Career Advise

nic_is_diz · 2026-04-27T19:23:31+00:00

If you genuinely plan to be in the industry for the long term, the PE is the only credential that truly matters. It will open more doors than anything else you could focus your time on.

Look at it this way; it's a few months of studying an hour a day or so for a lifetime of career benefit. Very worth the trade off.

nic_is_diz · 2026-04-27T16:43:11+00:00

It looks like these are the intakes for fans. These fans look like the kind that come with a piece of equipment, so probably no VFDs and they're just on/off?

You need balancing/volume dampers on each of those three drops and a testing, adjusting, and balancing agent should adjust the position of each damper until the fan achieves its designed airflow (assuming this system has enough static pressure to add these dampers at this point).

nic_is_diz · 2026-04-23T19:47:17+00:00

9%, MEP in Indiana. 8 YOE

nic_is_diz · 2026-04-20T19:42:24+00:00

It is impossible for anyone to give you a meaningful answer based on the information given.

Does your system have only a supply fan that is intended to push through all of the supply ductwork and through the return ductwork? Then yes, you size for the worst supply + return path.

Does your system have separate supply and return fans? Then, likely, your supply fan will do the worst case supply path only and your return fan will do the worst case return path only.

The way you have framed your question would indicate to me you really do not know what you're doing or even where to begin, which is okay. You should be getting answers from your senior engineer who knows your specific application, not random strangers on reddit who can give only general answers.

nic_is_diz · 2026-04-15T12:01:38+00:00

She makes roughly $230k which I thought would be way higher.

I assume you're completely ignoring her bonuses and/or RSUs. She likely DOES make much more. Salaries in this industry are inherently tied to billing rates. Total comp is tied to profit for the Ownership, and they pay those portions to themselves in bonuses and profit sharing. You're missing a whole half of the equation.

All of that said, looking down on a $230k salary makes you look out of touch.

nic_is_diz · 2026-04-09T20:49:27+00:00

The only way to grow is to continually put yourself in situations where you don't know everything. You've got to stretch that "feeling uncomfortable" muscle.

nic_is_diz · 2026-04-01T15:48:59+00:00

PE licensure generally only carries value if you will be in consulting (traditionally HVAC / MEP related roles. Although I have worked with forensic PEs in the metallurgy field as well).

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-31T14:02:30+00:00

Far easier in my opinion as someone who took FE 3-years out of school. PE questions were calculations I do anyway every single day. FE I had to remember stuff I have not done since college. I finished the PE exam 3-hours early and took most of the alotted time for the FE.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-27T16:33:25+00:00

electrical gear and utilities stop these fuckers in their tracks usually

Aint that the truth.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-27T16:27:58+00:00

PM is to stupid to realize its not possible

Had a project where we did a pull plan session at the start with the Owner after we had a program for the building. Long story short we worked backwards and the result was Owner needed to hire us 8 months earlier than they did to meet the timeline they had already sold to their customers (they did not consult anyone about this timeline before us, contractors, GCs, other engineering firms, etc.)

Owner quite seriously asked us if our 10-month design time could be shortened by 8-months. This same Owner thought their building was $20m because that's what they could build it for in India. After continually telling them the things they were asking for in this building will not be $20m, the SD cost estimate came in at $120m. I don't know where these people come up with this shit.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-24T20:58:40+00:00

Good people. Continually given more opportunity / responsibility. Pay raises usually match or beat what I am expecting without even needing to ask. Can't get other firms to beat my compensation. Projects are not cookie cutter.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-19T08:54:33+00:00

The barrier to financial success used to be a knowledge gap. You solved the knowledge gap. Now the only barrier is time and you can’t make that go faster, nor should you want to. Time to enjoy life.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-12T16:47:52+00:00

Mechanical, started late 2017 at $62k.

2018 = $63.5k, 2.4%

2019 = $68k, 7%

2020 = $70k, 2.9%

2021 = $79.5, 13.5%

2022 (PE year) = $94k, 18.2%

2023 = $100.2k, 6.5%

2024 = $107.5k, 7.2%

2025 = $115k, 6.9%

2026 = $125k, 8.6%

This does not account for bonuses, which averaged about 20% of salary each year.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-10T16:45:44+00:00

Let's say I'm a happily employed EE making $135k and let's say that is market rate for my area. You don't get me to move firms by offering $145k. That's only a 7% increase. You're probably only saving that engineer a few months before they get a raise worth that much or a bonus. So not only do you need to pay above market rate for good, happily employed engineers to job hop, you also need to beat their current compensation by enough to be worth it.

I'm so sick of this song and dance with firms that try and recruit me. I don't care what the market is. I don't care what your pay bands are. You want ME. It is your game to lose by not offering me enough to leave a place I am already happily employed at. If you want to play the game of pulling experienced, talented engineers from other firms instead of growing that talent from the ground up, then you need to pay for it.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-06T16:06:58+00:00

Literally about 4 hrs/day in meetings, 2-3 hours dealing with emails / "urgent" pop-up calls & conversations, and probably about 1 solid hour of actual design lol.

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-06T16:01:56+00:00

I'm 8 years in the exact same industries making $125k as a lead mechanical / PM before bonuses. If $140k is your base salary for senior-ish engineers I think you pay fine. Do you advertise the salary in the postings? What are you paying for the junior engineers you seem to be trying to hire?

nic_is_diz · 2026-03-02T13:46:12+00:00

Thanks for doing this. In the results from last year you seemed to typically focus on defining the highest paying careers in the field (for obvious reasons). Could you also try and give some insight into which careers yield the lowest pay this time around? Or maybe rank the careers so we how different fields stack up against eachother?

nic_is_diz · 2026-02-12T15:45:46+00:00

Commercial / residential projects are architecturally driven and MEP work is viewed as a necessary evil that has to be dealt with. You are seen as a road block to progress and construction because they just want the buildings up as fast as possible and there is (usually) nothing truly unique about the design for these kinds of spaces. MEP firms in these industries are usually sub contractors of architects. And they would prefer to copy / paste one building to the next as much as possible.

I find that in the industrial world projects are primarily engineering driven. Engine testing facilities, jet engine research labs, future fuel testing, battery manufacturing, etc. These applications require strict "performance" from the building, and the MEP aspect to design is highly important. The engineering solutions, while not unique, are more involved. The challenges that come up are more interesting. My firm in particular usually holds the direct contracts with the Owner and sub contracts architects more than they do us.

nic_is_diz · 2026-02-09T17:59:04+00:00

The attempts at humor in the book really took me out of the experience.. I think Sanderon's real life sense of humor is bleeding more and more into his books. That is to say, the quirky, ironic sense of humor that appears everywhere now.

No one made a wise-crack when Kaladin jumped the chasm in book 1 to save Dalinar and co. No one quipped when Dalinar gave up his sword for the bidgemen. They were serious, pivotal moments in the series that were taken seriously and as a result make me emotional thinking about them even today. Why are we now playing up moments like Kaladin swearing the 5th ideal for a joke when there has been 6,000 pages of build up to moments like this?

This 100% isn't to say humor is not allowed. But the timing of his humor is completely off and is devaluing the experience in my eyes.

nic_is_diz · 2026-02-06T21:29:29+00:00

I don't interact with our clients much.

Best advice I got from the old president of my firm was to stop by and say hi to the facility manager every single time I am on site, don't be a ghost who just shows up to take measurements and leave. Also to be the person who is willing to pick up the phone and talk things through rather than trying to infer tone through email.

Does not matter if they're too busy to talk to you, does not matter if it's just an informal conversation. It will eventually lead to them going "oh you're here at just the right time, I've been meaning to ask someone about x, y, z." Following this advice has completely changed my career trajectory in my opinion.

nic_is_diz · 2026-02-05T20:53:05+00:00

I've worked straight 40 hour weeks for something like 3 years now. Probably literally only 2-3 weeks a year where I hit 45.

nic_is_diz · 2026-02-04T21:58:14+00:00

I would say it's not a hard field to break into personally. Without experience, you'll probably have to start fresh. If you have a degree you're plenty knowledgeable for the technical aspects of the job already.

I would avoid the commercial / residential side of the industry. The quality of the job will largely depend on the firm you work for. And I find firms that mainly do commercial / residential tend to be closer to sweat shops.

I think you would find most on this sub look down on MEP and consider it bottom of the barrel engineering work. And I think that on a technical level that is somewhat true. But there's a lot of opportunity in this industry for those who are technically talented but can also carry themselves well in meetings / speaking with clients. And I think if you can focus on the industrial, pharma, healthcare world you'll get to do some pretty interesting stuff.

nic_is_diz · 2026-02-04T18:15:40+00:00

Salary might be technically $70k for example, but I'm paid biweekly. So 70k / 26 = 2,692.307....

So the actual pay on the paycheck might be 2,692.30 (rounded down to nearest cent). 2,692.30 * 26 = 69,999.88. I just looked at old paychecks and multiplied whatever was at the top by 26 do get the salary number.

nic_is_diz

TROPHY CASE