<p>"There are certain occupations that lend themselves to self-employment more than others do. Take engineering, for example, a field I know something about having 3 degrees and having worked in the field. If you're a civil engineer, sure it isn't rocket science, but you can always hang out your own shingle and design septic systems for $3000. a pop. Of course the computer is going to do all the work and spit out the plans. On the other hand, if you're an electronics engineer or a computer scientist, what value does your degree grant you as someone who is self-employed. Basically nothing. You could be a computer consultant, but you don't need a degree to do that. The degree per se only grants you the right to put your future welfare into the hands of a corporation as an employee and as a ticket of admission to the field. You could save yourself a lot of money by just learning computers inside and out and starting your own business. If you hung out your shingle as a computer scientist with a BS degree, who would your clients be? In general the higher the tech, the less chances for self-employment. You want something that is stable and has been around for thousands of years."</p>
<p>Gosh, it all sounds so simple when you’re bragging about how easy other people have it on the internet!</p>
<p>This guy has no idea what he’s talking about. Yes, you can be self-employed as a civil engineer, but it’s not like it’s a piece of cake. You have to do all your own drafting or employ a drafter. Those software packages cost thousands of dollars. a pop. And there’s very little software support for smaller companies. The software doesn’t do all the work for you, you do all the work for the software. Civil3D will confirm some values for you, but it’s all stuff that you could easily calculate using point-slope formula. You’ll also need your license first, so you can’t start out as self-employed. You have to work for someone else for three or four years, get your license, and THEN you have to convince people that you can do the work on your own.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to people who say that something’s an easy way to earn a living, particularly if they haven’t ever done it themselves. Even worse: “I know a guy who…”. There’s no easy way to earn a living.</p>
<p>Thanks for pointing all that out, aibarr. My husband and I have our own structural firm. Our biggest expense is professional liability insurance. It is something we will have to carry FOREVER, even after we are retired. The annual premium is based on the amount we’ve billed cumulatively over the years, so the amount goes up each year. It is a large amount of money.</p>
<p>We are fortunate that I learned CAD and used it a lot before we started our firm. So I can do whatever drafting is needed. Otherwise, my husband would have to hire a drafting contractor at a high rate per hour. I can also do all the bookkeeping and keep track of all the little details. A single self-employed engineer would have a very difficult time taking care of all the business-related stuff.</p>
<p>The other fun part is collecting the money that people owe you! Ha, good luck with that! We try to do work for people we know, but even then, it’s not unusual to have to wait three months for payment, particularly from architects who are themselves waiting for the owner to pay them! Our contract terms are 30 days, but if we ever press for payment, recalcitrant clients threaten to sue us, based on some groundless claim.</p>
<p>As far as computer programs go, they are QUITE often used incorrectly. That is one source of business for us - reviewing the screwed-up computer output from clueless engineers.</p>
<p>Maine, u guys should consider doing works for govt like streets, sewer and water. Once we contracted out a project for 800k to parsons in pasadena, which would’ve cost us 100k if done in house. Best part: they fudged up and we had to start all over… Even better: they collected the money w/o any problems…</p>
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Just outsource to india and china, like the article suggested (im being sarcastic, btw)… :p</p>
<p>rheidzan, we just do structural, not civil, unfortunately!</p>
<p>We have enough trouble outsourcing AutoCAD jobs to the next town over, much less another country! I give them all the plotting parameters, font files, etc., and they still screw it up. We’ve had to do that a couple of times when I was away. It’s a mess.</p>
<p>Yeah, we outsource drafting to India, and I’m in the midst of a massive headache where they’ve screwed up my project… not because they can’t do the work, but because we can’t be in constant communication with them, really… Just e-mails to me, all night, that I have to wake up and answer if I want a finished product in the morning.</p>
<p>Also, only really large companies like Parsons typically get those 800K jobs, rheidzan. It’s pretty rare for a smaller company to be able to staff out a job that large, and the city usually doesn’t divide those projects into really small bits.</p>
Smaller firms could do it. Most of the times these big companies jack up their fees, so you guys think you don’t have the resources. I don’t know how much hours and resources they needed that they charged that much, but we did it faster and within much fewer hours.</p>
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Yes, but… I’ve seen it done before on various projects such as the MTA Expo Line for one. Parsons (or PB, don’t remember) split up the projects into segments and outsourced them to smaller firms.
I guess now your job is to find and make the right connections with either the larger firms or the agency.</p>
<p>I promise that nobody is jacking up their fees right now. If you’ve done project management for a high-end engineering firm, it’s amazing how quickly you burn through fee. Overhead is pretty high with engineering firms: only 50% really go towards engineer costs. Maybe that’s how it was with that one job, but those fees aren’t hiked to an unreasonable amount, and if it was a city project, Parsons was probably one of the low bidders.</p>
<p>Plus, half the civil work I do is cutting through the red tape that the city puts up… I’m SURE you all can get it done for an eighth the cost! You have the map to all the landmines you’ve planted. ;)</p>
<p>Also, Parsons didn’t outsource the projects… They broke them into smaller projects and managed the different phases. It’s pretty different. So yes, you can get <em>some</em> work that way, but Parsons can choose pretty much whomever they want to staff those phases. Oftentimes, it’s kept in-house. When it’s sourced to smaller companies, it’s generally going to companies that have very close ties with the larger company. So you have to spend a lot of marketing collateral getting close to those larger companies. Then why not just work for those companies directly? It’s no longer really a good deal for you.</p>
<p>We do get a good bit of work from larger engineering firms in our area. Those are our favorite jobs, because it means our client understands the business and why a job is taking X hours to complete. Right now, there isn’t any of that work available, though. We’re doing work for small architectural firms, contractors, and home owners. Enough to get by until things pick up.</p>
<p>In almost any engineering field where design is involved, be it septic tanks, control chips or valves, you can become self-employed.</p>
<p>It might take some ingenuity or some business acumen but some engineers just develop years of specialized experience and then start consulting firms.</p>
<p>People tend to like to work in the private sector because they typically get paid more and do more of the exciting work (“exciting” being my opinion). Those are typically harder to get, though the reverse may be true in California…</p>