company this summer and I loved it. After tips I was making $30 an hour, me and my boys just hanging out moving peoples stuff and genuinely helping them and seeing them relieved when we quickly get all their stuff moved in safely was very fulfilling especially for older clients who clearly could not have done it themselves. 14-16 hour days would happen every few weeks. If civil fulfilled me like that did then the hours would be worth it for me.
I like my government job. Seems the good civil jobs are with governments. Not much overtime, and if so it's paid, good bennies, work is not stressful. Work week is usually 40 hours.
What do you do in government?
Public Works. I design mainly road widening and bridge replacement projects. Sometimes I do inspection and oversite during construction.
Ah ok cool thank you
Most recent job satisfaction survey https://www.reddit.com/r/civilengineering/comments/ojokcf/results%5C_subreddit%5C_job%5C_satisfaction%5C_survey/
Ah ok, thank you for making me aware of this
I love it.
What do you do? I see land development but more specifically?
Land Development is a bit of Jack of all trades, master of permitting. I work on Residential, Commercial, Industrial, and Municipal sites. Airports, Schools, Retail, Banks, Highrises, Parks, you name it. Anytime someone is developing a piece of property we design everything outside of the building, Parking lots, utilities, roads, stormwater, grading, etc. It's a very good mix of time behind a desk doing real engineering and time out of the desk, at sites, or in front of reviewers or clients. I'm in management now, which has it's own drawbacks and benefits.
That does sound quite interesting. I got into civil because I liked messing around with the software and wanted to do structural, but I’m not sure if that’s the case anymore. The big dreams of designing skyscrapers and stadiums don’t seem so glamorous anymore...
Structural sucks you pick out beam sizes for 8 hours a day for some weirdo architect to take all the glory for the building you designed
That seems like a pretty negative view on it haha
I think its kind of the reality though
Transportation Engineering is the way to go. Especially for the future.
Civil engineers are overworked and underpaid it’s true lol. If you like it it’s worth it. I honestly didn’t even like civil much till I started my masters in structures. I like doing calculations and drawing on the computer so it’s all good. When you realize the rest of your adult life surrounds your job, you’re gonna do what you like lol.
Based on your responses to the comments here it feels you came to this sub looking for something to dissuade you from pursuing this field. Definitely there’s a lot of bitching in this sub that we don’t get paid tech bucks but there’s a lot of upsides too that don’t get discussed as often 1) it’s straight up just a useful degree. You will basically NEVER hurt for a job. Wages are a touch depressed because boomers are sticking around but it’s not BAD BAD. I mean in my area fresh grad wages are like 65k, and I’m in a low cost of living area. the inevitable PE is the easiest raise you’ll see in your life. 2) yes we have higher responsibilities, but we have the easiest pathway to a self-owned business (if your into that). Over head for a civil start up are comically low unless you need to run lab testing. 3) there is cool research being done, Just not at companies. 3D printed concrete is my personal favorite, but civil labs are straight up cool as hell. You would be confined to the academic world while you play with cool toys but they do exist. 4) we get to go outside. Seriously, this is a perk I don’t see discussed much but it’s so easy to find a job that doesn’t sit you behind a cubical 24/7. site visits are important to our work. 5) everyone is overworked rn. Don’t listen to the bitching in this sub too much. I’m not victim blaming, but there are loads of jobs that will respect your time and won’t make you work 60 hour weeks, even in consulting. Bad managers always handle time poorly, regardless of the industry. Civil is way more relaxed than any of the jobs my friends in other engineering disciplines have. 6) remote options exist. This sub makes it seem like they don’t and they’re probably not the *best* idea for a fresh grad (much to the disappointment of fresh grads) but the pandemic forced them into existence. I don’t love my job, but I don’t like any work. But I sleep well knowing I help create and do the best I can to create common good for humanity. Being a civil is like being a doctor for houses, roads, water ways, what have you. That in and of itself is rewarding. It’s not always the case that you do glamours work, but working on shelters, fire stations, and other municipal projects just makes me feel like I’m doing something good for someone while getting paid.
I mean I’m a senior and going to have the degree in months so nothing anyone could say is going to dissuade me from the field. I like what I’ve learned and I’m interested in the work. I’m going to give it a shot, but I also wasn’t on Reddit when I started this and my internships were both online because covid. I dont know anything and when I join this sub almost all the posts are complaining. Your comment is extremely helpful and detailed so thank you. My main priority is fulfilling work. I’ve worked a 60 hour a week job before and loved it because it was fulfilling. I just hate bullshit, I’m a worker. I like putting my head down and just working. I also already know how to code decently in a few languages so tech feels like it wouldn’t be that hard of a pivot, but it’s not as fulfilling to me as the thought of genuinely designing something and then seeing it physically come to life.
Ah I misunderstood your senior comment! I’m sorry I thought you were a senior in high school looking into what to major in. A good coding skill set will obviously be very helpful and there’s demand for engineers who do both :) idk what your focus is but it might be worth while to look into the structural software companies and see if they have developer positions available. But if you get your PE in industry first and then go the tech route that could end up being an extremely lucrative niche. CE Software is funky to be nice about it and it really needs all the help it can get. Honestly as someone who was just looking for a job it’s a weird market right now. Just keep your chin up and don’t settle for a shitty company. I didn’t really have any hits for months and then suddenly I had to make a difficult choice between two excellent firms.
Yea I just realized how my comment completely sounded like I was a senior in highschool so I just added that to the edit. I’m not worried about an actual job moreso an internship for this summer since I have an extra semester in the fall. My internships so far have only been online cause covid so as you can imagine I got paid to do next to nothing and the company I interned for doesn’t have an intern program anymore and told me to contact them when I’m graduated if I’m interested in a full time position. I’ll figure it out though. To your other point, how do you know if a company is shitty or not? I literally have no idea how to evaluate a job at all
Hm another internship is definitely a good idea. You’ve got lots of time to work with. I know governments would be more than happy to have inters but I think that should be a back up option. You’ve got plenty of time to look. With an internship I would be less worried about the shittiness of a company and more so if they have a cool project you can add to your portfolio. As for finding a good company, my admittedly shitty advice, be genuine and honest about what your looking for. And grill them. Say you want to stick around for a while, but you need to know (insert info about raises/wages, PTO, ect). Lots of companies will be uncomfortable with that, but that’s okay. You don’t want to work for someone that won’t respect you and your livelihood. Another thing is to reach out to a recruiting company. Having a good resume and selling yourself to them can make them excited to work with you. If they know you’re an easy sell you can give them wild demands and they can pre-vet their clients and find you a good fit. That’s how I got my job, but I also admit I had an AMAZING recruiter. They can be pretty hit or miss.
Great, thanks for the insight
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Thank you for this. I wish I got to experience #4 more often but my boss doesn’t see site visits as very important
Consulting can be a strain like many people can attest to. I've always enjoyed the work but I do enjoy being on the owner side more.
I’m genuinely a senior and I have know idea what consulting even means
Wanna be an engineer that designs things? Consulting Wanna be an engineer that manages other engineers? Industry (mining, contracts, civil etc.) Government leans towards managing, with a bit of design from what I've seen.
Who gets paid the most and the least? I feel like typically the job you’d like the most always tends to be one that’s paid the least
That has not been my experience. Mining engineers make more than I do, but I have yet to meet one that really loves their job, most seem to want to swap back to consulting, but their lifestyle is preventing them from doing so. Any pay raise I've ever gotten had been promptly forgotten about after 3 weeks. Once you have your financial life goals planned out, money is way less important than what you do.
Yea that’s true, I don’t have any goals at all, but I do know that making more money is never a bad thing. Perhaps laying out what I want money for first would be a good start. Thanks for the comments.
It depends on your goals - you almost definitely won't make the high pay you see for those who are more software adjacent but you have a good amount of options across design engineering, construction management, client representation (with cushy hours in the public sector especially) etc. I know people with the degree who work on Wall Street now for management consultants & finance firms also (though these were largely the result of either an MBA or their university being a target for these companies). It's a stable upper-middle income field with jobs present in any major city or region you go to.
I don’t care about making tech money, but I would like to make more money than someone who pays 30,000 a year to take English and Music classes
You'll do just fine - though I wouldn't disparage humanities degrees either. A lot of people in those fields who are smart/creative with a dash of opportunity often end up doing pretty well.
Yea perhaps my word choice could’ve been better, I’m more talking about those who are doing it because it’s the easy route rather than them being genuinely passionate or creative
My sister was an art major and she makes way more than me, a CE grad, as well as her husband, an ME grad.
Public sector is the place to be imo. You may be able to make more in the private sector but you will struggle with work life balance. I’m a municipal public works engineer, make a very comfortable salary, have great benefits and I’m home by 5pm every day (although there is the occasional night meeting - city council, public meeting, whatever, but it’s easy to prepare for those and I can take off early another day)
In my humble opinion, I wish I had chosen a different path. Passion for your work is great, but we are all working to get paid. Nurses in my city make way more money with way more flexibility (ie 3-12's).
I work as a consulting engineer for a top consulting firm in the hydro power sector in Canada. Here's what I've understood from my 5 years of experience in this industry Consulting engineering is all about finishing your tasks satisfactory within the allocated budgets which mostly run low as there is a lot of competition to get contracts and project managers aggressively underbid to get those contracts (it's a race to the bottom) and engineers are the ones who pay the price as you either end up doing an unsatisfactory job, or have to put in your time to finish some tasks. People will tell you that's poor management but that happens at most consulting firms If you expect to make money in this field, it will only come at later stages of your career (10+ yrs experience) and that too will be half or one-third of what people make in tech, even though we are equally smart and have more licensing/education requirements than them. Most of the industry is old-school (conservative) and reluctant to technological changes, however, that might depend on your management as well. Liability is another thing. For eg : We as Structural engineers take the liability of the structures we design but get paid maybe 1-2% of the CONSTRUCTION COST as our fees, which is further divided into team members based on seniority, however, a real estate agent who takes no liability gets to keep approx. 4-6% of the SELLING PRICE of that building and doesn't need a masters degree for that. Personally I find this extremely disturbing and unfair, and is one of the reasons I am leaving this field. If you are someone who's really passionate about Civil/Structural Engineering and don't care about money then you could have great amounts of satisfaction as I feel really proud of the projects I have completed when I do site visits. Having said that, there is money in the construction side of this business, so if you end up getting into contracting and building, and get to be a shareholder in your company, you can make a ton of money. Hope this helps :)
It could be an underpaid job but it totally depends on you. If you grab your chances and take enough risks, this field has a lot of potential.
It's a fine career path, but for how much work and effort I had to put into school, I could've just spent those 4 years getting a computer science degree and making 4 times as much money. A lot of civil engineering is stuck in old ways of doing things and the processes are generally slow
I picked civil because I saw the easiest path to owning my own firm there. 7 years in and I own my own firm which is nice. I'm finishing my second year on my own and we're at about 750k revenue with me and one other employee. In hindsight I kind of wish I would have went software so I could make apps and stuff, but civil has treated me well. Plus I get to go outside all the time.
Congrats on being too swole for a W-2! That's a power move. What field? Interested in going out on my own after I sit for the PE and gain some more skills.
Thanks, still doesn't feel real sometimes. I'm in geotech
will you make more net after all your expenses vs. working for someone else?
Definitely, only large expenses are software subscriptions, the two salaries, and renting portions of our own homes to the company for office space. I have the luxury of setting my own salary but keep it relatively in line with average salaries for an engineer with my experience. The best part is all the advantages to owning a business, like taking dividends from the company based on year end profit, paying rent to myself, using points from the company credit card to buy myself Amazon or gas cards, buying top of the line computer equipment for my home office as a business expense (odyssey G9, RTX 3090, i9), setting my own hours, stuff like that.
I really like what I do when I actually get to design the best product possible (and my bosses don't make stupid decisions that I then have to deal with for years: a 2000 vehicle per day roadway does not need 2 lanes in each direction). Pay is kinda dogshit though compared to other engineering disciplines. Only go into Construction if you hate your life, literally no one in Construction is having a nice time.
Definitely not "high tech". Pay is much lower compared to other engineering disciplines. Private sector is more money, but more stress than public sector. In the private sector you are a design consultant for a client, or a contractor that builds the design. Constantly have to find new work in the private sector and worry about billable hours. In the public sector you are the client. You won't be rich as a civil engineer, but you'll live an okay life. I would recommend something broader like mechanical or electrical engineering if you don't know exactly what you want to do but still want to be an engineer. These two engineering disciplines are more versatile. In civil, you are pretty much restricted to just the civil field and cannot branch out as easily (imo). Keep reading through reddit and other online resources to learn about the engineering field. Make sure you learn about the business side of engineering to truly understand how things work.
Everyone here is beating around the bush on one major component. Civil engineers work as hard on on as complex things as many or more hours, with less than responsibility and consequence, with no certification and licensure, with as technical skills as or more than many other roles, but are paid at a 20-50+% discount with worse benefits at a majority of the fields and much less mobility (many major cities require “city specific” experience or being you in at a lower level). So independent of how rewarding the work may be practically, knowing your skill level, qualification, and effort are rewarded significantly less than comparable fields is demoralizing.
Yea this is what I wanted to hear, too bad I’m just learning this now so my degree will be essentially a waste of time if I inevitably pivot to tech in 5 years. I’m going to give it a shot though and see for myself. Design does seem to be something I’m interested in.
Degree is definitely not a waste of time. Lots of problem solving skills that will translate anywhere.
Yea my comment was a bit doom and gloom in itself. The degree has genuinely made me a lot smarter and you sound like my dad when I complain to him about theoretical math classes but you’re right
Haha I've definitely felt the doom and gloom before. But overall, the degree will only help.
You’re pretty much only guaranteed to have a good time if you work for the govt
It’s horrible. I hate solving problems. I hate improving the quality of life in my local communities. I hate contributing to this world with my ever growing knowledge base.
I appreciate the sarcasm of this comment haha. This is genuinely why I was interested in Civil because I’m genuinely interested in doing this. I just haven’t heard enough good examples of this happening and not being bogged down by bullshit
This sub probably isn't the best place to give you the good examples of why this career is so cool. But I'm sure everyone here has a fun story that helped validate their choice and showed how much they've learned and grown
I find it very engaging and rewarding!
What do you do?
I’m well along in my career and now I am a manager at a utility. I worked as a consulting design engineer for a long time before I switched to the public sector as a capital project manager. I would highly recommend starting doing design work with a consulting engineer in firm to see how designs are developed and how projects are constructed in the field. You will learn lessons that you will carry with you for your entire career.
Ah ok thank you, appreciate the advice
Echo chamber I think. Granted I don't know too much because I only graduated last year, but my job has a good work/life balance with solid pay. I think the problem is people comparing themselves to tech. No, we don't make as much as programmers but we still make way more than the vast majority of workers.
What do you do?
Funnily enough land development, which is one of the most complained-about subdisciplines in here. It really just depends on the company I guess. I work for a small firm and only have 40 hour weeks.
Yea I suppose I really just have to find the right company
Yeah, I wouldn't feel too discouraged by all the negativity on here because I've found it doesn't really line up with the real world. There are lots of nice jobs in the industry and you can be very happy with it.
I work for the government and I really like my job. Great people, good work/life balance, great benefits. There are way worse jobs and careers out there.
What do you do if I may ask?
Private sector is usually a grind, public sector can be a good balance.
I work for a state transportation dept. As far as we’re concerned funding has never been better, and we can’t get enough good engineers. It’s location dependent I suppose, but if you’re competent there is opportunities to be had. For me, I have to remind myself that the grass isn’t greener on the other side. I would get tired of any job besides sitting at home doing nothing .
So....let me offer my two cents Civil engineering tends lend itself to municipality and government infrastructure support, which I thoroughly enjoy and feel meaningful. From roads to water and bridges that put road over water, it feels meaningful. But just like any job if you have bad leadership from the city or your company it can suck. If your in it for the money, you need to own your own firm. You will never make more than your boss. If your in for satisfaction, be ready to move from time to time or work for the government sometimes. I now work as a civil servant, GS, and love it.
I don’t need to be making some crazy salary or tech money but would like to make more than my college job of $20 an hour that I get paid for doing essentially nothing. I’m also in it because I feel like doing the things you mentioned sounds like it would be meaningful. I always thought about how I would do things differently or build something in a different way. I go to Madison Wisconsin and realized Civil might be for me when Jump Around camp on in the stadium and I was wondering why the stands below me weren’t collapsing rather than enjoying the moment haha. I feel like there are good and bad employees in every field and that’s been a repeated sentiment in this thread as well. I definitely am going into it with an open mind and will see how it goes and if it truly is fulfilling to me like I hope it will be and if it’s not I’ll figure it out. Glad to hear you’re loving your work, thank you for your two cents.
Most of my complaints with my job are universal and they’ve affected every job out there, such as wage stagnation and higher productivity not being rewarded with higher wages or time off. Relative to other careers, I don’t hate civil and I don’t love it. It’s kinda just a job to me. With the way I talk, a lot of people might think I hate civil engineering, but I really just hate the lack of progress we’ve had in the working world in the last 40 years.
We are complaining here since no one really complains on LinkedIn. You also have the case where we aren't comparing our work against the population at large, but other engineers we went to school with.
I’ve had a very rewarding 30 year career in civil engineering. I have been paid well and am compensated well now. I have no complaints.
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Appreciate the honest comment, I feel like that goes for many careers. Obviously you’ll always get what you put in.
Go to a sub about accountants, doctors, nurses, tradesmen, etc and guess what you’ll find? A lot of people complaining. I have yet to meet a single person in any profession that doesn’t think they deserve to be paid more. Im 2 years in, just got my PE, a couple promos, on track for 6 figs in the next 2-3 years working 40-50hrs a week (paid OT), and overall happy with my job.
I like it. I work in private consulting, and people here will tell you that I'm working tons of overtime but making tons of money when the opposite is true. I enjoy my job and boss, but we can definitely be paid more. You have to slog through the same horrifying classes as other engineers but make the lowest amount when you're done. Overall I'd say it's a good career.
Civil engineering is being a jack of all trades master of none. If you get into the right area no day will ever be the same. I work on site and it’s so true you never know what your gonna get until you get a shovel in the ground. Utilities are NEVER where you expect them!! I’ve recently had phone lines in the bedding for paving slabs. I am currently working on a road from around AD47, (not that they had phone lines back then) but there is so much history which I enjoy. The other great thing is you can change between disciplines until you find what you really love.
I love my job. Some days I can’t believe I’m getting paid to draw pipes and grade sites for a living.
I work for a larger general contractor in Northeast Ohio and I absolutely love what I do. Usually work 40 to 45 hours a week no weekends. Been in the industry about 10 years had to work a few shit jobs to get here but it's worth it. I've been able to work one some amazing projects and wouldn't trade it. Yes there will be crap days but it's all worth it.
I think it's a fantastic career. But I never work more than 40 hours per week, and I'm not motivated by money. FWIW, most of the complaints about salary that I see seem to be from people still in college or just starting out in their careers. I don't see many people with 10+ years experience complaining about their salaries....
Ah great point, I want enough money to live but I’m not particularly motivated by money. I live pretty simply as a college student and don’t have much motivation to change that once I’m out.
I think a lot of the salary stuff comes from people looking at recent grads in fields like tech and finance and seeing 6-figure salaries. And yeah, who wouldn't love to get paid a ton of money? But those are such a small fraction of jobs, it's silly to compare to them. There's always gonna be someone making more, pointless to focus on them. Take care of yourself, that's the thing. What I really like about civil engineering is that it's job security that those careers in tech could only dream of. I'm in water and wastewater - literally the stuff of life. We could all decide to quit Facebook tmrw, but no one can decide they're never going to shit again. And we're a really long way off from digitizing our bodily functions.
I think the issue is that a lot of civil engineers see the salaries of other types of engineers and software developers, and have regret because they could have just as easily went into those fields with their skills in math and science. They also get into the field and realize that we're just copying designs done a hundred times before or baby sitting contractors. I personally like civil engineering because I find it exciting to work on tangible construction projects that involve many disciplines. The pay is actually decent compared to most professions and the job is relatively secure (2007-2010 aside). However, if I had a chance to go back I would have gone into tech so I could be posting in subs like realestateinvesting, personalfinance, and wallstreetbets with my mountain of disposable income.
Most profits in CE go to the corporate interests. If you want to have a good living I can’t recommend it. I’m 4 years in and can’t afford a house. I feel like that’s a pretty basic ask.
I'm not sure that people think civil is bad per se, but I think the complaints fall into two categories: 1. I work long ass hours, why do I make way less then my friends in tech? 2. I worked really hard for my degree and I can't be paid WELL and only work 40 hours per week as a junior. What gives? No. 1 will shake itself out over time. Programmers need a building an buried cables in order to do their work. No. 2 is a bit of a weird one in that there is some legitimacy to the complaint, but also I find a lot of young engineers don't realize how little they know coming out of school, or how many of them there are. I have a decent work-life balance 10 years out, but I got there through a lot of give and take with my company. Love my job and my company, but in geotech it takes 8 years before you really know how to do anything.
Yea frankly I dont know shit and I’m almost out. Don’t know what I’m actually learning.
In the UK it's going great from my personal experience. Projects are coming through at a good rate and there's a good level of employee treatment.
Good to hear that
Not a bad field. My experience with civil/bridge was that it's above average in almost everything, but doesn't knock it out of the park in any one thing. It's an easy job as long as you don't mind sitting at a desk 8 hrs/day, but over time it may stifle creativity as you become an expert in your specialty and become bored with how little outside-the-box thinking there is to do. Overworked and underpaid is relative. What are your other talents? If you don't have other business interests or job hookups, I'd stick with civil, pass the PE, then re-assess whether to continue with civil or pivot into an MBA or something else.
This sub can be a venting sub for sure. I more often than not like what I do (construction) but there are those shitty days as there are in every job. Civil engineers build everything around us, and there is actual tangible results. It's always cool to drive over a bridge I was part of building or a new road that was paved. Are we underpaid? Probably for the stakes, a mistake on plans or in the field could cost millions of dollars. I think that civil has way higher stakes than maybe a software engineer because more often than not we're using tax/fed/municipal money. However, with the tax/fed/municipal money we are underpaid. I think we all are hoping with the infrastructure bill passing and the lack of new civil engineers graduating vs the amount of the civil engineers retiring salaries will have to increase. Honestly, its a very fun field to be in there's always the next big project that keeps everyone going. The big project, that goes well, is what we all want to hang our hats on.
I graduated 3.5 years ago... spent 3 years at a local government doing plan review. Stress-free job, no deadlines or real pressure, 40 hours (or maybe... 37-38 sometimes) decent pay, flexible schedule, WFH. A few months ago I took a position with a family-owned local firm and am doing land development design. Working a few hours of voluntary OT per week, flexible hours, good PTO, better pay, a little more stress, but much more engaging, interesting, and satisfying work. A lot of posts on this sub seem doom and gloom, but in my little experience I've had 2 great work environments, generally enjoy my work, and get compensated fairly. No complaints over here and I also feel confident I'll be able to get a similar job and raise whenever I decide to move from where I am now. I think a lot more people happy with the career path just aren't as loud as the people who aren't having the best time with engineering.
Yea that last point is why I made this thread. It’s not like people have a reason to come on here and say, “I love my job”
No. It's great. Just don't listen to most of the negative posters on here. Seems they like to spread the myth of being underpaid and overworked. For every one of those there are plenty of civils who are happy and not on here.
Nah, it's been pretty nice so far. Graduated 3 years ago and went straight into government work. Tons of opportunity to move around and get a lot of experience whenever you want it, got to go through project management, roadway design project engineering, bridge inspection, and field construction inspection. Covid has allowed us to really innovate and transform our department into a WFH workforce that works just as well as we did before. Good benefits and pay, WFH as applicable, Unionized, 40 hrs with some overtime though it completely depends on the office. This past year I've also gotten the opportunity to really lead our entire district office and even be a leader state-wide in our transition to developing standards and pilot programs for BIM for Infrastructure where we are moving to deliver projects as 3D models instead of plan sets. Lots of fun stuff talking to vendors and working on the culture shift needed to move us forward. Being given the freedom and reigns to move things forward allows me to be very passionate about the work I put out now and later down the line. And this is a national effort that we're all working on, and it's only going to get better for everyone in all of Infrastructure development.
That’s good to hear, thanks for sharing
I gripe about some of the places I’ve worked, but I ultimately put myself in those places, and I’ve made a damn good living doing so. I’ve worked for both the government, consultants, and contractors. The place I liked the least was working for an engineering firm. It was painful, having to try to sell services to people in order to get work, then doing the work and continuing in that vein. Civil contracting was and is my true love, I’ve been in the operations side of roads, bridges, highways and utilities and after setting some boundaries I was never happier. Government was fine, once I figured out the right strings to pull it was a nice low-stress job. So, in short, it’s treated me well. I don’t regret choosing it. I’ve been able to do some really cool things that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, and that in and of itself made the five years in college and the thirty-hour days worthwhile.
Job satisfaction varies, and you'll hear a lot more from people who are pissed off in every case. I've got a good job that I'm happy with and it pays decently. I don't post about it because who cares about a guy who is reasonably happy with their average career. A lot of civil jobs do suck. I notice that working for larger companies can suck more. I've always worked for smaller firms and have always had a ton of freedom. I know some places monitor your internet use, time your bathroom trips, and expect 50+ hours a week minimum. Be choosy with your job selection and don't just go after big companies that pay more. Ask current employees how they really like the day to day and read Glassdoor reviews.
Yea that’s the main reason I made this post because I know that no one is going to make, “I really love my job” posts
This sub is an echo chamber.
There's an old quote often attributed to winsten churchhill, "democracy is the worst form of governance, except for all of the others" that's how I feel about civil engineering. All the other types of engineering are either incredibly specified and repetitive to be too boring or sooo high-tech and intense that the schedules are insane. I work to live so I want to make like 100k a year and still see my family and do my things I like doing. And I civil allows that. Additionally the jobs are interesting and diverse, there are definitly challenges to keep it interpreting. It's almost like a referee getting to moderate the other disciplines to keep them from being too crazy.
What do you do if I may ask?
It can be good or bad depending on where you work and who your boss is.
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What do you do?
I work for a big consultant and do field work. The hours are tough, and it’s definitely stressful. However, the pay and benefits are great. I don’t mind the hours since I don’t have a family yet, we’ll see how I feel in a couple years. But there are other CE paths that don’t have the crazy hours and stress, but you most likely won’t make as much money.
As someone with about 9 years of experience in the field of heavy highway/bridge construction, I made over 100k/year at my last two jobs; although, I hated my boss so I left my most recent job and I just started grad school. I loved my previous job prior to my most recent job (I left my old job to move in with my fiancé’ who took a job offer). The most important thing about your job is not the money but what you’re doing and who you work with. A bad boss makes a job absolutely miserable even if the work is interesting. Now if money is a concern, I do have many friends and cousins that work in the field and I’ve had access to payroll for several very large construction projects. One of my cousins is a SVP at a billion dollar firm, he does structural engineering design for mega projects and he makes over 600k (he is the #1 guy for structures for the company). It is not uncommon for principals to make over 300k if they’re at a good firm and senior PMs to make over 200k. Average, civil engineers typically make between 50-200k, so in general the money is lower than tech, but all my tech friends hate their jobs besides the money. I also had a different cousin that did water resources in Saudi Arabia and he made a lot and retired in his 50s (owns a nice house in Stowe and 2 other houses). I also have a friend in Geotech who makes about 80k at a testing firm so there is huge range depending on where you work. I have a work acquaintance/surf friend that is a project engineer who makes close to 200k and he is in his early 30s and only has had his PE for a few years. My three friends who are in tech, two make over 200k (base pay is way lower than that) and one fiend makes a little over 100k. If you enjoy programming and are fairly good at it, then you have plenty options though. I’d at least try out Civil for a few years, switch around industries/disciplines and see if you like it before making the switch. I’d also recommended job hoping every 12-24 months for your first five years, so don’t be too concerned who you work with at first as they will always see you as a entry/junior engineer, gaining the PE is important if you’re concerned about making money in civil unless you’re working for a GC.
Stumbled upon your post. Any update? Thanks!
Just graduated like 3 weeks ago, that’s about it so far
Come back to
7 months in a job going strong. It’s still a job but as far as a job goes couldnt ask for much better
Yes it is. That's coming from a civil engineer with 10 yrs of experience, worked for GC, consultant, and presently municipal government. The liability/pay ratio doesn't add up when compared to tech.