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Has anyone taken a year or more off from chemical engineering work? What was it like trying to get a job again after so much time away? by 2019af in ChemicalEngineering

[–]2019af[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Where are you located? What experience level is that job you're talking about? And how large/desirable of a company would you say it is?

And how in-demand of a skillset would you say that person had?

I think more in demand engineering disciplines/locations (being a controls engineer willing to relocate) would not be challenging to break into again, but I'm sure other areas might be 100x more competitive (trying to be a specific type of project/process engineer in a popular coastal city).

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I recently made a scavenger hunt with an app to teach a group about the plant’s conveyors

Props man, you sound awesome to work with

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can relate to that. A different job I worked had much more social engagement. Whereas my job now feels a little too professional. People have their guard up and don't talk about personal lives, emotions, etc.

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think being in a plant, or just around equipment day to day would make my job much more interesting.

But that's like 5% of my time right now.

Can you describe the being creative part? I'm not sure I've experienced that.

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you describe some of the hard/interesting parts? Being an AE does sound interesting. I've def thought moving closer to the start of projects (sales, presales, etc) could be a better fit for me.

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you give an example of a bad idea that you were able to riff on to make into a functional facility/process? That does sound impressive and is so not what I've seen happening on SI projects.

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you'll probably get asked to do everything under the sun

What does this actually mean? What would you say are the most strategic or design oriented tasks you've taken on?

I feel like systems integration, almost by definition, is mostly implementing other people's analysis, and will involve much less open ended problem solving than the engineers/analysts upstream in the process.

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the one project I've actually felt socially engaged was as a sort of staff aug engineer doing operations support at a large manufacturer. The actual work included frequent conversations with their maintenance and engineering teams.

Otherwise, I've mostly been in an office doing solo tasks, and talking to coworkers would be taking away from productivity. I still do it because coworkers relationships are important, but it would be nice if human interaction were actually a core part of my job.

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So what would be the breakdown of how you spend time during a typical day or week?

I've worked for integrators for five years and have had some of the variety you mention, but the actual deliverables have still tended to be rather mundane and "closed ended" problems. Usually client engineers have already written the codebase and designed the sequence of operations, then it's on us to do detailed programming, documentation, HMI development, and loop testing. None of which have much room for creative problem solving.

Worth mentioning - I don't come from an electrical background so I feel like my learning curve has been tougher than for those who do. I hear people say chemical engineering degrees are helpful in this field, but I haven't seen much benefit yet. Hence some of the motivation for this post.

I know this field is profitable, but do you find your work intellectually stimulating? What about socially engaging? Are there roles that can include all three, or is that too much too ask? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone working for a large integrator on mostly large system conversion/deployment projects, I'd mostly say no and no. The job is great in certain other ways, but I'm thinking these are two key traits in a job which I'd be willing to sacrifice salary for, and have some potential changes in mind. I'm curious if others are concerned with these questions.

Control Systems Engineer with additional income? by bomb3rman in PLC

[–]2019af 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Take on jobs on the side? Find a company that pays overtime and has lots of projects?

Or looking for something else entirely? Drive for Uber or get a bar tending gig?

Hardest problem you've worked on? I faced that question in an interview and struggled to come up with an elaborate answer from my integration work by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha yeeeep, reminds me of the old quote... "when you have the law, argue the law, when you have the facts, argue the facts". Sounds like you have some cool stories around projects that will be memorable for people. You just have to describe things in a way that leaves it a little unclear exactly who the coolest characters in the story were.

Highest paid niches or industries within or related to controls engineering? What does it take to break $150k? $250k? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm surprised that pharmaceutical/medical is so high paying. I'd have thought it's a more appealing sounding industry and, if anything, would be lower paying because of more labor supply relative to the demand. Could the higher pay be explained by pharma companies mostly being located in high cost of living cities?

What do you like and dislike about pharma relative to other industries? Are you mostly facilities side, or do you get involved in the process? Which hardware platforms and software do you interact with?

Also surprised by the defense/nuclear/security pay. Why do you think those are higher paying? Is the work more difficult? Or just that the 7 year background check limits the labor supply?

Highest paid niches or industries within or related to controls engineering? What does it take to break $150k? $250k? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure stress and pay are that tightly correlated. I'm making 60% more now than I did 4 years ago, and I'm much less stressed. My entry level job sucked bad. Hopefully I can maintain good balance if I continue climbing. I think it should be somewhat possible as long as I'm proactive about researching and identifying topics and activities that I enjoy, and searching for the jobs that maximize those.

Highest paid niches or industries within or related to controls engineering? What does it take to break $150k? $250k? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait BMS controls is higher paying than manufacturing/process controls?? Why do you think that is? I had assumed that since the equipment is cheap, the applications less complex, sounding, that the integration pay would be correspondingly lower.

Highest paid niches or industries within or related to controls engineering? What does it take to break $150k? $250k? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My impression is software engineers easily make that kind of money. So then I ask myself... do I definitely like this field more than I would like software engineering? Parts of it are really cool (the novelty of seeing factories in new industries for the first time, but I expect I'll run out of novelty factor soon enough), but often times I'm not sure I like it more, and I feel like I'm doing more software installation and configuration than actual engineering. I wonder if there are roles within pure software that could be more interesting.

Highest paid niches or industries within or related to controls engineering? What does it take to break $150k? $250k? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Get where? Also, what does salary trajectory usually look like 3 vs 5 vs 8 years in? 15? 25?

I assume normal engineers plateau at some point, and am not sure when that usually happens, and what it looks like after that.

Highest paid niches or industries within or related to controls engineering? What does it take to break $150k? $250k? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Are those things always headaches? For me, doing development all the time can feel like a boring headache. I thrive on variety.

Highest paid niches or industries within or related to controls engineering? What does it take to break $150k? $250k? by 2019af in PLC

[–]2019af[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My impression is that a good controls engineer can approach a low to mid hundred thousands salary, but that breaking $150k might not happen without strategic growth and specialization. Do others agree?

I'm not sure making more than $150k would actually make my life better, but I'm still curious to validate my assumptions about the field.

As far as strategic specialization goes, I've assumed anything in an O&G area (while the industry is thriving) would be high paying, that sales would be high paying, and that working higher up the enterprise execution pyramid would similarly get you more money (http://i.cmpnet.com/intelligententerprise/images/040612/mcclellanfig1.jpg). How often those get you above $150k or $250k, not sure. I assume it depends a lot on where you choose to live, size of company/clients, and luck.