r/civilengineering

I’m a water resources engineer with 10 yoe living in a MCOL city. I’ve been at my current firm for 4 years, and overall love the flexibility, my coworkers, and projects. As with a lot of firms, you can see everyone’s bill rate which equates to salaries. I was looking through them the other day, and realized I had fallen behind pretty substantially compared to my peers.

Peer 1 - new hire at the company, 7-8 yoe, level below me, making 8% more
Peer 2 - 2 years at the company, 7-8 yoe, level below me, 8% more
Peer 3 - 14 yoe, been at company 5 years, same level, 35% more

I laid this out to my supervisor, and told them I felt I should be between peer 3 and 1/2. They ran it up the chain and came back with a 4% raise.

While more money is always nice, I’m really frustrated with this raise. I’m not sure how to move forward here, as I feel like I wasn’t heard and this was just a ‘how little can we do so he doesn’t leave’. Any thoughts on next steps? Has anyone been in a similar position?

I got a degree in Civil Engineering in 2024 without any internships or anything. I took a year off to try and find a job with no luck so ended up doing the Masters route in Structural engineering part time while I work as a bartender except I’m having so much trouble finding internships/entry level jobs. I’m currently scheduled to take my FE exam in october but i’m worried that I basically have nothing on my resume, I’ve had about 3 interviews but no luck. Unfortunately during undergrad I wasn’t the most invested student but now that i’m in my masters program I feel like i’m super behind. Is there any advice/recommendations anyone could help me with? Will I have more luck once I pass the FE exam?

I just received engineer's position job offer from Fortis Engineering & Manufacturing Inc and I am wondering if I need to accept this offer. Has anyone worked for them before ? If so, what is your thought and experience ? Any advice would be appreciated.

What kind of free office perks does your company offer?
Ex: My office has free coffee

Hi everyone! I'm Manikanta, a first-year Civil Engineering student from Hyderabad,India. I'm looking to connect with other Civil students from different colleges who are genuinely interested in building a career in Civil. I'd like to share study resources, discuss subjects and doubts, learn about different areas of Civil, and eventually explore things like projects, software, internships and career opportunities together. I'm hoping to build a small group of like-minded Civil students where we can learn and help each other. If you're interested, feel free to comment or DM me!

I've recently graduated with a Civil Engineering degree and have taken a strong interest in designing, but so far, I've had no luck with any structural position. The traditional route of Project Engineer to Project Manager sounds great as well, but I would see myself doing design work in the future rather than project management. I'm just really stuck in the middle because this first job could shape my career in many different ways. Any advice from anyone in the field would be much appreciated.

I work in the private land development industry and have 4.5 years of work experience and have my PE license. I work in a mid-cost of living area in the USA. I just got a 4.2% raise and now have a base salary of $100k. I also have a 6% employee 401k match and get an annual bonus that is 7% of my base salary.

i've been working at my current job since i graduated college 2 years ago. I've enjoyed the company as a whole but the work life balance in my group hasn't been great for the past year and shows no signs of changing. My manager always waits till the last minute on reviewing work and clearly is overloaded on projects which in turn has made me work very late nights. I understand in consulting you sometimes have to work longer hours but my team emphasizes "managing upwards" and it has been hard for me to handle in terms of stress. I feel that I haven't been given enough support as an EIT. I received an offer at another firm who i think would be able to support me better in terms of workload as i've voiced that as my main concern and primary reason for leaving . However they were acquired by private equity two years ago so I worry how that will differ as my current company has never laid anyone off and is not owned by private equity. The glassdoor ratings for both firms are pretty similar. Is it too risky to join this other firm or should i take the plunge? How likely is it i would end up in the same situation im in now? other pros of this new company is working on projects across the country and a 4 minute commute.

As a Canadian thinking of moving to the states

Just got my license, how should it be shown on resume?
Should “P.E.” be put after my name?
Should the state be included?
Should the license number be included?

Thank you.

I’m a civil/water resources engineer with ~5 years of experience in water/wastewater consulting. For the past 2.5 years, I’ve focused primarily on sewer hydraulic modeling and master planning, including 2 dry-weather calibrations, 1 wet-weather calibration, 2 model conversions, and 3 model builds. I also have broader experience in biosolids, wastewater treatment, SSMPs, and groundwater/well conveyance projects.

I recently received performance feedback that I’m:

• Requiring more guidance than expected for my experience level
• Still developing independent problem-solving skills
• Struggling with some complex concepts and seeing the bigger picture
• Requiring more supervision on complex tasks

I’m now considering leaving my company, but I’m unsure whether that’s the right move. What makes it more confusing is that I haven’t been given much technical/project work for the past ~2 months and have mainly been doing business development/marketing work.

For civil/water/wastewater engineers and engineering managers:

1. Is this considered a serious performance concern for someone with ~5 years of experience?
2. Does this feedback suggest I’m performing below expectations, or could it be normal development?
3. Would you stay and work through it with the same team, or consider changing companies?
4. How much independence would you realistically expect from a water/wastewater engineer at ~5 years?
5. Can changing companies help someone who mainly needs more experience/confidence with complex work, or do these issues usually follow you?

I’m not looking for reassurance. I’d genuinely appreciate an honest assessment from people who have worked in civil/water/wastewater consulting and management.

I‘m about 9 y.o.e. heavy civil design consultant. I just applied for a public job that only requires 4 years, but pays 20-40% more. whats the downside of stepping back into a lower role?

So I joined tier three college in Hyderabad. The name is Malla Reddy College of engineering and technology (MRCET) and the civil program is really ignored in the college, and I don’t think that I will get any job opportunities or anything like that in this College, anyone have their experience coming from your tier three College and getting their job. Please explain me that how can I get internship et cetera without the College help because CSC is considered mostly and civil is ignored.

Are they generous?

Hi! I’m a 3rd year civil engineering major, 21F in California.

I’m just a little conflicted.

Internship 1 (Engineering intern - transportation company)
Pros:
- VERY technical AND teaches valuable engineering principles. I’ll be doing actual engineering work. Ill get to practice and improve my CAD workflow.
- close to my school

Cons:
- I’ll be working alone most of the time. Boss and coworker will be available to answer questions, but both works remotely so I’m still unsure about how it’ll work out. For training, coworker will be working with me in the office but once I’m done training, she’ll go back to remote.

I dont really like being alone… but its not as big of a deal I guess. I wont be allowed to work remote, shes only allowed because she lives 2 hours away. I live 30 mins away.

- CAD… I love doing CAD but no one in the company is a CAD person. Boss is not a CAD person, and the girl who’s training me learned AutoCAD from chatGPT, so theres not much I can learn from her when it comes to CAD. I prefer working with people who are pros because I can learn a lot more from them.

- there can be “idle” time if the project is almost done. I dont like having idle time, I prefer a constant busy work.

- I mean I was promised to be taught very valuable engineering work but so far during training, Ive noticed that theyre only cleaning up drawings for now because the project is basically over. And we’re not sure when there’ll be a new project to give me heavy work.

Internship 2 (Administrative Intern - Engineering)

Pros
- Pays very well because it’s for the city.
- I will get to explore and see a bunch of different types of civil engineering.
-It’s a very team environment which I like. I love working with people as well.
- I get to work with a bunch of PEs whom I’ll have the opportunity to assist with multiple projects.
- Consistently busy & CLOSEE to my school than internship 1

Cons
- Not as technical as Internship 1, they might have me doing more paperworks than actual engineering work.
- Might not learn engineering concepts as much as I’d learn from internship 1

Honestly, this con is not as bad because I personally love making spreadsheets, organizing, collecting & analyzing datas, which are all a part of the job description.

——-
I guess my biggest thought process right now are these:

1. If I choose internship 1, I will get paid less (which is a little unpractical for me because im paying my own tuition out of pocket without financial help from anyone). However, the engineering knowledge I’ll get from this company would be amazing. It’s just that for now, their current project is almost done so I have to start with a bunch of cleaning up drawing & addressing comments. There wont be a lot of work hours available, which is an issue for me because I need as much hours as possible. Especially because training is UNPAID. But maybe a new project will happen soon and give me lots of work??

2. If I choose internship 2, I will get paid a lot more, but I’m afraid I’m going to miss out on a very knowledgable experience from internship 1.

3. I already have recently completed 1 year of internship experience, which gave me A LOT of technical experience and taught me a lot of engineering concepts as well. Maybe having an administrative internship wont be that bad for now? I mean, I’m still in school.

——
For civil engineers who have a lot of experience, what advice would you give? :((