r/civilengineering

I am considering leaving my job. After our performance review, I got high remarks but no increase in my salary. Instead now I have been told I have received a $300 bonus which they will tax and take a percentage of my 401k. This leaves me with about $120 I might as well buy 2 scratch off tickets and a case of coors light. This is what I worked for so hard last year a case of beer! Meanwhile the office manager will take all the department managers to Lunch and exceed the bonus they are giving me on the bill. Civil Engineering! Gotta love it

Government organization. My coworker and I work on a project together. She is the PM and I am the technical lead.

She is heavy into Linked In. Was messaged by a “online magazine” who wanted to do an article about her. This magazine seems like a weird scam rag where they target people who love talking about themselves and get them to buy ad space in exchange for publishing an article about themselves. Little to no technical content.

She shows me the article, where she takes credit for all my work. I am pissed and go to my manager who tells her she can’t publish it because it doesn’t fit the values of our org.

Last week she came complaining to me again. Turns out she convinced a company we contract with to buy ad space in this magazine for upwards of $2000+. But now she is not allowed to put her fluff piece in it. She hasn’t told our manager this detail.

Is this not essentially a conflict of interest where the contractor is buying her publicity? Wouldn’t you maybe feel obligated to the contractor after this to make decisions in their favour since they paid for an ad for your article to run?

I started working at a private company over three years ago, and it took me a few months to get to know project managers and build relationships so I could consistently secure work and stay busy enough to meet my utilization targets. For the past three years, I’ve met those targets and received consistent raises.

However, starting this year, I’ve been struggling to meet my utilization goals almost every month. When I bring this up to PMs and managers, their typical response is, “We’ll keep you in mind for upcoming projects,” or “Don’t worry, it will be fine.” Meanwhile, most people in my group seem to be fairly busy.

What might I be missing here? What else can I do to improve my situation?

for those civil engineers in the usa, if you could start over, would you still do civil engineer knowing what you know now? why? and what are you currently doing now?

I've briefly worked in design, and currently work in construction, but I have no experience with the municipality side of work, and I was just wondering how that goes. I'm honestly disenchanted with my job since I didn't particularly want to work construction anyways, and saw a posting one town over that got me questioning what city work is like.

Got a job offer that does rotates 4 12s and 3 12s with hours 5am to 5pm for day and vice versa for nights. I have never had a job with irregular hours like this. What is everyone’s thoughts on a schedule like this? It’s an operations type role with good benefits and pays overtime on anything over 80hrs/pay period & holidays multipliers. Is it miserable or worth it? The job itself sounds very interesting just the hours will be a big change.

Got a job offer for fed position that is more in line with what I am interested in with a 25% pay increase for base salary. I would be moving from a consulting job where I mostly like what I do and I am about to sit for PE exam & get licensed immediately after passing.

My current job promised two separate raises with a promotion and then another for my PE. I’m not sure if those two combined would equal the 25% increase for the new job but the fed position comes with no incentive for obtaining PE until you’re able to promote to the next position. But fed job has some shift work hours in the schedule that pay 1.5 to 2.0 the equivalent hourly so a few more thousand a year on top of base pay.

Torn if I would be setting myself back long term by chasing the immediate pay bump/interesting & niche work vs staying in transportation consulting/design.

Anyone had previously worked and/or currently working at these companies? Please share your experience tysm!

What are your guys thoughts on this? Would a MBA be more useful in the civil engineering field after getting a PEng?

Is $95k good for the following position?

10 years of experience in Water/Wastewater as an engineer

PE License

Required Skills & Tools

• Hydraulic modeling (EPANET, WaterGEMS, SewerGEMS, InfoWorks ICM, WSPro, SWMM, ICPR)
• CAD design tools (AutoCAD, Civil 3D, MicroStation), Bluebeam
• GIS tools (ArcGIS, GIS Pro)
• Project management tools (Primavera P6, MS Project, eBuilder, Trimble)
• GIS & Data Tools (ArcGIS, GIS Pro, Power BI, Report Builder, PI Vision, Access)
• Project management and construction oversight
• Strong written and verbal communication

This is for a municipal utility with 12 paid holidays and 4 weeks of PTO. No pension, but they match up to 8% on the 401 (k).

I want to get into engineering, I find it very interesting but I specifically like urban planning in large cities.

Basically im trying to model seepage through a joint between a slab and a footing. The cyan triangles seen below are zero flux boundary conditions with "potential seepage face review" set on, but I cant find any good resource on how its actually calculating it. Do I even need this pink gap?

https://preview.redd.it/7093gjuhiktg1.png?width=589&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c06eea653b4f5ddfa03f0b3bccbe8447fc39cc9

Any help is appreciated.

Hi everyone, I hope you can help me out with this. I’m a bit stuck on how to approach a situation I’m dealing with and would really appreciate some guidance.

I’m dealing with a situation where the contract clearly requires SSPC-SP10, but things don’t quite add up. Initially, the contractor’s records referenced SP6, and now the contractor is claiming SP10 compliance after the fact that the inspection caught into the inconsistency. The coating has already been applied and there are some visible defects, so they submitted documentation to support that everything is acceptable. The photos they provided do look closer to SP10 in some areas, but there’s no clear traceability, no way to link those images to specific locations, components, or even confirm when they were taken. There are no inspection records explicitly stating that SP10 was verified and accepted at the time of surface preparation either.

What’s more concerning is that their own submittal states the QC reports were “updated,” which makes it seem like the records were adjusted later rather than reflecting what was actually verified in real time. On top of that, the manufacturer, who also executed the work, issued a letter stating the surface met SP10, but it reads more like a technical interpretation based on available information than a true inspection record. They’re also leaning heavily on adhesion results and coating performance, almost as if that could replace the requirement for proper surface preparation.

So now it feels like the discussion has shifted from whether they complied with the spec to whether the system “works,” and I’m not sure that’s a valid substitution even if it works for now. It feels like we’re being asked to accept reconstructed documentation instead of actual field verification. Has anyone dealt with something like this before? How do you push back on this kind of argument without it turning into a full dispute?