field engineer Career Path | See the Career Paths People Really Take

senior estimator

business owner

project manager

petroleum engineer

civil engineer

field engineer

construction manager

engineering intern

engineering technician

project engineer

The Business Owner operates their own companies. Their role is creating a business plan, arranging finances, hiring staff, reviewing sales, and developing marketing strategies.  Their responsibilities are overseeing daily activities, identifying business opportunities, establishing prices of goods and services, maintaining a clean and orderly store, resolving customer complaints, and compiling and maintaining records and bookkeeping.

Do you like working with your hands and pushing yourself? Check out what it's like to be a Painter and Independent Contractor. See what it takes to be your own boss, and if this role suits your lifestyle and skill set.

<h2 dir="ltr">What I do:</h2>
<p dir="ltr">I'm an independent contractor and I work in construction. I do both residential and commercial painting and that leads into both interior and exterior repaints and new construction. I don't have any employees, it's just me sometimes I sub out work.&nbsp;</p>
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<h2 dir="ltr">Career Skills:</h2>
<p dir="ltr">You have to be healthy, you know, there's a lot of times when you're up on a ladder, you push yourself to your limits a lot, you can work out that there's a lot of roof work sometimes. That having a willingness to learn new things is huge if you're not learning something new every day, you're doing it wrong.&nbsp;</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Job Challenges:&nbsp;</h2>
<p dir="ltr">You really do push yourself to the limits a lot but I really like that challenge personally. That's one aspect that I really enjoy about my job is that I'm working with my hands and I'm physically pushing myself every day.&nbsp;</p>
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<h2 dir="ltr">Work Life Balance:</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Sometimes my work to life balance is pretty sporadic. Most of the time there's not much life balance if you would. When you are working alone and you're on a kind of a larger project it comes time to get that done and you're going to work the weekends, you're going to work late, when you're outside, you're in the sun all day, you're going to come home tired and you're not going to want to do anything, at least for me that's that's the case.&nbsp;</p>
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<h2 dir="ltr">Tips for Starting Your Own Business:</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Be determined, have goals and plans and work towards them every single day. Find good construction companies to get in with and they're gonna help you throughout your entire career.</p>

A civil engineer applies engineering principles to new and existing municipal infrastructure.  A civil engineer performs engineering duties in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures, and facilities, like roads, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, dams, irrigation projects, pipelines, power plants, and water and sewage systems.

A Construction Manager is responsible for overseeing and managing the planning, coordination, budgeting, and construction of building projects. This includes supervising staff members; coordinating subcontractors; ordering materials; scheduling inspections; obtaining necessary permits and licenses; ensuring safety protocols are followed at all times; monitoring progress to ensure that deadlines are met on time, within budget and to a high quality standard. The manager will also be expected to keep up with industry trends in order to make sure their team is using the most efficient methods available. They must possess strong leadership skills as they will be responsible for motivating workers in order to get tasks completed efficiently.

Discover a unique pathway in the construction management industry. From career progression and daily responsibilities to challenges and rewards, learn how this executive role balances financial management and leadership.

<h2>My Career Path in Construction Management</h2><p>My current job title is Vice President of Finance, and I work for a construction company.</p><p>The way I got into this role is by earning a degree in construction management. Most people with that degree start as project engineers. From there, they might move up to senior project engineers, assistant project managers, project managers, and eventually senior project managers or executives. However, very few transition into a role like Vice President of Finance.</p><p>For me, the opportunity came while I was a senior project manager. The company I worked for had an opening for a CFO, and after 12 years in project management, I became curious about what a CFO does. I raised my hand and expressed interest, asking to be taught the role. From there, I stepped into the position and eventually became Vice President of Finance.</p><h2><br></h2><h2>Current Role Responsibilities&nbsp;</h2><p>An average day or week in this position involves financial analysis of the company's projects, profitability, and relationships with owners. Beyond that, a key focus is maintaining relationships with people within the company. I spend a lot of time connecting with our teams on a personal level, which fosters trust and open communication. This helps ensure that teams feel comfortable sharing both good and bad news.</p><p>When challenges arise, I work with executive staff and project teams to get projects back on track for success. Managing the finances of each construction project is a major responsibility. Project teams send me detailed reports about financial performance and client, consultant, and design team relationships. I use this data to guide teams strategically, ensuring projects remain successful or addressing issues proactively.</p><h2><br></h2><h2>Pros and Cons of Construction Management</h2><p>The role has its pros and cons. On the positive side, the financial rewards of being a construction executive are significant, providing a comfortable living. However, the stress level can be high due to the weight of responsibility. Finding work to keep employees secure is one of the biggest challenges but also one of the most rewarding aspects when you succeed.</p><p>While it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to reach this level, the journey is incredibly fulfilling, especially knowing that your efforts contribute to the success of both projects and the people involved.</p>

Engineering interns typically support experienced engineers, and understand the working environment or culture. Engineering interns are responsible for basic product modification, shadowing actual operations, helping seniors to prepare reports, prepare functional and technical document and collecting information and experience the day-to-day workings of engineering.

An engineering technician is primarily trained in the skills and techniques related to a specific branch of engineering, with a practical understanding of the relevant engineering concepts. Engineering technicians often assist engineers and technologists in projects relating to research and development, or focus on post-development activities like implementation or operation. An engineering technician is between a skilled craft worker and a technologist.

Field engineers spend most of their time in the field or manufacturing site where they help in troubleshooting the problems. They carry out research on the problem and find the root cause of the problem and then fix the issues and ensure everything is working smoothly on sites. Field engineer’s responsibilities include inspecting and installing equipment and new technologies, resolving onsite malfunctions, directing crews or workers on site, conducting research, maintenance of infrastructure and equipment and reporting on project status.

Petroleum engineers design and develop methods for extracting oil and gas from below the earth and sea. Their responsibilities include field evaluation, planning and construction of well and boreholes, analyzing geological locations, supervising extraction sites or oil fields, recording information and preparing detailed reports. They also coordinate with clients and site workers to oversee extraction.

A project engineer applies the principles of engineering to all aspects of a technical project.  They do project planning, schedule preparation, people and capital resource forecasting and management, vendor management, budget oversight. A project engineer ensures that projects are completed according to project plans, trains and manages technical team members as necessary, and often is the technical point of contact for the client or other internal stakeholders.

A Project Manager oversees different projects for a business by monitoring their progress and ensuring that they meet the expectations of the clients.  Their role is coordinating with cross-discipline team members, meeting with team members to identify and resolve issues, submitting project deliverables, and ensuring that the project adheres to quality measures.  Their responsibilities are preparing status reports by gathering, examining and summarizing relevant information, establishing effective project communication plans and ensuring their execution, facilitating change requests to ensure that all parties are informed of the impacts on schedule and budget, identifying and developing new opportunities with clients, obtaining customer acceptance of project deliverables, managing customer satisfaction within the project transition period, conducting post-project evaluations, and identifying successful and unsuccessful project elements.

Calling all organization lovers and friends who do all the planning. Have you considered project management? See what its like to be in project management and tips on how to get into this role.

<h2>What it's like as in Project Management</h2><p>One of my favorite pros with Project Management is you get to work with a bunch of different people. Average day or week is really busy as a project manager because you are not only planning meetings with clients, but you're also planning all the internal communication in order to make sure meetings are successful. I found a lot of my time was spent not only doing research for the clients to make sure the project was a success, but also spending a lot of time creating that communication as well as that project management plan in order to show where we are, where we would be, what risks that we have, and again making the remainder of the entire schedule in order to get to get final completion day.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><h2>Job Requirements</h2><p>The job requirements for a project manager is primarily just to be really organized and to also make sure that you are communicating really well, not only with the clients that you have, but also internally. Because really all we're doing is, I would say it's like event planning. We're making sure people are going, people are organized, and again at the end of the day we're having that fantastic wedding, but in this case it's completing the project. Things happen. Risks come up, issues come up, having a project that is 100% successful and goes according to schedule is honestly quite rare. So you have to be prepared to be aware of the unknown and know how to mitigate those risks in order to make sure that everyone's everyone, not only on the client side, but also for management, anyone else that you want to have working with the client.</p><p><br></p><h2>How to Become a Project Manager</h2><p>In order to become one is kind of just getting your foot in the door anywhere and showing that you're able to go see tasks as well as being demanded or asked from you and as long as you can show that organization and drive, that's a great way to continue to move your team up into the project manager. Having your project management professional certification isn't necessarily required for every job, but it definitely opens up a lot of doors so that you can start excelling faster.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

The Senior Estimator collects and evaluates a company’s data to estimate the costs, resources and labor needed to produce a service or product.  Their role is performing research, gathering quotations, preparing reports, and monitoring forecast plans.  Their responsibilities are to collect different quotes from subcontractors, vendors, and suppliers, monitor budgets and prices using software packages, review and assess cost estimates, prepare detailed cost estimate reports, conduct regular risk assessments, and oversee the different stages of a company project to ensure that expenses follow the forecast plan.

Field Engineer Career Path