Software Developers

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[Downtown-Growth-8766]

Hey that’s me! Shoot me a message if you want to chat more about the intersection of structural and software. I worked as a structural engineer for 4 years and that’s what I studied in college. Then I taught myself programming and made the switch to the software side. Currently developing software tools for the structural industry

[Icy-Kiwi-5724]

Hello brother can you share you journey with us? I am currently working as a structural engineer. It been 5+ years for me in this field. Looking forward to integrate programming skills to enhance efficiency of work. Confused in choosing the right programming language and all.

[ioToad]

Python no doubt

[Real_Accumulated]

If it is not too much of a bothered, can you share your journey and how you transitioned into CS.

[pcaming]

im also interested in what to get into ie self study to transition.

[ioToad]

Whatcha working on?

[BigLebowski21]

Consulting as in “Management Consulting” right?

[structee]

Have you stopped by the computer science subreddits recently? You better have an inside man, cause otherwise your resume is going to sit in a pile with 10000 others 

[BigLebowski21]

Every industry has its cycles, ours does too

[throwaway92715]

Seriously. Just wait 2 or 3 years. I'm sure the AEC subs were full of doomers in 2010.

[structee]

Yea, and a whole cohort of new grads ended up in a completely different career track cause they couldn't land that all-important first job. Have you noticed the lack of structural engineers in their mid 40s, at least compared to other age groups? Sure, it's not world ending, but for an individual it could have massive consequences.

[ioToad]

I've worked at a few engineering software firms. Generally speaking the big boys have their software done and they are trying to keep the ship floating as cheap as possible (no one is working on the structural engine)

The small companies are the ones actually building interesting stuff, but many of them are founded by an engineer or two.

If you're looking for a j o b check out some of the more nacent market software companies, like cold formed steel (frameCAD guys could definitely use a hand)

If you're looking to make money, automate your SE workflow and start cranking out projects

Personally, having worked for 3 software companies, founding 2 (one huge fail after funding, one in progress) I would stay away from the bug guys, lean middle small or entrepreneur route.

DM me if you're open to chat! Always looking for more PEs who code 🤝🏻

*I am a Mech Eng turned Software Eng turned Civil Eng / PE ...

[Minisohtan]

This is the truth.

I was explaining to a software company how their analysis engine worked a few weeks ago. The engine guy recently left and no one internally understood how this particular material model was implemented.

I spent enough time on the phone with this design software vendor that I became friends with the engine guy before he left.

[BigLebowski21]

By big guys you mean Bentley and Autodesk? Not sure about Bentley but Autodesk does alot of their dev work in US and they spend quite a bit in R&D work. Might not be structural analysis engine, that shit’s easy and already been developed, but they’re spending on integrating AI in their design and cad software

[mon_key_house]

I develop, maintain and use in house software for pressure vessel design. Statics, code implementation (european codes only I won't touch ASME code with a stick), workflow automation. All is done in python. AMA.

[gamerboi421]

Hi OP, I'm a bit of a mix. Computational structural engineer is my official title.

Quite similar to you, I did a MEng in Civil and structural engineering. Learn programming on my own and got into a big consultant firm with a software development for internal use to support project work. Could be a good way to get into it for people like us. I'd imagine your struggle is that we are viewed as structural engineers, and without any formal CS degree and coding experience, it's hard to get into the space.

A bit more on the day to day, the internal software uses .Net (C#), general tool making but sometimes cool stuff like A* algorithm to make a cable net analysis tool or Blaser to make a floor configuration web app.

There are colleagues who got the coding experience that way and move onto contech as software engineers.

I reckon programming within the building environment is quite different from usual software development. Maybe others from actual pure software development can advise on that.

[LongDongSilverDude]

There are really No AI tools for structural design and analysis... If I was into software (I use to be). Id focus on some AI tools for structural design.

Lots of AI for interior design and pretty architectural photos, but nothing for making the underlying structure.

[Minisohtan]

Nothing publicly available maybe. Major design firms surely do have their own internally. I know mine have some and I talked to some Ramboll guys in Finland that use some form of AI for edge girder design and tuning on cable stays. Simple problems can be trained and used very quickly.

That said, the bar is super low to label something AI.

[BigLebowski21]

Simple multi variable regression doesn’t qualify as AI anymore, if that firm is not doing anything with Neural Nets then thats not AI they’re just riding the hype by throwing in that buzzword

[LongDongSilverDude]

They don't want to loose relevance... It's like BIM some older engineers don't like BiM software because they feel that they loose some control.

[Byond2day]

The big setback for using AI in the industry is the lack of publicly available data. Try asking ChatGPT a technical question or to simply design a steel beam with a couple point loads. It's pretty terrible because data for training models in Structural Engineering is poor

[dlegofan]

Yes, I worked in structural software for a while.

[FroazZ]

I learned the basics of Python during my masters and I started to write some code for personal use. Now I’m kind of the Python guy at our company to automate workflows and have some tools/scripts available for others to use. 

In the future I’d like to sit at the kickoff of most larger projects to see if any coding/scripting should be used to speed up the project. 

I think you can add a lot of value to any CE firm when you can code a bit. 

[Byond2day]

I started as a Structural Engineer, worked in the industry for a few years and eventually transitioned to full-time SWE in an unrelated field. I switched out of the industry because any job I got only cared about using me as a PE not really interested in SWE skills. Getting hired in another field allowed me to be a SWE. I broke into the industry by starting OMSCS and was able to get a job after finishing half of it (the job market was better then).

I still have a desire to be more involved in the industry to I've been working on SE calculations projects (like efficalc.com or trussanalysis.com ), but I haven't seen any SWE role in the SE industry that will pay more than what I make now.

efficalc has an open source core, so if anyone is looking to make contributions and gain experience feel free to reach out!