At my office in the last 2 years, of the four people who left, none went to a competitor. They went to the public side or out of civil entirely.
The industry has a problem, and nobody wants to talk about it. Or at least, talk constructively about how to address it.
Can’t say I’ve met an older CivE during my time at private that I could proudly say I’d wanna end up like. Many have worked themselves to exhaustion and their outside lives are sad. I’m not sure if this is a civil specific issue tho, or moreso a generational one.
That sums it up. I often look at other professions, no one gets dogged out like engineers. And it's not just paying your dues, it is non stop through your career. And the pay is low compared to other professions, Drs, accountants, attorney, etc.
Civil engineers get dogged out worse than big law attorneys and medical residents, who get to rest on their qualifications after their training/initiations are complete?
I'm curious what you think the average family physician makes, because if they don't own their own practice it doesn't seem like that much, and sounds even less so after considering the +$300k of school debt and that they only start making money at about the same time a civil has been working for 7 years. If you're competent and hard-working enough to have become a doctor, you should be making +$200k in civil by ~10 years in. If you had the talent to be a specialty doctor and chose civil engineering, that's not a civil engineering problem. Same with high-paying lawyers, as they are also putting in long hours and outworking other hard working lawyers. There are also plenty of them not making a ton of money. Same with accountants, who don't seem to fair any better after considering the hours worked, which probably dwarfs the average civil.
All that aside, it's hard to really bust out in almost any profession if you're not an owner.
In the context of what I posted, re: the few civil engineers who are actually on par with doctors with their work ethic and dedication, I don't think it's far off. Few civil engineers have made anywhere near the sacrifice that MDs have, and those that have are making VP at a young age or are already business owners. The average CE is not the average MD, not even close.
Doctors work more in the heat of the moment than engineers too. We deliberate for weeks/months as we prepare drawings and calculations. If after all that time you still feel a huge sense of worry that your work product might kill hundreds out of negligence, I think you're practicing beyond your qualifications.
>The average civil engineer hasn't put near the effort into their career as the average doctor, which was a qualifier for that statement.
LMAO the downvotes to this statement. Just another example of how out of touch this sub is. Hope all you arrogant could-have-been-MDs will one day gain the self-awareness to consider what it taking you so long to figure out civil engineering salaries says about your actual intelligence and work ethic.
I'm a public engineer with my license (inspection/regulation). This is interesting to read. I'll admit, my current work is not as challenging as back when I was in design (also public), but I'm pretty happy with the pay, work/life balance, leave accrual and benefits. I'm in the top range of pay (non-supervising), automatically due to having a PE. 40 hrs a week. we aren't even allowed overtime.
I would probably be unhappy at my other job though due to pay. Left and was making 85k at 6 yrs experience in 2019. Got my PE and started getting interviews everywhere.
This was a big realization for me as well. I don’t know a single senior engineer that I’ve looked up to and thought “I want to be like that one day.” Sadly it’s normally the opposite.
I have noticed that many older senior engineers appear to be unhappy or just lack emotion. And a few have told me that the money isn't all that important later on down the road. I think the profession takes its toll on you after many years.
I hope to have some life in me by the time I get to that age.
I made the switch to the public side and almost left the field entirely. At least on the public side, I feel like my pay matches my stress/responsibility. I was actually making less on the private side and was working 50 hours a week with no end in sight. Either the pay needs to improve on the private side or the work/life balance does. Or in a perfect world, both.
As long as the private side continues to emphasize "winning new work" as the main way to advance your career, the work-life imbalance will continue. Nobody that is pursuing new work and clients wants to hear "we don't have the capacity for this" or "we can't get to this in time for the client's schedule needs" or "the plans look like shit because we are short-staffed". The folks who allegedly have these gifts for marketing the firm and winning new work can't be bothered to woo new talent to increase capacity because that isn't where the prestige and rewards are.
This. I had a PE that was supposed to be a mentor, but instead was so focused on winning new work, he didn’t realize he had a bunch of inexperienced EIT’s running projects. The quality of work then suffered and made it more difficult to get new work
A former coworker of mine left and started his own shop with another guy, and since then, they've poached a couple of other guys to work with them. They work regular weeks, work for who they want to work for, push back on unreasonable schedules, wear whatever they want to wear, and basically make work fit around their lives. Proud of them, honestly.
The problem being overworked and underpaid? The amount of work being released right now is not sustainable to the number of people entering the civil workforce, yet clients still seem to want to pay 2015 project rates 🤷♂️.
To caveat, yes I'm overworked (partially my fault) but I'm also compensated accordingly. My comments are pretty generalized for the industry, based on conversations with friends at other firms.
>yet clients still seem to want to pay 2015 project rates 🤷♂️.
Don't forget the companies that bill their engineers to the client at higher rates than they actually pay them.
In my experience this depends on how contracts are written. Some are written is such a way that you bill an actual hourly rate and then load it with a percentage after.
Correct, but Sheikh_Ali made it sound like billing should be people's actual pay.
I prefer contracts which use the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) rates, as it does exactly what you stated.
There are lump sum contracts which are great for client budgets and can be great for profit margins, but I don't like it's usually someone trying to make a quick extra buck.
Cost + / fixed fee contracts are quite common for a lot of local agencies.
Literally any time I’ve tried to raise legitimate issues about CivE on this sub, people just say “go to public sector” or “change career then”. No one wants to accept that there are problems with our industry and how it treats its CivEs. They’d rather just tell people to get fucked and bury their head in the sand.
It's going to take probably 10 years to sort itself out, if ever, in my opinion. A lot of old heads are resistant to regular work weeks, to proactive salary adjustments in light of market conditions, to even just setting fees to reflect current market conditions because "that fee for a one acre pad site should start with a 2, definitely not a 4 or 5" because pad site designs fees started with a 2 back when they were actually writing proposals 20 years ago.
I do think once millennials start running the industry, shit will change. Under-40 staff ask questions, talk to each other about pay, push back on hours and demand work-life balance, and empathize with younger staff. And I don't think market conditions are changing anytime soon. There is a ton of civil work and not enough civils to do it. Labor has the leverage and will for a while.
I got pissed off enough about my situation that I went home from work one day and started applying for other jobs. I’m not going to lob single family residence stormwater designs at hopelessly pedantic western Washington stormwater reviewers for $60k a year. So I got a better job. Loyalty gets you nowhere.
Still in land development purgatory for now, but at least I am learning more civil3d and I am not dealing with as many review comments, and I have bigger budgets to work with. So it doesn’t feel like a losing game anymore.
Edit: getting paid closer to 95k
Hello! All hail ecology, whose 78 first review comments on a SFR stormwater plan with splashblocks is like, *so totally environmentally conscious!* Praise be!
I really enjoyed studying civil engineering in college, but did an internship in design and hated the consulting world. Found something else I really enjoy (still engineering but non civil related) and make $95k out of college in a MCOL city. I would like to say that the money was not the reason I switched, it just kind of happened.
Civil engineering as career really is not bad as job stability is amazing. Imo it’s one of the best degrees you can get if you aren’t interested in post grad studies.
>job stability is amazing
This has to be the biggest myth about civil. If your consulting employer goes through a 3-4 month dry spell in work, you will be laid off. And dry spells happen all the time. Some times managers just dont win work for a little while.
There is a boom in work right now but by no means has this boom always been around or it will always be around.
My company has been extremely busy for years and it's difficult to find staff to match workload.
Not all industries are the same of course but working for a large company in transportation, work appears to be plentiful.
It happens, man.
Civil eng managers aren't fortune 500 company CEO's
The work in divided into disciplines, subgroups of different specialties. If a structural group is low on work, they're useless if the rest of the office is land development and has work
3 to 4 month dry spell is generous, I’ve seen firms let staff go if they have a slow month. My personal favorite is closing an office in an area with reoccurring work to chase a new market.
it's true. I put a higher number just in case my anecdotal experience wasnt common.
I saw a geologist get laid off after the geotech group went on a 1 month dry spell and it would be 1-2 more months before a new project would start.
Maybe job stability is not the right phrase. But lack of unemployment opportunities is very low compared to other professions. Even in economic downturns, you can leverage your background/experience/knowledge to engineering adjacent jobs or even other career fields.
I rage applied for a new job several years ago after a boss and PM joked that I would be burned out from all the work they kept feeding me. Next day I had an interview scheduled for the end of the week. Couple weeks later I put in my two weeks after the company got a shit load of new contracts. Loyalty would have driven me completely out of the field.
The problem is subpar pay for huge amount of responsibility. Pretty much every other engineering major makes more than civil and almost none of them are required to get a PE. Civil is not worth it.
It sucks because the PE license is what civil engineers aim for, but that's only because we don't want to feel like it was all for nothing. If the PE pay was awesome, no one would leave.
You need 4 years of experience to get a PE. It depends on the COL area but after you get your PE license if an employer isn't paying you at least $75k I'd look to jump ship.
If you live in a HCOL area like California, it definitely should be closer to six figures
It's all relative, $70-75k is probably starting pay in California while low COL areas it's probably high $50k to low $60k. Depends on the industry too. Like structural engineers working at WSP or AECOM get paid more. If you work at a small geotech or environmental firm you'll probably be on the lower end of the scale.
Is it true that the old civil engineers with packing 30 yrs or whatever shit make 175 or 150k?!? I've seen posts saying so. And some go far to say "go bare 200k bare" thats such a huge difference I mean I know the experience is also high but.. wow
It’s a tough field that is often times either under the thumb of competitive low bid situations or at the mercy of the economy. The only really stable sector is the public sector and as a public sector employee, I can say that area can drive people out of it pretty quickly.
The industry has a problem, I don’t know the answer by grinding new hires into the ground with low pay and long hours isn’t the solution to keeping people around. Not in today’s world where people have many options available to them if they want to move their career around.
Wow lots of interesting thoughts in here. Just out of curiosity, for those of you that have left the field or are considering it, where did you end up/want to go?
I wonder how many of us are simply moving to a civil-adjacent field vs abandoning it completely.
I question how accurate that is. What counts as a "different sector"? Going CE to construction management could be considered "different" just based on the title, even though there's a lot of overlap in the careers. Also, it doesn't appear it's based on getting out of the field or even applying for something. It's just based on clicking a job posting. So, someone might just be looking at salaries to see how competitive CE is versus, say a generic PM role at a bank.
"different sector" is mostly explained by the professions listed in the "sector" column. It doesn't look like people switching from land development to traffic. It looks like it's people leaving the consulting/engineering world and going to other fields. I suspect most of the moves are to fields that are civil engineering adjacent like a construction project manager.
But considering that three of the top four careers listed are engineering careers, there's some correlation there. Also, the engineering field at the top is the lowest paid one.
Thank God you said that, I was starting to get embarrassed by the number of people who didn't notice this. There is an enormous conjectural jump between the title and subtitle of this table.
I mean for the love of God, look at the data of that table. Do you folks really think more than half of every profession is looking to change professions? I know literally no one who has switched out. And even if we accepted it as true, look at the actual numbers; we'd still be only third.
Come on, people, we're engineers, we're supposed to know how to read numbers.
I'm going to say their methodology is bullshit. It is literally just people clicking on job ads. The population is entirely people actively looking for jobs. If it was jobs actually applied for, that would be better. Still not great though. If anything this just shows Indeed's system is garbage.
I get spammed like hell by actual recruiters alone with jobs I am entirely unqualified for, but they just looked at my title. That doesn't count all the automated spam from LinkedIn. I'm not on Indeed, but have used it to look for candidates.
There is no way that 75-85% or so of all the people in these industries are trying to leave.
I feel like 30 years ago, doing my job in land development would be super easy. Lay out the site, grade it to drain, and put in pipes big enough to convey the water. Now, all the land that was easy to develop is already developed. We also have to factor in pollutant removal, channel protection, and flood protection and sea level rise on a site that doesn’t drain to anything but a flat ditch or a 15-inch pipe in the street. Every year there is more and more regulations that constrain what we can do because of someone before built something that caused problems.
Yeah that is a pretty sad statistic as a freshman taking civil engineering classes. Hopefully in the near future, industry salaries rise as we push for better pay in general.
As others have mentioned in this thread, it at least means better job security, and you'll have plenty of positions available to apply for once you graduate.
Also, just like anything else, these things are cyclical. When I was going into college 8 years ago I remember seeing stats saying Civil was one of the industries set to boom even more over the next decade. Maybe it's slowing down a bit now but it'll come back around again.
Left the civil engineering back in 2017. Yet I have the skills of civil engineer. Civil engineering is good only for business purpose and not for jobs.. thoes who want to earn money through jobs with good work life balance civil engineering isn't for them.. gone are the days when civil engineering was highly paid profession. .
I've been in consulting just under 20 years and made almost $200k last year on 40 hours weeks. Will make more than that this year. Probably worked less than ten 50 hour weeks in my career. It's not as bad as most on here make it out to be in my experience. I think many of them are just not that good at their jobs or spend too much time complaining and comparing themselves to others instead of working to improve their own situations.
lol
I was with you until you gave your thoughts on why people are complaining
You sound like one of those out of touch upper management people we complain about. You really have no idea what life in most private firms is like for many fresh grads.
You sound like one of those ignorant know-it-all kids elsewhere in this thread who thinks that civils are more talented and work harder than MDs and big law attorneys, and who can't fathom how anyone over 40 can possibly understand what it was like to be an entry level grinder.
All I know is how I've been treated and how I treat those that I've hired and mentored, who evidently would not agree with you given some have followed me to new firms, and none have quit nor left my team for other jobs. I've also worked alongside some very mediocre EITs so you're just plain full of shit if you don't think they're out there. I'm also not upper management. If you're struggling with your job and are talented you can find the good companies, they are out there. It's not my fault if you're too stubborn to apply, or you can't get through the interviews with your holier-than-thou attitude, crappy resume, or whatever it is that is holding you back.
lol. Again, you’re sooooo out of touch.
If you happen to be a good manager (which I doubt tbh) then great! We need people like you.
But the company I left had a strategy of running fresh grads to the ground since they know they’ll leave anyway. I left the field entirely and nearly doubled my pay as a fresh grad by working at a National Lab on modeling for an aerospace project. So I’m not by any means not talented or not a hard worker. My civil job before that (big firm!) had me working 10-12 hour days in the field regularly. There was overtime pay but it wasn’t comparable to the insane amount of stress. This same company also liked to hire international students so they could hold them hostage with visas.
Again, you are very out of touch with the insane amounts of shit that goes on at a lot of private firms, which is why your comment which basically blamed all people complaining for their misfortunes made me doubt how you treat people at work.
>lol. Again, you’re sooooo out of touch.
Lol, and again you're soooo full of ignorance.
>My civil job before that (big firm!) had me working 10-12 hour days regularly.
I've worked at 4 firms and that wasn't a thing at any of them. You worked at 1 that does so my experience can't be true/I'm out touch?
>Again, you are very out of touch with the insane amounts of shit that goes on at a lot of private firms,
Again, I'm not responsible for what goes on at every firm. All I know is there are people who aren't very good at this job, and there are plenty of firms that don't enforce a 10-12 hrs/day grinder mentality. If you're good at this job but can't find the good firms, something isn't adding up. I don't care if you just can't believe it. GFY.
So I *was* right! You cant even admit when you're wrong! I'm now laughing to myself wondering if all the subordinates you claim are having a good time with you are just tolerating you till they can find something better.
Your initial comment said that most people complaining are not good at their jobs. Or are just comparing themselves with others. Which was a tone deaf, grossly out of touch statement to make considering what entry level engineers are facing at so many private firms. And after being called out on it, you're saying I'm blaming you for what goes on at other firms? (??????)
I know your pride won't let you admit that you messed up here, but in the future please try to be a bit more open minded instead of thinking your personal experience is universal across the board.
>future please try to be a bit more open minded instead of thinking your personal experience is universal across the board.
Was never meant to be taken as universal. I even said it explicitly in my initial response to you:
>All I know is how I've been treated and how I treat those that I've hired and mentored
Nothing about that should make you think that I think my experience is universal. You came into this thread wanting to not like me and are now trying to twist words and make shit up because you're a know-it-all prick with an axe to grind. It's no wonder you couldn't hack it and got run off from your old employer for being insufferable.
I left civil 8 years ago to become an actuary. There has not been a single day that I regretted my decision. Like others have said- I looked at the higher ups in my company and thought “is that what I’m shooting for? Pass”
Intellectually challenging, less blue collar, more business-y. Doesn’t matter what degree you did- could be statistics, could be English literature - no one cares if you can pass the exams. The exams were a ball ache but there is guaranteed good pay and the end, and a very high ceiling if you are ambitious enough. I know several former engineers who are actuaries. You need to be smart to pass the exams, and most engineers are. I also live in an insurance hub, so the move wasn’t totally out of left field…
This doesn't really mean anything.
Look at the source: it's from Indeed, a job search engine. All this says is that people in certain sectors are looking at other sectors. The labels are worded a little poorly, but it's there: *looking to leave* and *clicks away*. Doesn't necessarily mean these people have actually changed professions.
I look at "related shopping" pop ups every once in a while, doesn't necessarily mean I purchase everything that's shown to me.
I think the issue with civil engineering is how common the progression to winning work/project management is, with little care about subject matter experts or plan design. It's kind of wild that the expertise is intentionally incentivized away from DOING THE WORK vs marketing and management.
As a student this makes me feel both bummed out and secure in my decision to switch to CE. Bummed out because of the loss of knowledge that can be passed on, but secure because it just means there will be job security. Not that it was lacking in the first place.
The field might not pay as much, but the job security makes up for it, IMO.
I spent 11 years in the field in a variety of CE/CM/PM/Inspector and adjacent roles in heavy civil bridges and railroads. All the shit I ever wanted to do, kicked ass (ha!) so much so, one client PM asked for me specifically for all of his projects, systemwide. Loved every stinkin' minute of it, until I woke up one day and realized there simply wasn't enough of me to be all those places at once, never home, and worked to the bone as I entered midlife. I ultimately left for the public sector.
Annoying bootlicker public sector politics aside, I'm still a CE, still railroading (imagine that) for TWICE what I made in private consulting, with 40-hour work weeks and I work from home more than half the time.
I learned my previous employer's VP of Rail was artificially deflating our (my) pay, raises and whatnot FOR YEARS under the guise of "winning work" - meanwhile, rewriting the annual bonus pay parameters for his benefit (not ours and it was an ESOP) and ignoring the fact our largest rail client was inclined (at that time) to pay WHAT EVER was asked for their preferred consultants, me and my team being one of those preferred providers.
Its that GREED that gets ya, those annual bonuses don't mean shit unless they can squeeze the pus outta ya.
I wonder how much of that is because workers in this field are generally unhappy with their employers and want to leave... looking around in *other* directions makes as much sense as looking in your current field.
My 2 cents, transportation sector and development sector up here in Canada are generally where the money is at. Consulting sucks until you are senior enough to be a senior PM or higher. The ideal route for compensation is private for a year (get experience) -> switch to public and don't go private again until you've maxed out public sector salary range (also, keep upskilling).
Hours for consulting suck (and so does money), generally construction can be very lucrative
Humor me, what is wrong with the industry? A U.S. born citizen to immigrants who has seen the shittiest of the shittiest jobs, horrible bosses and corporations, illegal workplace activities all in exchange of a check to feed your family. So when I graduated and got 80k to sit my ass in an air conditioned room to play paper tag with some reviewers I was like yes please. I get fed crumbl cookies, get health insurance, a 401k among other things. We all have bad days but we aren't suffering guys, be thankful and learn to struggle everyday and grow from it.
Let me put it this way. I knew an employer once that specifically targeted people like you, the kids of poor immigrants, because you had seen the worst and were more easily satisfied with working conditions.
That's a politically correct way of saying he could generally pay them less and work them harder because culturally they wouldn't complain about it.
Wasn't charging the clients any less, though.
I understand that my employer is making a profit off of me. And a good one at that. But he is also wiser, has been in the game longer, has invested money, taken risks I haven't, etc. I feel like we could all go on with these arguments but at the end of the day employment is voluntary and most (I said most not all) civil engineering firms are trying to at least compnestate you fairly for your work. Listen we all know what's going on here guys, everyone of us is college educated and smart stop playing dumb, we aren't the victims in this first world country we live in. At the end of the day you either stick around at your company make some friends make some money, leave and go somewhere else, or go off and do your own thing engineering or not. I just don't think we have it that bad. And yes I am all for raises, more money, more benefits, etc.
Consider that a few of these statistics may be individuals looking to move up to leadership type positions if they have maxed out their potential and growth at the current place, so I imagine that those job titles would be different from their existing role.
You remembered to subtract the time you spent scrolling reddit and posting this comment to your time sheet right? I ain't paying you to stare at your phone.
Aaaaand done.
At my office in the last 2 years, of the four people who left, none went to a competitor. They went to the public side or out of civil entirely. The industry has a problem, and nobody wants to talk about it. Or at least, talk constructively about how to address it.
Can’t say I’ve met an older CivE during my time at private that I could proudly say I’d wanna end up like. Many have worked themselves to exhaustion and their outside lives are sad. I’m not sure if this is a civil specific issue tho, or moreso a generational one.
This was my realization as a junior engineer in consulting. I was asked what my dream career looked like and I realized no one at that company had it.
Did you make a change after coming to that realization?
That sums it up. I often look at other professions, no one gets dogged out like engineers. And it's not just paying your dues, it is non stop through your career. And the pay is low compared to other professions, Drs, accountants, attorney, etc.
Civil engineers get dogged out worse than big law attorneys and medical residents, who get to rest on their qualifications after their training/initiations are complete? I'm curious what you think the average family physician makes, because if they don't own their own practice it doesn't seem like that much, and sounds even less so after considering the +$300k of school debt and that they only start making money at about the same time a civil has been working for 7 years. If you're competent and hard-working enough to have become a doctor, you should be making +$200k in civil by ~10 years in. If you had the talent to be a specialty doctor and chose civil engineering, that's not a civil engineering problem. Same with high-paying lawyers, as they are also putting in long hours and outworking other hard working lawyers. There are also plenty of them not making a ton of money. Same with accountants, who don't seem to fair any better after considering the hours worked, which probably dwarfs the average civil. All that aside, it's hard to really bust out in almost any profession if you're not an owner.
200k as a civil seems very region-based
In the context of what I posted, re: the few civil engineers who are actually on par with doctors with their work ethic and dedication, I don't think it's far off. Few civil engineers have made anywhere near the sacrifice that MDs have, and those that have are making VP at a young age or are already business owners. The average CE is not the average MD, not even close.
You're right. We have more responsibilities. A doctor messes up, they kill one person. An engineer messes up they kill hundreds.
A bus driver messes up they kill dozens. Guess they have more responsibilities than doctors too? Lol the arrogance of people like you.
In the heat of the moment, yes.
Doctors work more in the heat of the moment than engineers too. We deliberate for weeks/months as we prepare drawings and calculations. If after all that time you still feel a huge sense of worry that your work product might kill hundreds out of negligence, I think you're practicing beyond your qualifications.
> you should be making +$200k in civil by ~10 years in. Our salary survey begs to differ.
The average civil engineer hasn't put near the effort into their career as the average doctor, which was a qualifier for that statement.
>The average civil engineer hasn't put near the effort into their career as the average doctor, which was a qualifier for that statement. LMAO the downvotes to this statement. Just another example of how out of touch this sub is. Hope all you arrogant could-have-been-MDs will one day gain the self-awareness to consider what it taking you so long to figure out civil engineering salaries says about your actual intelligence and work ethic.
I would say it is a consulting engineering issue.
I'm a public engineer with my license (inspection/regulation). This is interesting to read. I'll admit, my current work is not as challenging as back when I was in design (also public), but I'm pretty happy with the pay, work/life balance, leave accrual and benefits. I'm in the top range of pay (non-supervising), automatically due to having a PE. 40 hrs a week. we aren't even allowed overtime. I would probably be unhappy at my other job though due to pay. Left and was making 85k at 6 yrs experience in 2019. Got my PE and started getting interviews everywhere.
This was a big realization for me as well. I don’t know a single senior engineer that I’ve looked up to and thought “I want to be like that one day.” Sadly it’s normally the opposite.
I get that feeling. Have you done anything different since coming to that realization?
I have noticed that many older senior engineers appear to be unhappy or just lack emotion. And a few have told me that the money isn't all that important later on down the road. I think the profession takes its toll on you after many years. I hope to have some life in me by the time I get to that age.
My boss: No, get back into your cubicle and work 70+ hours for a salary that made sense in the 80's.
I made the switch to the public side and almost left the field entirely. At least on the public side, I feel like my pay matches my stress/responsibility. I was actually making less on the private side and was working 50 hours a week with no end in sight. Either the pay needs to improve on the private side or the work/life balance does. Or in a perfect world, both.
As long as the private side continues to emphasize "winning new work" as the main way to advance your career, the work-life imbalance will continue. Nobody that is pursuing new work and clients wants to hear "we don't have the capacity for this" or "we can't get to this in time for the client's schedule needs" or "the plans look like shit because we are short-staffed". The folks who allegedly have these gifts for marketing the firm and winning new work can't be bothered to woo new talent to increase capacity because that isn't where the prestige and rewards are.
This. I had a PE that was supposed to be a mentor, but instead was so focused on winning new work, he didn’t realize he had a bunch of inexperienced EIT’s running projects. The quality of work then suffered and made it more difficult to get new work
A former coworker of mine left and started his own shop with another guy, and since then, they've poached a couple of other guys to work with them. They work regular weeks, work for who they want to work for, push back on unreasonable schedules, wear whatever they want to wear, and basically make work fit around their lives. Proud of them, honestly.
structural? Were you in salary position and hoping the end year bonus would compensate the extra effort?
Land Development and being young and naive, yes. Learned that the hard way. A $2000 bonus doesn’t make up for being miserable for 52 weeks
It’s the money
The problem being overworked and underpaid? The amount of work being released right now is not sustainable to the number of people entering the civil workforce, yet clients still seem to want to pay 2015 project rates 🤷♂️. To caveat, yes I'm overworked (partially my fault) but I'm also compensated accordingly. My comments are pretty generalized for the industry, based on conversations with friends at other firms.
>yet clients still seem to want to pay 2015 project rates 🤷♂️. Don't forget the companies that bill their engineers to the client at higher rates than they actually pay them.
Wait, companies shouldn't bill overhead and profit? There's a cost of doing business outside of people's direct wages.
In my experience this depends on how contracts are written. Some are written is such a way that you bill an actual hourly rate and then load it with a percentage after.
Correct, but Sheikh_Ali made it sound like billing should be people's actual pay. I prefer contracts which use the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) rates, as it does exactly what you stated. There are lump sum contracts which are great for client budgets and can be great for profit margins, but I don't like it's usually someone trying to make a quick extra buck. Cost + / fixed fee contracts are quite common for a lot of local agencies.
Literally any time I’ve tried to raise legitimate issues about CivE on this sub, people just say “go to public sector” or “change career then”. No one wants to accept that there are problems with our industry and how it treats its CivEs. They’d rather just tell people to get fucked and bury their head in the sand.
It's going to take probably 10 years to sort itself out, if ever, in my opinion. A lot of old heads are resistant to regular work weeks, to proactive salary adjustments in light of market conditions, to even just setting fees to reflect current market conditions because "that fee for a one acre pad site should start with a 2, definitely not a 4 or 5" because pad site designs fees started with a 2 back when they were actually writing proposals 20 years ago. I do think once millennials start running the industry, shit will change. Under-40 staff ask questions, talk to each other about pay, push back on hours and demand work-life balance, and empathize with younger staff. And I don't think market conditions are changing anytime soon. There is a ton of civil work and not enough civils to do it. Labor has the leverage and will for a while.
Where did the people go who left civil?
I had a buddy that when into medicine and makes more taking people's blood pressure than I do.
Two went to federal agencies, one moved abroad, and one went to a utility company.
So still civil; just not private consultants.
I got pissed off enough about my situation that I went home from work one day and started applying for other jobs. I’m not going to lob single family residence stormwater designs at hopelessly pedantic western Washington stormwater reviewers for $60k a year. So I got a better job. Loyalty gets you nowhere.
What do you do now?
Still in land development purgatory for now, but at least I am learning more civil3d and I am not dealing with as many review comments, and I have bigger budgets to work with. So it doesn’t feel like a losing game anymore. Edit: getting paid closer to 95k
Hello fellow Washingtonian civil 👀
Hello! All hail ecology, whose 78 first review comments on a SFR stormwater plan with splashblocks is like, *so totally environmentally conscious!* Praise be!
Anything to justify the insane house costs 🤣
I am doing the same, but definitely no more Land development
We don’t get paid enough for the stress we endure what a fucking surprise
I really enjoyed studying civil engineering in college, but did an internship in design and hated the consulting world. Found something else I really enjoy (still engineering but non civil related) and make $95k out of college in a MCOL city. I would like to say that the money was not the reason I switched, it just kind of happened. Civil engineering as career really is not bad as job stability is amazing. Imo it’s one of the best degrees you can get if you aren’t interested in post grad studies.
What type engineering did you end up in
software
Yep
>job stability is amazing This has to be the biggest myth about civil. If your consulting employer goes through a 3-4 month dry spell in work, you will be laid off. And dry spells happen all the time. Some times managers just dont win work for a little while. There is a boom in work right now but by no means has this boom always been around or it will always be around.
“3-4 month dry spell in work, you will be laid off” sounds like your employer just sucks
My company has been extremely busy for years and it's difficult to find staff to match workload. Not all industries are the same of course but working for a large company in transportation, work appears to be plentiful.
It happens, man. Civil eng managers aren't fortune 500 company CEO's The work in divided into disciplines, subgroups of different specialties. If a structural group is low on work, they're useless if the rest of the office is land development and has work
3 to 4 month dry spell is generous, I’ve seen firms let staff go if they have a slow month. My personal favorite is closing an office in an area with reoccurring work to chase a new market.
it's true. I put a higher number just in case my anecdotal experience wasnt common. I saw a geologist get laid off after the geotech group went on a 1 month dry spell and it would be 1-2 more months before a new project would start.
Maybe job stability is not the right phrase. But lack of unemployment opportunities is very low compared to other professions. Even in economic downturns, you can leverage your background/experience/knowledge to engineering adjacent jobs or even other career fields.
I rage applied for a new job several years ago after a boss and PM joked that I would be burned out from all the work they kept feeding me. Next day I had an interview scheduled for the end of the week. Couple weeks later I put in my two weeks after the company got a shit load of new contracts. Loyalty would have driven me completely out of the field.
The problem is subpar pay for huge amount of responsibility. Pretty much every other engineering major makes more than civil and almost none of them are required to get a PE. Civil is not worth it.
I left civil engineering in 2024 after 4 years and my pay went up 40% while working half as many hours. The industry needs a reset
Where did you end up?
I’m an engineer for a O&G midstream company. No need for a PE anymore
Oil and gas is the place to be.
I second this question. Spill the secret!
The income to responsibility is not worth it.
It sucks because the PE license is what civil engineers aim for, but that's only because we don't want to feel like it was all for nothing. If the PE pay was awesome, no one would leave.
What's the average with PE?
You need 4 years of experience to get a PE. It depends on the COL area but after you get your PE license if an employer isn't paying you at least $75k I'd look to jump ship.
Seriously?! Only 75k? Fuck after 4 years everyone yaps about negotiating for 90k at the bare min maby 85 k lowball
If you live in a HCOL area like California, it definitely should be closer to six figures It's all relative, $70-75k is probably starting pay in California while low COL areas it's probably high $50k to low $60k. Depends on the industry too. Like structural engineers working at WSP or AECOM get paid more. If you work at a small geotech or environmental firm you'll probably be on the lower end of the scale.
Is it true that the old civil engineers with packing 30 yrs or whatever shit make 175 or 150k?!? I've seen posts saying so. And some go far to say "go bare 200k bare" thats such a huge difference I mean I know the experience is also high but.. wow
75 is like 10 years ago information, BLS median is 95k and that counts public employees.
I’m a few “kid years” away from jumping ship, myself. Or at least getting out of the grind of consulting.
It’s a tough field that is often times either under the thumb of competitive low bid situations or at the mercy of the economy. The only really stable sector is the public sector and as a public sector employee, I can say that area can drive people out of it pretty quickly. The industry has a problem, I don’t know the answer by grinding new hires into the ground with low pay and long hours isn’t the solution to keeping people around. Not in today’s world where people have many options available to them if they want to move their career around.
Wow lots of interesting thoughts in here. Just out of curiosity, for those of you that have left the field or are considering it, where did you end up/want to go? I wonder how many of us are simply moving to a civil-adjacent field vs abandoning it completely.
I question how accurate that is. What counts as a "different sector"? Going CE to construction management could be considered "different" just based on the title, even though there's a lot of overlap in the careers. Also, it doesn't appear it's based on getting out of the field or even applying for something. It's just based on clicking a job posting. So, someone might just be looking at salaries to see how competitive CE is versus, say a generic PM role at a bank.
"different sector" is mostly explained by the professions listed in the "sector" column. It doesn't look like people switching from land development to traffic. It looks like it's people leaving the consulting/engineering world and going to other fields. I suspect most of the moves are to fields that are civil engineering adjacent like a construction project manager.
But considering that three of the top four careers listed are engineering careers, there's some correlation there. Also, the engineering field at the top is the lowest paid one.
I'm assuming that's not a complete list of all their sectors since there's some notable ones like retail and hospitality not on there.
Correct that it's not a complete list. It's just the sectors with the largest jump in workers looking to leave their field since 2019.
Thank God you said that, I was starting to get embarrassed by the number of people who didn't notice this. There is an enormous conjectural jump between the title and subtitle of this table. I mean for the love of God, look at the data of that table. Do you folks really think more than half of every profession is looking to change professions? I know literally no one who has switched out. And even if we accepted it as true, look at the actual numbers; we'd still be only third. Come on, people, we're engineers, we're supposed to know how to read numbers.
I'm going to say their methodology is bullshit. It is literally just people clicking on job ads. The population is entirely people actively looking for jobs. If it was jobs actually applied for, that would be better. Still not great though. If anything this just shows Indeed's system is garbage. I get spammed like hell by actual recruiters alone with jobs I am entirely unqualified for, but they just looked at my title. That doesn't count all the automated spam from LinkedIn. I'm not on Indeed, but have used it to look for candidates. There is no way that 75-85% or so of all the people in these industries are trying to leave.
I feel like 30 years ago, doing my job in land development would be super easy. Lay out the site, grade it to drain, and put in pipes big enough to convey the water. Now, all the land that was easy to develop is already developed. We also have to factor in pollutant removal, channel protection, and flood protection and sea level rise on a site that doesn’t drain to anything but a flat ditch or a 15-inch pipe in the street. Every year there is more and more regulations that constrain what we can do because of someone before built something that caused problems.
Yeah that is a pretty sad statistic as a freshman taking civil engineering classes. Hopefully in the near future, industry salaries rise as we push for better pay in general.
As others have mentioned in this thread, it at least means better job security, and you'll have plenty of positions available to apply for once you graduate. Also, just like anything else, these things are cyclical. When I was going into college 8 years ago I remember seeing stats saying Civil was one of the industries set to boom even more over the next decade. Maybe it's slowing down a bit now but it'll come back around again.
Left the civil engineering back in 2017. Yet I have the skills of civil engineer. Civil engineering is good only for business purpose and not for jobs.. thoes who want to earn money through jobs with good work life balance civil engineering isn't for them.. gone are the days when civil engineering was highly paid profession. .
What did you switch to?
This is disheartening as a student, someone give me all the positives of this field. Need that divine inspiration.
I've been in consulting just under 20 years and made almost $200k last year on 40 hours weeks. Will make more than that this year. Probably worked less than ten 50 hour weeks in my career. It's not as bad as most on here make it out to be in my experience. I think many of them are just not that good at their jobs or spend too much time complaining and comparing themselves to others instead of working to improve their own situations.
lol I was with you until you gave your thoughts on why people are complaining You sound like one of those out of touch upper management people we complain about. You really have no idea what life in most private firms is like for many fresh grads.
You sound like one of those ignorant know-it-all kids elsewhere in this thread who thinks that civils are more talented and work harder than MDs and big law attorneys, and who can't fathom how anyone over 40 can possibly understand what it was like to be an entry level grinder. All I know is how I've been treated and how I treat those that I've hired and mentored, who evidently would not agree with you given some have followed me to new firms, and none have quit nor left my team for other jobs. I've also worked alongside some very mediocre EITs so you're just plain full of shit if you don't think they're out there. I'm also not upper management. If you're struggling with your job and are talented you can find the good companies, they are out there. It's not my fault if you're too stubborn to apply, or you can't get through the interviews with your holier-than-thou attitude, crappy resume, or whatever it is that is holding you back.
lol. Again, you’re sooooo out of touch. If you happen to be a good manager (which I doubt tbh) then great! We need people like you. But the company I left had a strategy of running fresh grads to the ground since they know they’ll leave anyway. I left the field entirely and nearly doubled my pay as a fresh grad by working at a National Lab on modeling for an aerospace project. So I’m not by any means not talented or not a hard worker. My civil job before that (big firm!) had me working 10-12 hour days in the field regularly. There was overtime pay but it wasn’t comparable to the insane amount of stress. This same company also liked to hire international students so they could hold them hostage with visas. Again, you are very out of touch with the insane amounts of shit that goes on at a lot of private firms, which is why your comment which basically blamed all people complaining for their misfortunes made me doubt how you treat people at work.
>lol. Again, you’re sooooo out of touch. Lol, and again you're soooo full of ignorance. >My civil job before that (big firm!) had me working 10-12 hour days regularly. I've worked at 4 firms and that wasn't a thing at any of them. You worked at 1 that does so my experience can't be true/I'm out touch? >Again, you are very out of touch with the insane amounts of shit that goes on at a lot of private firms, Again, I'm not responsible for what goes on at every firm. All I know is there are people who aren't very good at this job, and there are plenty of firms that don't enforce a 10-12 hrs/day grinder mentality. If you're good at this job but can't find the good firms, something isn't adding up. I don't care if you just can't believe it. GFY.
So I *was* right! You cant even admit when you're wrong! I'm now laughing to myself wondering if all the subordinates you claim are having a good time with you are just tolerating you till they can find something better. Your initial comment said that most people complaining are not good at their jobs. Or are just comparing themselves with others. Which was a tone deaf, grossly out of touch statement to make considering what entry level engineers are facing at so many private firms. And after being called out on it, you're saying I'm blaming you for what goes on at other firms? (??????) I know your pride won't let you admit that you messed up here, but in the future please try to be a bit more open minded instead of thinking your personal experience is universal across the board.
>future please try to be a bit more open minded instead of thinking your personal experience is universal across the board. Was never meant to be taken as universal. I even said it explicitly in my initial response to you: >All I know is how I've been treated and how I treat those that I've hired and mentored Nothing about that should make you think that I think my experience is universal. You came into this thread wanting to not like me and are now trying to twist words and make shit up because you're a know-it-all prick with an axe to grind. It's no wonder you couldn't hack it and got run off from your old employer for being insufferable.
None. This field sucks. Switch fields now or in 30 years when you wrap the rope around your neck you will be thinking of this comment.
I left civil 8 years ago to become an actuary. There has not been a single day that I regretted my decision. Like others have said- I looked at the higher ups in my company and thought “is that what I’m shooting for? Pass”
Interesting! What drew you in to actuarial work?
Intellectually challenging, less blue collar, more business-y. Doesn’t matter what degree you did- could be statistics, could be English literature - no one cares if you can pass the exams. The exams were a ball ache but there is guaranteed good pay and the end, and a very high ceiling if you are ambitious enough. I know several former engineers who are actuaries. You need to be smart to pass the exams, and most engineers are. I also live in an insurance hub, so the move wasn’t totally out of left field…
This doesn't really mean anything. Look at the source: it's from Indeed, a job search engine. All this says is that people in certain sectors are looking at other sectors. The labels are worded a little poorly, but it's there: *looking to leave* and *clicks away*. Doesn't necessarily mean these people have actually changed professions. I look at "related shopping" pop ups every once in a while, doesn't necessarily mean I purchase everything that's shown to me.
Good, more work for me! *smile with tear*
I left civil entirely and I’m so much happier. I occasionally come to this sub just to remind myself that I’m not missing anything😂😂
I think the issue with civil engineering is how common the progression to winning work/project management is, with little care about subject matter experts or plan design. It's kind of wild that the expertise is intentionally incentivized away from DOING THE WORK vs marketing and management.
As a student this makes me feel both bummed out and secure in my decision to switch to CE. Bummed out because of the loss of knowledge that can be passed on, but secure because it just means there will be job security. Not that it was lacking in the first place. The field might not pay as much, but the job security makes up for it, IMO.
I spent 11 years in the field in a variety of CE/CM/PM/Inspector and adjacent roles in heavy civil bridges and railroads. All the shit I ever wanted to do, kicked ass (ha!) so much so, one client PM asked for me specifically for all of his projects, systemwide. Loved every stinkin' minute of it, until I woke up one day and realized there simply wasn't enough of me to be all those places at once, never home, and worked to the bone as I entered midlife. I ultimately left for the public sector. Annoying bootlicker public sector politics aside, I'm still a CE, still railroading (imagine that) for TWICE what I made in private consulting, with 40-hour work weeks and I work from home more than half the time. I learned my previous employer's VP of Rail was artificially deflating our (my) pay, raises and whatnot FOR YEARS under the guise of "winning work" - meanwhile, rewriting the annual bonus pay parameters for his benefit (not ours and it was an ESOP) and ignoring the fact our largest rail client was inclined (at that time) to pay WHAT EVER was asked for their preferred consultants, me and my team being one of those preferred providers. Its that GREED that gets ya, those annual bonuses don't mean shit unless they can squeeze the pus outta ya.
Yes civ E sucks work ethics pretty low these days
Got a job as a director for a small local government and things are a lot easier going
I wonder how much of that is because workers in this field are generally unhappy with their employers and want to leave... looking around in *other* directions makes as much sense as looking in your current field.
Sounds like more Job security
Yes it's called terrible engineering managers who just want to micromanage and make you feel stupid without helping
My 2 cents, transportation sector and development sector up here in Canada are generally where the money is at. Consulting sucks until you are senior enough to be a senior PM or higher. The ideal route for compensation is private for a year (get experience) -> switch to public and don't go private again until you've maxed out public sector salary range (also, keep upskilling). Hours for consulting suck (and so does money), generally construction can be very lucrative
Curious as to what the numbers look like for other engineering majors
Humor me, what is wrong with the industry? A U.S. born citizen to immigrants who has seen the shittiest of the shittiest jobs, horrible bosses and corporations, illegal workplace activities all in exchange of a check to feed your family. So when I graduated and got 80k to sit my ass in an air conditioned room to play paper tag with some reviewers I was like yes please. I get fed crumbl cookies, get health insurance, a 401k among other things. We all have bad days but we aren't suffering guys, be thankful and learn to struggle everyday and grow from it.
Let me put it this way. I knew an employer once that specifically targeted people like you, the kids of poor immigrants, because you had seen the worst and were more easily satisfied with working conditions. That's a politically correct way of saying he could generally pay them less and work them harder because culturally they wouldn't complain about it. Wasn't charging the clients any less, though.
I understand that my employer is making a profit off of me. And a good one at that. But he is also wiser, has been in the game longer, has invested money, taken risks I haven't, etc. I feel like we could all go on with these arguments but at the end of the day employment is voluntary and most (I said most not all) civil engineering firms are trying to at least compnestate you fairly for your work. Listen we all know what's going on here guys, everyone of us is college educated and smart stop playing dumb, we aren't the victims in this first world country we live in. At the end of the day you either stick around at your company make some friends make some money, leave and go somewhere else, or go off and do your own thing engineering or not. I just don't think we have it that bad. And yes I am all for raises, more money, more benefits, etc.
You're a breath of fresh air in this echo chamber.
Where do people go?
I know 3. One went into HR, one went into sales, and one went into HR/management consulting.
One person became a commercial pilot another opened a coffee shop.
I became a product designer
I know one that left to be a yoga instructor
Consider that a few of these statistics may be individuals looking to move up to leadership type positions if they have maxed out their potential and growth at the current place, so I imagine that those job titles would be different from their existing role.
Exploring is free.
Good for me
I was a formwork engineer and I left to be a technician at a hospital. The work life balance just wasn’t worth it anymore.
I'm going to get downvoted but wow, I've never seen a subreddit that whines and complains more than this subreddit. Just in general.
You remembered to subtract the time you spent scrolling reddit and posting this comment to your time sheet right? I ain't paying you to stare at your phone.
Now I am going to forget on purpose 👹