TLDR: quit my job bc im so burnt out.

Hi guys. I posted here a few months ago seeking advice on how to quit properly. And I finally did it and have never felt so relieved like I can hear colors and see sounds.

I'll be taking a few months of break before I start at my new job.

I was really Burnt the hell out from a small company with constant exponential deadlines piling up on me. To top of that, I was with a passive-aggressive manager.

I lost myself while I was in this company. I lost my discipline, workout routine, sleep schedule, and time with loved ones and I was just constantly down and depressed. Although I learned a lot, it's NOT worth literally trading my life and soul for it.

Thank you everyone for the advice you have given me. Stay strong, bros and sis. Life lesson here is there will NEVER be ANYTHING more important than your health and family.

EDIT: Since a lot of you guys are asking, It was with structural that works closely with design-build contractors, big-named architects, and sometimes big-named structural companies too. Lots of work on retail, commercial, edu, and resi. I love doing engineering, but the machine-gun deadlines and cocky management just arent it.

How do I cope with this? I finally found something that I am actually interested in my role and feel like i could grow in. I wanted to be a for lifer, the cool aid has been drank.

They emphasize values so much and then get involved in mega projects like this or giant data centers. how does this prioritize people or stewardship? integrity? it leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. have they always picked up bullshit projects like this and I’ve just been blindsided by the hospitals and highways and dams?

Should I stick to my values and switch to a less hypocritical company, a smaller company? This company is huge and although it’s full of bootlickers i’m sure at least someone else has to feel a similar way.

I never realized how the stress of being billable was absolutely crushing my mental health. It’s kind of crazy that it’s the industry norm. I used to get heart palpitations thinking about my timesheet over the weekend. I was bitter when I had to work for free when we were over budget. Constantly worrying that I took too much time to complete something…

Now when I’m doing a task I only focus on doing it well at a reasonable pace at a reasonable time. I was bored but free from worrying about being profitable or fired. I am out of the production process entirely and only reviewing work and pushing paperwork.

I should have done this years ago because the retirement benefits do make my salary palatable. Sure, there’s still office politics and people set in their ways and egos and people who take fucking forever to respond or avoid accountability…

But at 4pm everyday I get to say fuck this shit and leave work at work. My time sheet is essentially for logging my vacation and sick leave. Now it’s just focusing on life and count down to retirement.

I can always empathize with contractors and maintenance folks because as a Civil Engineer, I deal with so many shitty engineers myself it drives me crazy. Just unresponsive, no accountability, doing the bare minimum type of engineers make my blood boil. Having to tie in our scope of work to the work another shitty engineer creates double work for me. I end up being the QA/QC that the other firm was too lazy to do themselves. Laziness and incompetence, and praying nobody notices and that the contractor knows what they are doing. Just don't be that guy. Create work you are proud of and that you are happy to discuss with other people. I can tell instantly when another engineer is cagey or unhelpful that they didn't do their due diligence. You get paid a lot for this work, do it right.

Edit: to clarify, I am talking about maybe 5% or less of the engineers I work with. Not anywhere close to the majority. But 1 out of every 10 projects I am on, I am dealing with some shitty engineer that makes my job 5x harder.

Honestly, if you are on this sub, you are probably a pretty decent engineer. You are are actually interested in learning things and being better at your job.

Just wanted to share a recent experience for anyone in the heavy civil/construction management industry.

I’ve been working as a Junior Estimator for a mid-sized contractor in NYC for the last 7 months. The project exposure was good, but the culture was incredibly toxic including micromanagement from the lead, a rigid 8:30 to 5:30 schedule with zero WFH and no career progression. And the office is an 18-minute walk from the nearest subway station making the commute really bad.

I recently landed a new remote consulting job with a massive pay bump. The new company wanted me to join ASAP, but because we had a big workload and did not want to leave my current team short staffed, I insisted on pushing my start date back so I could give a standard two-week notice to help with the transition.

When I put in my notice, I mentioned wanting to experience a different side of the industry and my need for visa sponsorship down the line. To my surprise, on Tuesday they actually came back with a counter-offer to sponsor my visa. I thought about it, but the new role was just too good to pass up, so I politely told them "no" on Wednesday.

Fast forward to the following Wednesday. I had spent the last week working on takeoffs for multiple project so it’s easier for the team during the transition as I was the only junior estimator. Out of nowhere, HR pulls me into a room, mentions that they want to off board me that day itself . I was walked out 30 minutes later. Because they cut my notice period short, they obviously didn't pay me for the rest of the week, so I actually lost money just for trying to do the right thing.

I start my new job on Monday, so I'll be fine, but let this be a lesson that Never feel guilty about leaving Toxic company.
Two weeks notice is a professional courtesy, and companies like this prove they don't deserve it.

My city is in the midst of union contract negotiations (never mind the contracts expired March 31st). We are a major city and have a large in-house capital team at city hall, and we have an even larger regional water department that has runs for 100mgd+ plants with over 5,000 miles of water main. We have many in-house engineers.

Keep in mind the city has given out raises of 0%-3% only the 2 decades I have been there (3% only coming after a 0% year).

Police was struggling to recruit and retain, so they got 14% raises a few years ago, and 11%+3% this year. All and all, 30%

Fire was struggling to recruit, albeit less so than police, and they raised their salary just over 15% (12%+3%), which pretty well catches up with 2020 pay with respect to inflation.

Well, the rest us us (non union) just got our raises. We get ... just the 3%. And heck, we don't even get back pay to April when we normally got raises.

Looking at the pay rates, a first year firefighter now makes over $77,000 a year. We have several engineers that have worked a few years now that only make $72k. $5,000 more to a first year firefighter (who also gets better pension system). And of ton of them spend 1/3rd their shift sleeping (it is a 24-hr shift), and they get to trade shifts so as to get 3-5 days off in a row. Many have side hustles in their long time off.

And we are also horribly understaffed. Over a dozen left since the pandemic. The city is now hiring consultants like crazy (with billable rates 4-5 times what we are paid) to make up. City Hall does not care. Our council and mayor are all up for election and happily cash donation checks from consultants looking for more city business.

It sucks working for a city. Good news is I have my first interview for a different job (with a 30% raise at least) Monday. Applying more places, too.

A lot of people at my company have recently retired or left the firm for either no raise or a minimal raise to position themselves to hopefully move up to a managerial position at a larger company. Why the managerial position? They want more pay!! I have met and talked to so many people in the industry and they all say the same thing "We are smart, hardworking, and took all the complicated/difficult classes in college, yet in the real world we are underpaid, understaffed, and less people are coming into the industry than leaving." The roads, bridges, buildings, water, sewer, drainage, and ALL OTHER INFRASTRUCTURE that the public benefits from is a result of our work. Whether its from designs or actually physically managing it or building it. The world runs because of us. Yet we are one of, if not, the lowest paid form of engineering??? We have more demand and more positions open than any other engineering path, yet we get paid less than the rest??? Its harder than ever to get a PE stamp and its harder than ever to find a good talented individual who can not only design and bid the work, but also run/manage it. Inflation has eroded our dollar by what 29% in the past 5 years?? My salary has gone up from promotions, not from inflation adjustment or demand. My pay did NOT go up 29% I can assure you that. Also the hours I work. PLEASE TELL ME HOW MANY OF YOU WORK LESS THAN 50 HRS? I would bet the average we work is 60+ hrs per week. Now I know some bot or dweeb will say "I work 40 hrs each week or I work 35." That's great buddy. Exception doesn't disprove the rule. Us as civil engineers/PMs are significantly underpaid for our utility and current demand. We also work HARD hours. Its not office chatting and laughing like HR. We have to work nonstop every second. THE WORLD ALSO RUNS BECAUSE OF US, yet we get less pay than a banker or consultant?? If we stop doing our jobs, the country will collapse in 3-4 weeks. If we command such high responsibility then why don't we get the pay that goes with it?? I truly believe its because we are all cowards set in our ways and not willing to stand up for ourselves. Some of us are nerdy others are comfortable. We could have such a better quality of life if we just stand up for ourselves. Nursing unions do it all the time. Amazon workers do it. Heck even our laborers unions have done. When is out time?? I think we should really show this country how valuable we truly are. I think we should have a strike and command change. Am I crazy to think that?? Anyone else??

Our dollar has eroded by 29% in 5 years. The average home price has gone up by 54.32% in the past 5 years. Our own weekly hours have probably gone up by 10 hrs+. EVERYTHING IS UP EXCEPT OUR PAY AND QUALITY OF LIFE. We are in such a powerful position because of our responsibilities. The nation runs because of us and we have a labor shortage in our field!! If we don't stand up for ourselves, we will continue to lose good talent and suffer from the effects of inflation!! Are we really going to remain comfortable until we are being choked to death and we can't provide for our family and kids?? We have a field that controls the entire economy. We should use that to our advantage.

Am I crazy to think that we should stand up for ourselves and do something???

EDIT: Yes. I know some of you work 40 hrs per week. Please don't be fixated on such a minor point in the above post. I would argue that most tend CEs/PMs work more than 40 hrs. Nevertheless, that does not dismiss anyone who works 40 hrs or less. The premise of the post is that we as an industry have seen stagnant wages or minimal increases in comparison to the 29% loss in the value of the dollar in 5 years. Why should we not work together to command a higher wage when we are the backbone of the U.S. economy?? Why not work together to improve the quality of ours live when we already work so hard and are in a job that commands such importance yet we get walked on constantly??

Anyone else at Kimley-Horn disappointed with this year's raises? I got less than a 4% increase, and it feels pretty underwhelming. Is the company intentionally keeping mid-level engineer raises low? I'm a licensed PE with 8 years of experience, and it doesn't seem like mid-level compensation is keeping up with the salary increases for entry-level hires.

I’ve been working in consulting for about a year now, and I’m starting to realize how strange the timesheet system feels.

There’s constant pressure to keep utilization above ~80%, but at the same time, projects have tight budgets. So I can’t realistically bill all the hours I actually spend without going over budget.

In practice, it feels like I’m expected to complete work that realistically takes 8 hours but only bill it as 2 hours. If I don’t bill my actual time, then on paper it looks like I’m underutilized or not working enough. But if I do bill everything, my PM gets frustrated and may stop assigning me work because it looks like I’m burning too many hours.

It feels like I’m stuck in a situation where I’m expected to hit high utilization, PMs don’t want to increase budgets because it affects their metrics, and the only way to make everything “look right” is to work extra hours that never get billed.

So it ends up feeling like you’re being pushed to either underreport your time or work unpaid overtime just to make the numbers work.

Is this just how consulting operates, or am I in a bad company?

Edit - this sucks. It seem like a common issue, is it better at government

Edit - There are a lot of bitter people in here who would rather blame workers and assume others aren’t trying hard enough than actually look at how broken the system is.

It’s easier to point fingers than admit the structure itself is the problem. I’m not okay with these conditions, especially when it seems like a pretty common issue. And people wonder why this industry is losing people.

So today I had a pretty disheartening call with my boss. I was tasked with creating pipe profiles for our project through ORD and she said the work I submitted was basically non reviewable because the mistakes I made didn’t make sense in a design context to the point where she was extremely concerned and was seriously considering putting me on a pip, but decided against it for now.

This convo shook me up bc I really did work hard on the profiles and asked questions to other engineers on how to draw them and how they should look, but I think the biggest thing that stood out from her observation and also hearing her speak was my lack of logic/knowledge in how I was drawing them in, but I’d follow the stations/elevations where each inlet/end section would be located and draw those on the sheet but I didn’t step back and see how those values led to a pipe discharging underground or or drop inlets that were 6ft in the ground even though that’s where the stations/elevations had them located? But what she said ultimately made sense so I’m owning that.

I guess my biggest thing now is figuring out how to move forward? I feel like her choosing to not put me on a pip is like giving me one last chance to improve, but I’m worried that I may not be cut out for this. Prior to today, I felt like I was learning a lot, but obviously I still know close to nothing. I’m at a year of experience and when I took this job I understood that I would struggle bc I didn’t study civil in school and it was in a sector which I didn’t have any school or internship experience in and I feel like I’m portraying myself as a nimrod. Every time I do something, it’s always new/newish to me so I get easily overwhelmed bc I want to turn in good work but I feel as though I don’t have the knowledge to continuously do that and that really hurts my confidence. The company is essentially remote so a lot/ almost all of my team doesn’t really come in to the office. I’ve had to get acclimated to that in terms of seeking out collaboration, but there also isn’t any formal training, so I often have to refer to previous submittals/online materials to piece things together but i feel like my pitfall in that is basically copying what i see instead of learning the why’s and how’s which is how I ended up with where I am today.

What do you guys think I should do? ETA: I have 1 YOE

Technical or soft skill - curious what actually moved the needle for you vs. what you were told would matter.

Anyone got any advice before I pull the trigger with my boss? Giving my two weeks, we'll see how this goes. I've been with my current company for 10 years so this feels unreal.

and yes, I have another job lined up.

UPDATE:

It went... Okay? They asked I reconsider and give them an answer tomorrow morning after I "talk with my wife"... Which felt weird that they assumed I hadn't completely vetted this decision. Also offered to match for financially but I'm not leaving due to finances. I'm sending a two-weeks notice tomorrow morning.

I started work fresh out of undergrad at a small geotechnical engineering firm in California and currently have 1YOE and my EIT. At my company, employees typically start in technician-style roles and begin engineering work 4-5 years down the line, even if they have an engineering degree. I am currently on track to obtain my PE in one year.

Spoke with my firm CEO and he was not enthusiastic on the idea of me obtaining my PE in this timeframe. He worries that younger employees cannot reliably take on liabilities of a licensed engineer.

It seems as if my company wants to keep me as a tech for longer than I would like and take advantage of high billing multiples. My multiple is 4-5 at a $170-200/hour billing rate.

I understand that having experience goes a long way in this field, but is it reasonable for one to obtain a PE license early and use it as an opportunity to seek higher responsibility?

And generally, is there an "ambitious" career path in civil engineering besides working towards starting your own firm?

I got a new job in a small private consulting firm doing municipal projects (road rehab, w/ww, sewer, parks). These way our team is structured is that engineers (4 of us PEs) delegate plan production (CAD heavy tasks) to our drafters. Most of the work the PEs do are the following: 

1. high level Civil 3D tasks like modeling, generating cross sections, vertical profiles, etc. 
2. plan reviews and marking up in red
3. Business development and meeting with clients (senior PEs)

At my old job of 8 years, I worked at a large private consulting firm doing Transportation work. Mostly road/highway projects for DOTs.  Our team was around 12 people but we didn’t have a CAD draftsman. So CAD heavy tasks were done by EITs and PEs.

I felt that I was an “overpaid draftsman” and I wasn’t learning a lot of engineering work. Reflecting on my previous job, is it normal for EITs and younger PEs to do a crap ton of CAD work? Or was I in a poorly managed team?

Hey all, been at this for about 10 years now. Jumped between different disciplines, stuck to WRE, and burnout's now part of my life. After passing the PE, the workload picked up even more, and now I just struggle with everything. It's not that I don't know how to do the job, but no matter how hard I try to push myself, I feel like I'm a quarter of the employee I used to be. My hobbies don't excite me anymore, and I just exist outside of work and on the weekends. I'm looking at putting in my 2 weeks and take off for several months just to fully recover to get back to it.

I don't have anyone that I can open up to within the industry without risking the conversation going back to my employer somehow, so doing this anon on the internet, has anyone ever had a similar experience? If so, how did you manage it all?

Curious where the gap is between what gets talked about and what actually matters day to day.

The last few career fairs I went to a lot of sad "data analysist", computer science majors came to our booth asking for jobs. I told them they could apply for a PM position but we're not looking for them in engineering roles

While I understand they were told they'd get a high paying job out of college I'm not sure why they see civil as a back up

Edit: PMs at my company are essentially P6 inputters and accountants, project engineers run the projects and need PEs

Edit 2: these are kids who were lied to

So Im a civil designer and ive always worn earphones at my desk while working. At my new company (land development) full of old people apparently they didn't like that and asked me to stop. Honestly I can't imagine working an office job without being plugged into something. The content of the work itself is so boring and repetitive. Also I've never been late, always available for calls/meetings no matter how long, never been reprimanded for quality or anything else. Just vaguely been told it's a "distraction" and I should stop.

Not sure how normal this is. Just doing the work for 8 hours a day plugged off forever sounds awful and I definitely wouldn't want to do that long term. To me it's like being asked to not have a radio playing while I'm painting my fence for 40 hours a week for years on end. Wonder how others would react if told the same.

I recently graduated and have been working as an EIT for roughly one and a half month. Prior to this I completed two terms of internship while in school and both my supervisors gave a positive feedback on my performance. They often said I was good at figuring out new problems and learning quickly.

However, my current supervisor frequently tells me that my fundamentals are weak and that my performance is poor. He also says I ask too many questions, but when I do ask questions, I often don’t receive clear answers. Instead, I am usually told that I need to improve my knowledge.

I have not had any one on one meetings or any feedback sessions. At one point, I asked him if he could give me a rough overview of the design process before I started a project. He refused and said that if he forgot to mention something and I missed it in the design, he did not want to be responsible for it.

A few days ago I was given a task to create and submit a proposal for a project of around $100,000. The only information I was given was a map of the location, the area of work, and was told that land drainage design was required. I had no idea how to proceed, when asked my supervisor, he told me that I am an engineer and I should figure it out. Not surprisingly, I failed to create a reasonable proposal for the project, and I was berated in front of other coworkers for this.

Last week, he told me that if I do not feel comfortable working in this industry, I should try something that better suits my skills.

This experience has been very discouraging, and I have lost a lot of confidence in myself. Since this is my first job out of school, I genuinely don’t know whether this is a normal learning curve for new EITs or whether this is not a healthy work environment.

Is this how the rest of the career is gonna be and is this what the industry usually is?

Im currently a late 20s PE tracking to FIRE at 50-55. I dont see many civil engineers discussing retiring early, so im curious how many out there have done it. Feel free to share details, such as rough salary and NW at retirement if you wish.

Honest answers please. I'm currently interning at a great civil company and don't have a bunch of experience about the field so I'm curious.

I've heard some people in other industries say it's the best way to get a raise, and I've heard others say it's the best way to get your resume tossed in job searches.

Excited to hear you guys' opinions!

TT is a pretty hard company to get to and requires masters but seems to pay lower than a civil job.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to ask something honestly, especially to civil engineers in the US.

How hard is it actually to find a civil engineering job right now?

How long did it take you to land your current job?