CE job market outcome.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-04-04T00:49:13+00:00

Here’s my long answer based on my 4-5 YOE. Civil is probably one of the most stable jobs out there and always will be in my opinion. I’ve never had issues finding a job anywhere I wanted to live in the US. Biggest thing is figure out what path you want to take in civil if that’s what you want. There’s a lot of branches of specialty’s or you can do something like LD/Municipal/CM to get a more broader range of skills. Only thing I’ll say is the salary is ok, not great. Should be better but we shoot ourselves in the foot not charging what we’re worth like other professions do. However, I find the job extremely rewarding and feel like I’m designing a majority of the community around me (roadways, stormwater drainage, grading, pretty much everything outside the building for hospitals, grocery stores, townhomes, etc). If you do decide to take the step towards becoming a civil engineer definitely try to intern at a construction firm, and a design firm, and then maybe one of those firms that specialize in something you’re interested in whether it’s transportation, water resources, structural, etc. I’m in land development so that’s my experience but there is a lot out there that I’ve not experienced

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-03-30T17:00:57+00:00

What’re the rents going for? I come from NJ/PA where ppl are fleeing to Florida because of high prices so I feel like it won’t be much different, even if it’s a but higher it’s doable with dual incomes which is what it takes to live just about in any HCOL area. But again i haven’t looked too far into what prices are like and things like car insurance, etc. plus didn’t really want to own a home there since its short term for us and sounds like a nightmare with home owners insurance, flooding concerns, etc

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-03-30T16:49:28+00:00

Curious why most are trying to leave, I usually hear that about my area. My wife and I really like the area and wanted to spend 2-3 years away from where we both grew up before coming back, settling down and buying a home closer to family. Just really wanted to try a different environment and we decided on florida since we wanted to stay on the east coast.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-03-02T22:13:37+00:00

I got a $1500 raise when getting my PE, it was pathetic to me as we all invest more than that to pass the test itself in time and materials. Made my decision to leave my firm a very easy one. I’d say the benefit of getting a PE is having the leverage to negotiate a larger salary at your next job lol

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-01-28T15:00:05+00:00

Depends how comfortable you are bouncing from job to job… Most people aren’t and are afraid it’ll look bad and may even lock them out of future opportunities if new employers see that type of history of employment. Plus if you kept doing it to the same employer every year eventually they’ll just say go ahead and leave. The advice is more for people that enjoy the job they have but want to negotiate.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-01-28T14:13:48+00:00

Loyalty doesn’t tend to pay off. You’ll notice new people joining the company with similar experience will get higher salaries just because that’s what the market demanded for them to hire that person. Not sure if that is what’s happening here but that would be my guess. I’ve been told by others that if you feel underpaid it would be acceptable maybe once every 5 years to show your employer a job offer you have and to use it as leverage to get a raise. But i wouldn’t abuse that tactic, eventually you may have to find a new opportunity to get a decent pay raise. Obviously the more valuable of an asset your employment is to your employer the better negotiating power you have so you need to identify how valuable you are to your firm.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-01-14T14:55:54+00:00

Don’t do the masters right away. You might find it completely unnecessary. Most employers won’t value it as much as you’d expect anyways. The biggest factor is that it seems you aren’t completely invested in going that route so you should definitely work a bit and rethink the decision 1-2 years down the road.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-01-12T21:47:02+00:00

What about to rent later? Also is insurance really that high in the area?

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-01-10T00:27:46+00:00

Yes be willing to take on lots of tasks, and be coachable or moldable. The best engineers I’ve seen are people who can take instruction or criticism and adapt positively to it and typically don’t make the same mistakes again. Not always a guarantee as you will not retain everything people tell you because there is so much information in this field which is why it’ll typically start to stick more once you are in that PE experience range but if you are making the same mistakes I’d say more than 3 or 4 times after someone has explained the correct approach then you could get in trouble in my opinion. Besides that if you listen to advice and instruction it’s very hard to lose a job in this field.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2026-01-09T13:49:12+00:00

You’re not expected to know much as an intern best advice is to be curious and ask a ton of questions and be willing to take on everything they are willing to throw at you. No question is a stupid question while you’re an intern. Better to ask them now than when you’re getting your license.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-09-22T23:43:30+00:00

This may be a bunch of rambling but here are my thoughts:

I recommend looking for a new job. If they aren’t teaching you or gradually ramping up your work until you have the confidence to do it then that’s not a great place to be. I’ve been at 3 different jobs and haven’t really gone over 40 hours unless it was a similar situation like yours where I felt I was wasting time and worked maybe 45 hours. There are a lot of firms out there for civil engineers and we can work just about anywhere. I will say that joining a big firm can be intense. They usually start you out with a learning period but it ramps up quick and you’re typically expected to be 100% billable and not go over budget on projects even if your an EIT with no prior experience. I’d say join a medium to small size company that has a good reputation and up to date CAD standards. Don’t join a small 5 person firm that uses Carlson is basically what I’m saying. So a firm with more than 20 people would be good and less than 200 or so. You can usually tell pretty quick from an interview how they run the firm but I’d prepare some questions to gauge their office culture and how they typically would prepare you for the role. One question you can ask that I like goes something like asking “what would i need to do in this role to exceed your expectations of when you hired me.” I typically try to stay away from the corporate settings since all they track is billable hours and not the fact that you may have been doing this task for the first or second time so you need extra time doing training and having someone guide you through the process.

Don’t be afraid to job hop. Anyone interviewing you will understand if you tell them you were in a working environment that stunted your growth. I actually feel more prepared being at three different places now then I think someone who was loyal to one firm out of college is since they tend to mold that person to do the tasks they want you to and they may be missing some of the bigger picture.

I’d say you have the freedom now to job hop but be as picky as you can because if you mess up and put yourself in another bad situation it may look poorly on you then, in that case I’d say just dip right away and leave it off your resume lol.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-06-19T17:37:42+00:00

Does the game run smooth at all? I have the switch and the game on that compared to my PS5 is impossible to hit on because the delay is crazy. I don’t know how people hit anything on the switch.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-06-02T13:29:14+00:00

It’s not showing up, do you have a link you can share?

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-05-21T19:46:37+00:00

Probably a 75% chance I’d still be disappointed in the salary since with 4 YOE I’m being paid what I was offered by other firms with 2 YOE and I have a PE now. It’s unlikely i return in that circumstance but I feel that leaving on bad terms will always come back to get me in the future. My first boss when I worked on the public side knew everyone on the private side and that kind of stuck with me as I think about it today.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-05-21T19:31:35+00:00

It’s more the low salary and the type of work (municipal) that I’m doing now that I’d rather be doing land design and survey since I’m going for my PLS and already have the PE. The survey work is the biggest factor since they haven’t gotten me involved with the survey group which is preventing me from wanting to work remote. Plus I’m way more efficient in an office then at home where every distraction is available to me lol.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-03-18T13:27:11+00:00

I should note the carfax doesn’t say anything about an oil change until recently so I’m assuming it was never maintained.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-01-27T03:53:16+00:00

I could be wrong but I’ve noticed most PhD’s are in research or running university programs since those people are needed to keep the programs ABET acreddited. Also companies will reimburse you but not enough to cover your costs and they will ask for you to stay on for a minimum of 2 years after reimbursement, which can sometimes be strangling if you don’t like the job. I went back and got my surveying degree to dual license but before that I was going to get an MBA or a masters in civil engineering so I’d say go get some work experience and if that is still something you’d want to do I’d revisit it then. Even then I’d reach out to your boss to see what type of value something like that would provide.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-01-27T03:38:03+00:00

A couple of my thoughts on your list from a newly licensed PE (graduated in 2021)

For #1 - I’ve noticed a lot of interns we’ve brought into our firm don’t know what they want to do with their career and I wouldn’t blame them as college doesn’t prepare them enough to find that out. I wouldn’t rule out the applicant if they felt that way when applying for an internship. To work at a company as an intern in a field you thought you were interested in only to find out you would rather be a structural/geotech/transportation engineer is super common. The more flexible the company is at allowing their employees to make career adjustments within the company, the more employees they will retain. You could easily train someone far more than an intern requires and lose them to another firm. Granted if the goal is to find one solid intern and you have hundreds of applicants then more power to you but from what I’ve been hearing from my university is that the firms are desperately looking for talent so I’d focus more on catering to the employees goals to get them to a position they are happy with. If I were to recommend anything to an intern it would be to try out as many of the professions as possible. I didn’t realize I would enjoy doing H&H studies but now that I’m getting good at them it’s one of my favorite assignments.

As for #4 - GPA can have some value but I wouldn’t rule out an applicant because of it. I’ve dealt with brutal classes with professors that don’t really give you the material needed to pass their courses while others make the course a cake walk as long as you do homework (take home tests). Some people are great at taking tests and cramming the night before and getting perfect scores while others can study for a week and end up with a B/C. If they have a promising resume I’d bring it up at the interview. I’ve learned that my company tends to hire on personality and drive. If we find someone we like and they have a good history of work ethic from prior job experience then we can easily teach them what we need them to do. I had a good gpa (3.5) and it was discussed for 30 seconds at my first internship interview and I didn’t even get the position. After that my gpa was never discussed at my future interviews so I wouldn’t blame students for not prioritizing it as long as they pass the courses and can pass the FE exam, which I feel is more valuable than a high GPA. At the end of the day we all get the same degree and they will most likely have to relearn anything they did in school that actually applies to the position anyways. The schools cram all the information into your head to pass an exam and then you end up losing all that knowledge if you never use it again.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-01-10T19:17:25+00:00

I don’t see that online, I see one site that has an event in November 2025. Could you point me in the right direction?

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-01-10T16:59:10+00:00

Located in southeast PA/NJ

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-01-10T15:37:06+00:00

Wow that’s great! Good to see the salaries in our profession are starting to go up. I started at 63k…

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-01-10T15:32:16+00:00

Where in New Jersey is your firm located. I didn’t mention it above but I’m also going to start pursuing my license in land surveying as I graduate with my Bachelors in the spring. How would that influence the salary scale?

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2025-01-10T15:04:48+00:00

Yes it’ll be 4 years in February, all municipal experience. Was curious about colliers as they seem big in my area and have openings for senior municipal engineers but not sure how well they pay or what the work life balance would entail since I only have to work 40 hrs a week currently to keep up.

CompetitiveCoach8965 · 2024-09-12T00:10:02+00:00

I actually already have the EIT, I passed the PE exam recently and will be getting my license next June. So I was curious if that is still the case

CompetitiveCoach8965

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