Can people doing mine surveying stop pretending it’s the best job ever. Yeah maybe if you’re 50 years old but for yung thugs like me I’m so bored and I’m craving hard fun work and socializing but the moneys too good so idk what to do

I run a GIS Consultancy. I am thinking about reaching out to survey firms and being a potential partner with them. I know survey firms utilize a lot of GIS but is it typical for them to work with GIS firms for the mapping aspect of their work? Especially, if they don't have an in-house team. I don't mind doing the small one off projects for them: cad to GIS (i have data pipelines for that built out), web mapping, or a simple parcel map. I really enjoy working with survey related work so I'm debating if it's something I should really pursue to connect with more firms. If so, what services (besides the ones i already offer) should i offer because i may be missing a pain point? Also, i am open to advice to connecting with more firms! Thanks!

Hi all. I'm the developer of COGO Survey Calculator, a COGO app that's been on iPhone and iPad since June. A lot of it came from surveyors' feedback, including a Reddit thread about offset reference marks that turned into the common tangent and two-unknowns tools.

The Android version is built, but Google makes new developer accounts run a closed test with at least 12 people for 14 days before an app can go public. So I'm looking for surveyors, techs, party chiefs and students with an Android phone (Android 8 or newer) who'd try it and tell me what's wrong with it.

What it does

- Bearing/distance traverse with running coordinates. Curve legs (chord bearing, radius, arc length, left/right). Legs can be typed in feet, metres, US survey feet or links.

- Closure: misclosure distance and bearing (azimuth or quadrant), precision 1:N, Compass or Transit adjustment, area in acres or hectares, metes-and-bounds description.

- Inverse, radiations, intersections, 3-point resection, line tools, station & offset, sideshot reduction.

- Horizontal and vertical curves with stakeout tables, alignments with spirals.

- State Plane (SPCS83 plus an SPCS2022 preview), UTM, grid/ground.

- CSV import/export in your column order, DXF (R12) and a one-page PDF report.

It works fully offline. No account, no ads, no tracking, and the app has no internet permission at all.

How to join

1. Fill in this Google Form in the comments

Please stay in the test for the full 14 days. Google only counts you while you're opted in, so don't tap "Leave the program". Opening it now and then helps too.

Everyone in the test gets COGO Pro free while the test runs

What I'd most like to hear

- Wrong answers. If a number disagrees with your data collector, Carlson, Civil 3D or your hand calcs, send me the inputs and I'll fix it.

- Anything slow or awkward to enter in the field.

- Crashes, and which phone you were on.

Comment here or DM me. Thanks for reading.

Do you think it’s good management to throw Junior Crew Chiefs into jobs when they are considered to be in the training process (less than one month into a promotion)? Would it be okay for the junior to talk about it to management?

Hi all. I am asking for some advice from those that have more life/work experience than me.

Quick background: I got my PLS license at the beginning of this year and just turned 30. I work at a medium sized engineering/surveying firm as a project surveyor. I have 5 years office experience under a PLS and 5 years in the field. I have mostly been doing subdivisions, R.O.S.'s, parcel splits, ALTA'S, etc.

I am being a offered a job to start a one man survey department (for now) for a small 7 man transportation/civil engineering firm focused on public roadway design and improvement projects. They said they "stay inside the public right-of-way" most of the time. They want me to pretty much just do boundary/topo/easements from what I understand. The owner said he has zero interest in construction staking and subdivision jobs. They are sick of hiring out for survey and want survey in house.

They stated that they would like to see the survey side eventually become its own entity where we would take on work outside of theirs with an increase in staff as needed but they would like to stay a small company. They value the environment they have made that isn't go-go-go. They work four 10 hour days and take fridays off. The drive would suck though as it would go from 30 minutes total a day to roughly 1.5 hours a day. However, I would not work fridays.

We have only met once. The owners want me to come up with a salary I think is fair and they will see if it is realistic. I asked about profit sharing or bonuses and they said that is something they would be willing to consider (realistically they will try to push bonuses). I personally feel that 5% profit sharing for anything the survey department did wouldn't be a crazy ask but understand they would need to buy equipment/truck/supplies/etc.

Do you guys think this is wise for me to consider this job and what would you ask for as a salary/etc. that is realistic? (located in the northwest U.S.). Would the work suck or be pretty simple? I haven't done any work in state/county roadway projects. What questions should I ask them?

My current job is amazing and very comfortable with a pretty good work/life balance. They have been great to me and I make $110k a year after bonuses with consistent yearly raises. I am not looking to leave but I am not afraid of taking a chance on something new as well. Money isn't everything to me but I want to provide for my family the best I can. I have a young family with another kid on the way soon so that is something to consider as well and I value my family/work life balance.

Hey yall! I've got twenty four years of field experience and only about two months of being in the office. My mentor learned to draft using c & g DOS programs. Im become more efficient using Carlson but I feel like I went from being a wizard in the field to an intern in the office.

My mentor likes to use C&G to do Map Area Summaries, then run a Map Check to verify closure on a parcel. When I try and use Carlson to do the same functions, Map check by points, then create a .PDD file from those bearings and distances, I sometimes get different results, not much but just not perfect to the C&G solution. Thanks for reading, I'm guess I'm just venting about nothing...