<p>Hi all, I'm just wondering what the first couple of years is like working as a structural engineer. (Typical responsibilities, level of client contacts, etc...) How much job site experience would you get? Also, how quickly do salaries go up?</p>
<p>You'd definitely spend lots of time on job sites. A lot of the entry-level engineers I know do a lot of field inspections, which may possibly involve travel, depending on the project site. Once you get more experience, you'll get less field work because you'll be more valuable behind a desk, but you'll still get plenty of chances to go outside. </p>
<p>Client contact, I'm not sure about. It might be different from firm to firm, or maybe even from project manager to project manager. You'll probably have a lot of contact with the contractor though during the construction phase. </p>
<p>A friend of mine who's a structural engineer does a lot of shop drawing review, and design of small components of the overall project.</p>
<p>aibarr would be the expert on this subject, so I'm sure she'll add to this and/or correct me when she sees this.</p>
<p>Kind of depends upon what firm you work for, and what sort of structural engineer you are. I've done both forensics/diagnostics and design.</p>
<p>As a diagnostic structural engineer, I spent a lot of time on job sites. Lot of time in the car driving from place to place, since I was out in Los Angeles for most of this. There was a lot of observing, drawing crack maps to get a better sense of how a structure had been deflecting over time, documenting existing conditions, taking pictures of what was going on, and taking a ton of field notes. My job functions varied widely based upon what project I was working on at the time. I did a lot of research, too, into obscure building 'diseases,' whenever we couldn't figure out what was going wrong with a structure. Towards the beginning, the major client contact I had was as a PM's sidekick, and I'd go along to meetings and not say a heck of a lot. I rose in the ranks there fairly quickly and was actually PMing a few projects after about 8 months. At that point, I had a ton of client contact, and was on the phone with them every day, keeping them updated (and occasionally getting b*tched out by low local celebrities, which was always interesting... I have those voicemails saved as MP3s). After about a year, I was at the point where I was giving client presentations and leading meetings and whatnot. For various reasons, I left that job about a year after I started it.</p>
<p>From there, I moved to Houston to work for the guys that have designed a good chunk of the stadiums in the region/nation, and a large wad of the high-rise hospital buildings and skyscrapers around here. From day 1, I was put on a VERY large and complicated healthcare project that I'm still working on, and will be working on until January. I'm working on a team of eight: one drafter, one senior project manager (a principal of the company), an assistant project manager (in his early thirties), a design manager (also in his early thirties), three design engineers (one's working on the lateral model and he's in his late twenties, and the other two of us are working on the horizontal framing for the whole structure, and we're in our mid-twenties), and one intern (just graduated from college, and he's working on some of the simpler horizontal framing). I haven't set foot on a job site since I got here, and I actually kind of miss it... For better or worse, I've gotten to the point in my design abilities where I'm just flat-out needed in front of a computer. (So even as a graduate engineer, it's very possible that if you're working a project where there are a lot of beams to crank out, that you won't see daylight on the job for quite a while. It kind of goes in waves.) The two project managers wrangle the clients and coordinate our responsibilities between the building owners, the contractor, the geotech, the architect, and all the other subs. The design manager is in charge of coordinating between the info gotten from the PMs and makes sure that the younger engineers are keeping a consistent design and consistent assumptions. The rest of us just design. In all likelihood, I won't be doing construction administration on this project, so no shop drawings for me, and I won't be doing any field observation unless I decide I want to on my own time (which I'll probably do). My neighbors do a lot of shop drawing review, but they're doing construction administration on a few smaller projects right now, so their boots are at the ready, and they go to their jobsites fairly frequently and are typically on the phone with contractors most of the day. The other gal in the next office and I are both doing mainly design, so we spend most of the day either consulting with design managers or other team members, or sitting in front of our computers, doing hand-calcs or running models. We get to leave occasionally, though... A few weeks ago, she got to go up to Indianapolis for the initial test movement of the Colts Stadium retractable roof, and I might be out-of-pocket for a while doing on-site construction administration on a parking garage I designed a little while ago (...at a resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas... poor me).</p>
<p>So, less travel now. No field work, so, lots of sitting in a cube (not really a cube, though... the advantage of working for a major design firm is that they have to impress their architect clients, so our office is gorgeous and amazing, and my 'cube' is really just an office-sized space with half-walls to show off our open floor plan. Lots of contact with my neighbors). The PE exam tests mainly design skills, though, so I'm getting a much better preparation for the PE exam doing design every day, whereas with forensics, you have to study a heck of a lot harder because you can't just sit down and do the exam cold. Design also pays a little more than forensics. There's a little more respect in design, too. As a forensicist, I'd show up in boots and jeans and a polo and I'd be treated kind of like an aberrant female repair-guy. As a design engineer, I dress professionally and hobnob with architects. It's a little cleaner (not my preference... I'm more at home welding than having my nails done).</p>
<p>So far as how fast salaries go up, mine's gone up about 10K from when I started (2 years ago) to the time I last had a raise (November), but because of the job-change in the middle, I don't think this is tremendously typical. I also really play hardball when it comes to salary negotiations (as should everyone!) so I might get a little more money than some of my peers.</p>
<p>Hope that helps...!</p>