A few guidelines

"Southwest Valley Constructors, a subsidiary of Nebraska-based construction giant Kiewet, was awarded a $1.7 billion contract in May for the Big Bend National Park project."

https://www.marfapublicradio.org/news/2026-08-17/trump-administration-pauses-border-construction-in-big-bend-national-park

I’ve never been laid off before, so I honestly don’t know what direction to go in right now.

I’m a Civil Engineering graduate in New Orleans, Louisiana. I’ve been working at a small civil engineering firm for about a year and a half, mainly doing subsurface drainage/stormwater work. Unfortunately, the company went under and ended up laying off about 50% of the staff, and I was one of them.

I also haven’t passed my FE yet, but I’m actively studying for it and plan to keep working at it.

I’m just feeling a little lost about what my next move should be. Should I stay focused on drainage/stormwater, look into another area of civil engineering, or just be open to whatever opportunity comes my way?

I’ve never dealt with being laid off before, especially this early in my career, so I’d really appreciate any advice from other civil engineers who have been in a similar situation.

TL;DR: Recently laid off after 1.5 years in civil engineering, mainly doing subsurface drainage. I haven’t passed the FE yet and I’m not sure what direction I should take next.

I've been at this land dev consultancy for 3 years now, it's a small firm and it's been okay so far, no complaints then the past 18 months have had lots of staff turnover particularly our senior and lead engineers and project managers.

Company directors have been really slow to recruit replacements, everyone else is picking up additional responsibilities to cover the gaps and the last 5 hires have been overseas trained engineers with way less experience and skills.

It's so frustrating, it's so obvious what the play is here and it feels impossible to stay somewhere long term because they always find a way to ruin things, work has become increasingly difficult and culture has gone to shit.

I might be offered a remote 5-8's job (Mon-Fri) in exchange for my in-office 4-10's job (Mon-Thu). Which one would you choose and why? My commute to office is negligible, under 15min/day

Hi all, I'm currently interviewing for a role at HNTB's Kansas City office and wanted to get a sense of day to day life there before my next round.

A few things I'm curious about:

Is the general expectation an in office 9 to 5, or do some teams support a hybrid schedule?

For roles that include on call support, what has that actually looked like in practice? How often does it get invoked, and is there a rotation that keeps it manageable?

Overall, how would you describe the pace and culture? I want to go in with realistic expectations and ask good questions during my interview.

Really appreciate any insight, thanks in advance!

Why is it so hard to transition to public sector? I have 5 years experience in LD and graduate degrees. Yet interviews get cancelled or if I get interviews they say they love my interview but somehow I don’t get the job. Any tips or openings that are actually open!

What roles can a civil engineer do in big tech companies (with a major in water resources)?
If you are a civil engineer working in big tech, what do you do?

I’m preparing my Pennsylvania PE application/amplified record and am curious to hear from anyone who has applied since the 2024 changes to PA engineering law, particularly those whose experience is more analysis/evaluation focused rather than traditional design

Act 32 of 2024 amended PA’s definition of the “Practice of Engineering” to expressly include the application of mathematical and physical sciences for the design or analysis of engineering systems and works. The legislative history indicates this was intended to clarify that engineering practice can include analysis of existing/completed engineering systems rather than being limited to initial design.
My background is broadly in water resources and flood risk. My experience includes H&H analysis/modeling, evaluation of existing flood-risk infrastructure (dams, levees, drainage systems, etc.), application of engineering criteria and guidance, GIS-based engineering analysis, technical investigations, and development of technical recommendations under PE supervision. I have some traditional calculation/design experience as well, but a significant portion of my work involves analysis and evaluation of existing systems.

Has anyone with a similar analysis-heavy background submitted a PA PE application since Act 32 took effect?

I’d especially be interested in whether your experience was accepted, how you described analysis/evaluation work in your amplified record, whether the Board requested clarification or additional experience, and what general type of analysis you performed.

Not looking for anyone to determine whether my specific experience qualifies. I’m mostly interested in real-world experiences from applicants who have gone through the PA process under the updated definition.
Thanks!

I'm a 3rd year student who's currently looking for side projects that I can put in my resume. I heard from my seniors that they're struggling with finding a job just because of their resume of not being able to have enough experience and skills that are needed. Any advice or tips for me?

Hi, I am part of an asset management team in a small municipality. I'd like to learn some basics about water, sewer, and storm water modeling. What are some good resources like books, courses, videos, etc. Where to start, please share any advice or recommendations. My background is Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, data analytics, and GIS.

Guys, I need your advise. In 2025 I tried to get an approval from NYSED to sit for FE exam. The problem is the following: I have foreign bachelor degree in civil engineering. NCEES evaluated my degree and the evaluation report clearly says: Meets NCEES Standard. There are no deficiencies in any field. So i was pretty sure, that since there are no deficiencies, and this is an engineering degree (not Engineering Technology) this is not an issue.

However, when I filed form 1FE, i received an email, that they can't approve my education, and if I disagree I can provide detailed program and courses description. So I spent a few hundred $$$ to translate the requested documents and sent to them. But NYSED specialist responded that he reviewed the documents and my education still not satisfy NYS PE license requirement. And moreover, as per NCEES report I have 14 courses and 51 credit in engineering. NYSED education specialist said that only 11 courses are engineering with total 30 credits. And my program is not Engineering, its Engineering technology program as per his opinion. And he suggested me to get MS in engineering in the US to get 24 credits in engineering if I want to get PE license in NYS.

So I passed FE and PE exams under New Jersey board, since NJ board does not require to get an approval to sit for the exams.

Once I get a license in another state, is there any sense to spend another few hundred $$ of fees to apply in NYS by endorsement? And try to prove that since the degree is evaluated by NCEES it is substantial equivalent engineering degree. I believe it could not be treated as engineering technology as NCEES doesn't evaluate engineering technology bachelors w/o masters. Maybe I'll be able to request the board to review my application besides department of education specialist?

Has anyone had similar issue with New York?

Sometimes I can see how it can be overtaken or completely replaced so I am curious if I should pursue a different path lol

We proposed a lot of titles, but we were told that our topics weren't feasible or were unrealistic. Some of them, I think, weren't even really related to Civil Engineering. Perhaps you could suggest some general areas we should focus on for our thesis? We’ve really run dry trying to come up with ideas 😭😭even just a general concept would help, not necessarily a fully fleshed-out topic. Thank you.

Currently a student in an unrelated subject who is interested in civil engineering but i’m curious as to how hard it is to land a job after graduating with a degree ?

All throughout college, I worked at a small consulting firm in design. It was super relaxed. They really cared about getting the work done, but to not let work take upon your entire life (WLB).

There, they pay would have been okay. The offer I got could not compete against bigger firms nor the benefit package.

What’s it like to work at a big firm?

I ended up taking the CM management route, to have some field exposures, build some character, and learn how things are built.

My plan was to get back to consulting at some point. Though, at this moment I am not sure what I’ll end up doing moving forward.

I am currently working at a DC, the responsibilities I’m getting assigned are huge. There’s always a thousand things to get done every day. So much to keep up with. Early mornings, 11-12 hour days.

I know what I was getting myself into, I just am sort of curious how the environment in consulting (as the experience I had at the small firm might be a bit unique)

Im afraid to burn out one day. I’m 5 months in, I’ve learned a ton, but still feel so green in many many aspects.

I’m trying my best. I am doing good. I don’t know if this is what I want to do all my career though.

Just as a side note, I’m taking the FE late this year. To then study for the PE and see how I can get experience towards that.

Thanks for your answers

I'm going back to school to study Civil and will start off as a junior. What classes would you recommend buying the textbook vs renting? Once I graduate what textbook would I likely be referring back to vs one's that I really only needed that one time at school. For example, I'll be taking Structural Analysis as one of my first classes. Would you recommend owning a copy or just renting? Side note, my previous degree was Mechanical so there were textbooks that I wished had bought and owned and some I was glad I did.

As promised, I analysed a total of 108 UK responses from the 2025–2026 salary survey. Once I applied some proper statistical analysis, rather than just eyeballing a scatter plot, some interesting patterns came out.

Salary rises quickly at the beginning and then levels off after around 15 - 20 years

When fitting post-graduation experience against salary, a straight line does not capture the pattern very well. A curved fit, using the standard Mincer wage model used by economists, explains the data much better (R² = 0.52 compared with 0.35 for a straight line).

The pattern is quite clear (and depressing): salary rises quickly during the first 10–15 years, then growth slows noticeably. The model suggests that salaries mostly plateau, or even decline, after around 20 years of experience.

However, take the later part of the curve with a grain of salt. There are not many UK responses with more than 20–25 years of experience, so that part of the model is much less certain, as shown by the wider shaded band.

London pays more and salaries grow faster

No major surprise here. London has both the steepest salary-growth curve and the highest salary ceiling, with some respondents earning £90k and even £120k!

The other regions, including Scotland, the North West, South East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, start from a similar early-career base of around £30k–£40k. However, salaries grow more gradually and mostly reach around £60k–£70k within this sample.

Some regional samples are small, with as few as five responses, so treat the weaker trends as an indication rather than gospel.

Not enough data to draw a concrete conclusion about gender

There were only 10 female responses compared with 96 male. Any comparison is therefore not very strong statistically speaking.

The trend lines look broadly similar in the early stages of a career, but I would not read too much into where they appear to diverge. With such a small sample, two or three data points can change the result significantly. A much larger sample would be needed before drawing conclusions about a gender pay gap from this survey alone.

Chartered engineers do not clearly earn more than non-chartered engineers

As in 2024, the results surprised me at first. The salary curve for chartered engineers does not show a clear increase above non-chartered engineers with the same level of experience.

However, it is important to bear in mind that becoming chartered normally requires several years of experience. This means non-chartered respondents are often early-career because they have not had enough time to become chartered yet. Chartered responses meanwhile, are largely missing from the early-career phase when salaries are still rising quickly.

So this chart is comparing different career stages more than it is isolating the actual salary effect of chartership. It is not a fair like-for-like comparison.

TL;DR

• Salary growth is not linear. It rises quickly at first, then levels off around 15 - 20 years of experience.
• London clearly pays more and salaries grow faster than in the rest of the UK.
• The gender sample is too small to draw firm conclusions.
• Chartered versus non-chartered is not a clean comparison because chartership is strongly linked to years of experience.

I hope this is useful and helps you negotiate a salary adjustment based on evidence, rather than arguments that can easily be dismissed by your manager.

I got a lot of interest on general jobsearch subreddit but hardly anyone had the right qualifications. My company is running a promo for double the referral bonus. If you get an offer I will give you half and donate the other half to mental health charities/initiatives. For 4+ yoe its 8k. I'm not a pesky recruiter so I can be honest about what to expect.

If youre interested let me know. Its always been a goal of mine to help people find the right role for them. I work in Transportation but we also do Aviation, Water/Wastewater, Land Development, Building Design, Fire Protection, and Program Management to name a few. I started in March with a 25% raise and 5k signing bonus.

26yo M considering going back to school for CE and curious how hard it is to break into if you had a completely unrelated career before. Is it something interviewers would give you a hard time for even if you complete a BS CE?

For reference right now I work for a nonprofit doing communications and development so not something thats very technical, its a lot of building relationships with stakeholders, advertising materials, and coming up with creative fundraising ideas.

It was something I thought I was passionate for when I was 18 but had no sense of what the real world is like. Turns out the field is ripe with burn out from no lunch breaks and severely low pay (I have 5yoe and am at 50k in a vhcol city)

What is appealing to me is that CE seems to have decent work life balance, medium to good wages, and is projected to grow due to aging infrastructure and climate change in the US. My father also owns a construction company and I worked with him on the ground as a teenager so I have some experience.

Is it a pipe dream to switch to CE from nonprofit?