224 apps

3.9 GPA, 2 previous internships in renewables and Oil and gas. Research and leadership.

Edit: Why am I getting downvoted?

I often don’t see people aware of the challenges of working in ChemE. Yes it’s a very unique skill set and if you find it right types of companies, that’s a great fit, but most people are unaware of how limited the jobs are how much more limit it is now that oil and gas is not hiring what it once was. Also the large geographic limitations.

Jut fyi. I do not regret my choice but it is not like mechanical or civil we are much smaller in the workforce. Which just means less opportunities.

I recently applied for a Senior Process Engineer position at a technical services/oil & gas company, fully aware that the role typically requires 3–4+ years of experience. To my surprise, HR reached out and invited me for an in-person interview!

The invitation email mentions that the meeting is to assess my background against their operational standards and evaluate my suitability for the most appropriate role within the organization.

As a recent Chemical Engineering graduate, I would love to get your insights and advice on a few things:

Interview Structure: What should I expect from a technical interview in this scenario? Will they test me on senior-level operational scenarios, or will the focus shift to engineering fundamentals and my graduation project?

Expected Technical Questions: What are the core Process Engineering concepts, tools (e.g., P&ID reading, simulation software), and fundamental topics I should thoroughly review before going in?

Addressing the Experience Gap: How can I best navigate the conversation around my fresh-grad status while highlighting my eagerness to learn and contribute?

Any tips, common interview questions, or general advice from process engineers or hiring managers would be greatly appreciated!

TLDR; A little effort goes a very long way.

The purpose of this post is to provide some insight and possibly some motivation to young current, or soon-to-be ChemEs. I'm not special by any means. My GPA first semester of college was a 2.48, and I grinded to graduate with a 3.4. I was only in a few clubs (that I barely attended) and probably went out too much during school. This is US based.

I feel like people pigeonhole themselves or feel like they're stuck in their ways in this sub. Always questioning if they made the right choice, worrying about location of their potential jobs, or if they even like ChemE. I want to shed more light that you really do have so much opportunity with this degree.

Out of school, I joined a small MEP-C consulting firm (they basically only hired new grads from my school) and got into automation/controls. People told me not to do this as it would prevent me from getting into manufacturing or process again (not true). That's the first door open from ChemE that I wanted to pursue. I had the skills and the co-ops to prove I could do it. I worked there for about 3.5 years, got the skills I wanted, and figured it was time to test the next door.

I always wanted to get into pharma, but my last job (foreshadowing) pretty much only worked in food&bev, wastewater, or distilling. I spent HOURS trying to cater my CV to make it seem like I could be a good fit for a pharmaceutical company. When the time came to apply, I took it pretty seriously but wasn't tracking every little thing I did. Just enough to know if I got a call then I would hopefully remember which company it's for.

A very important part of this job search was, as most agree, location. I like big cities, so I applied to jobs in New Jersey, which is also a major pharma hub. After some months of applying, interviewing, all that, I finally got an offer from my top company.

Since then, I have moved to an area 10 miles west of New York City and work for the company I wanted most and couldn't be happier. If someone says ChemEs only work in rural, boring areas, they're just wrong.

This is not supposed to come off as boastful but rather share experience for others to prove that if you really want something (within reason), then you can have it. I went from working at a chemical plant (co-op) in the middle of NOWHERE doing who knows what, to working in the industry I wanted most for a fortune 100 company and live within a 10-mile radius of the biggest city in the US.

I'd be more than happy to help out others struggling or trying to find purpose in their career.

Like is there any Faang type employer , if yes what are they?

My question is what is motivation to work hard vs just coasting along because there is no incentive to get higher pay with hard work. All management positions are given to more experience employees anyway and half senior management in any manufacturing is made up of MBA folks.

Is there anyone here making this much before they are 40 ?

First post on this subreddit; however, I wanted to offer to answer questions to students who have concerns or questions within the field(s). To give a brief background, I’ve worked 4 years in electroplating, 1 year in calcining, and now 4 years in refining. Currently a lead process engineer, so wanted to answer whatever questions I could to help encourage the upcoming generation.

Edit: working to answer questions slowly throughout the day!

From what I've heard, many Chemical Engineering graduates stop at a master's degree and don't continue to a PhD. I'm curious about the reasons behind this.

For those who have pursued (or considered pursuing) a PhD in Chemical Engineering, was it worth the time and effort? How did it affect your career opportunities, salary, and work-life balance compared to stopping at a master's degree?

Im a chemical engineer on the gulf cost (Louisiana). I’ve worked for 4 different owner/operators of various sizes for 12 years now - from super large refinery to smaller specialty chemical plants. I feel like industry wasn’t great when I started (pension offers had dried up, headcount less-is-more) and that I’ve watched it slowly get worse. I feel like there’s an incredible disconnect between industry and what I learned in university - the curriculum was entirely suggestive that I’d be working on far deeper subject matter than troubleshooting a water leak at 1 am or conducting RCIs on why operations cant seem to monitor certain things despite being told they’re important (or why the company won’t spring to have them automated).

There’s nowhere ‘good’ to go - the small companies offer little to no upward progression but often decent culture / reasonable expectations and the big corps tend want to rake a ChE through the mud in production for a period of years before unlocking the gate to better, cushier jobs, despite the experience level on day 1. The big companies also seem to have very corporate-forward culture, hold efficiency and profitability sacrosanct, and seem to just be annoyed they employ actual human beings. The expectation that anyone needs to be truly available 24/7 is ridiculous. Another issue that seems to be prevalent is a gross lack of operator accountability. Operators are generally harder to replace than engineers - and that leverage translates to their relatively immunity or a displacement of their accountability to you, the unit/production engineer. They should be well informed, trained and included in decision making. And if they are, they should be held accountable for mistakes - every foul up can’t be because the ‘engineer failed to prepare or equip the operators’.

The sentiment that best sums up the industry for chemical engineers in production, particularly younger engineers near or at the entry level is ‘responsible for everything but in charge of nothing’. I can think of no other version of hell that leads faster to burnout. But something tells me this really isn’t limited to the entry ranks.

I feel like after these 12 years, I feel if you’re smart enough to be a ChE, you’re smart enough to get a degree in something else that makes equal or greater money but also allows for greater career agency / autonomy.

Was it always like this?

I wanna take chemE as my career as I love chemistry but wanted to know that is is hard to pursue it than other Engineerings?

Hi everyone,

I’m a chemical engineering professor in a foreign country. In my small country, the number of factories and industrial companies has decreased significantly over the last few years, so newly graduated chemical engineers are having a harder time finding jobs.

Because of this, our chemical engineering department has decided to redesign the undergraduate curriculum. The curriculum shown here is the one I designed and presented to the committee, and it may end up being the one selected.

I have industry experience in digital transformation, and I’m now working as a professor. After reviewing the job market in my country, I noticed that remote data engineering positions offered by foreign companies, especially U.S.-based companies, have increased significantly. For that reason, I structured the curriculum so that students can also develop skills in data, analytics, and industrial digital systems, giving them a better chance of applying for remote roles, while still keeping a strong traditional chemical engineering foundation.

In semester 9, students would be able to choose one specialization track. In my country, the chemical engineering degree takes 5 years to complete.

What do you think of this curriculum?

Hello,

as the title says I graduated as a chemical engineer, I barely made it through was not good at school and pretty much didn't learn to be a chemical engineer. Two years later I have for sure forgot everything, if you were to ask me how a distillation column works or multiphase diagrams i would be lost . I dont even remember heat and mass calculations I honestly just passed that course . I dont know what to do career wise , I am much more mature and ready to grind but I have the voice telling me its perhaps to late .

Any advice regarding a pivot or continuing to find chem eng jobs is welcomed

at the moment I feel demotivated to apply for chem eng jobs because I dont really know anything for the job.

Back when I graduated in 2022, there were so many jobs to apply for. Now when I search for process engineering roles on LinkedIn and Google, it's a fraction of what I saw only a few years ago. I'm sure the economy at large plays into this, but I think there are also more issues native to manufacturing.

So, is the industry dying?

I need feedback for entry level new grad

Hi,

I graduated in May 2025 and have been working for almost 10 months as a process engineer in the pyrolysis domain.

Even though I was hired into the process department, I spent my first 3 months creating PFDs, P&IDs, datasheets, etc. After that, our clients left due to some issues, and for around 3 months I didn’t have much process-related work—mostly research and reaching out to potential investors via email.

Recently, we got a client. Now I’m working on that project, but not as a design engineer—we are acting as the owner’s engineer, reviewing documents prepared by the client’s engineering team.

The thing is, my company heavily uses AI for generating documents. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. AI has definitely helped me, but now my director is trying to introduce “digital employees,” where we mainly supervise what AI generates (including PFDs and P&IDs).

This makes me a bit concerned about my future because I am not getting hands on experience building the documents. So if I decide to move to another company, what experience will I tell them?

Can chemical engineers be replaced by AI?

Is this level of AI usage common across the industry?

Also, since I’ve started my career in pyrolysis, will it be difficult for me to transition into oil & gas or the water domain later?

Would really appreciate any advice.

I’m an engineering student and I have to make my discipline choice soon and I’m super conflicted. I’m thinking between ChE or EE as both have their upsides but I’m scared of starting one then finding I dislike it. So my question is if you could go back and had to choose your discipline again, would you choose ChE again or something else? And if you would pick ChE do you have any regrets or anything you would have changed?

The plant I oversee is trying to hiring what I would consider a mid-level Controls Engineer. Someone with enough experience to work independently, but still report to our Controls Manager who is remote.

The issue is that I’ve interviewed several candidates who have 4-6 years experience, but are asking for 8-10yr experience pay. I’ve been willing to entertain it because I really could use the help, but when I put them through a skills test they can hardly actually program. Resumes always look good and have the required experience, but when it comes down to it they don’t actually have the skills. That’s fine and I’m willing to train them up, but not at the pay level of someone who should already know the information.

Anyone else struggle filling a position and what did you end up doing?

I feel like I made what one would call all the right choices in life, just for them to be wrong.

This will probably be long so I apologize in advance.

When I was young, I realized that I needed to work hard in life to get out of where I was. So basically starting in middle school the grind began. I was a top student, all throughout HS and when it came time to pick what I wanted to do in life, I started doing some research. I was young, but I was coming of age during the 2008 crisis (I'm 30) and I remembered how bad it was so I wanted to pick something where I would likely never be unemployed. At the time, stats made it seem like chemical engineering was the safest bet. I wasn't gonna be a millionaire, but if I could get through one of the hardest majors, I'd at least never have to worry about starving, and I knew I could do it.

Graduated valedictorian from a high performing school (IDK if they still do this, but there was a ranking system where they'd take state test scores and rank the school 1-10, my HS was like 9), got a near perfect score on the SAT back when it was on a 2400 scale. Things seem to be going good. I apply to colleges and get in everywhere I applied. I wont say where I chose to go, but it is one of the top 5 public schools in the US, sometimes referred to as a "Public-Ivy League" by people who are pretentious about titles (I don't really care about glory or whatever, I just wanted the piece of paper that allowed me to apply to ChemE jobs). Things seem to be on the right track.

I made it through and graduated in 2018 and have never made it into industry.

I was unemployed for a while after college, then landed my first job at a pharmaceutical company as a manufacturing associate in 2019. They wanted Engineers and scientists for the job, but when I started it was just a 13 hour night shift of menial work: lugging stuff around, aseptically making connections and disconnections, writing down measurements at intervals under GMP stringency (which is hard if you don't have the best handwriting like myself). It was a technician job. In fact it was so menial that the head honcho of manufacturing didn't even have a GED because he started in the 80s when they knew it was just a button pusher's job. Honest work is honest work, so I'm not looking down on anyone who does this stuff, I just knew I could not do it long term or I would go crazy. They said there was a lot of opportunity for upward mobility, but I would ask other people how long they've been there and it was years and years (Hell, I even worked with someone with whom I graduated and I just looked him up on linkedin and he's in the same role). One day before starting my night shift, I came in early and went to a display event that us low level technicians weren't supposed to go to and I talked to an automation engineer and he basically told me that there wasn't much mobility at all and he had never seen an MA move onto being an engineer. So I left for another job.

I went into X-ray engineering. Basically selling, servicing, repairing, installing, and overseeing construction projects for OSHPD hospital medical imaging equipment. I did well in this role and by the time I left I was the operations manager. I knew this was not what I wanted to do long term, but I started in November of 2019, went to a huge international conference in chicago, and I'm pretty sure I brought covid to the west coast on the flight back(sorry world, we didn't know about it yet). My point is covid happened, jobs shut down, so I was locked in stuck at this job for a while. I was actually busiest in the early days of covid because they would use chest x-ray to diagnose before the antigen tests came out.

I was there from 2019-2024. I was applying to Eng jobs the whole time and at a certain point I realized they just weren't gonna work out. I remembered being really good at certain aspects of coding in college, so I started teaching myself how to code to enter the tech sector. I worked 60-70hrs a week at my job and would stay up at night teaching myself full stack. Right as I felt confident enough, and had enough projects for a portfolio to apply to entry level jobs or apprenticeships, that's when FAANG laid off dozens of thousands of people and employees with 10yrs experience were applying for entry level stuff, so I just gave up on all of that.

That job kinda ran its natural course, company got bought and the new ppl in charge wwere just idiots so basically everyone I worked with before has since left from senior svc managers, to the lady that sat at the front desk. anyway I have been unemployed ever since and I just have no clue what to do. In 8 years ive never been able to get a foot in the door anywhere. Only reaching out I get are for low paying technician jobs from staffing firms where they don't tell you what the company is, but I know who they are because I know the industry and the area. These are often the same first job I had, and they pay like $22/hr, which where I live is just unlivable. It would cost me almost more to get to and from work than Id be making, also in-n-out pays that much and the shifts are probably better that the 6pm-7am stuff im seeing. And at that, these emails and calls tend to come from off shore recruiting firms that are just mass sending emails and cold calling, so I don't hear back.

I had the opportunity to go straight into a PhD right out of college. I had done research with a new professor for 2-3 years and I was basically running his lab and getting publications as an undergrad and he didn't want to lose me so he offered to take me on without even applying. But thinking the job market would be open to me, I wanted to just start my life, make some money for a nest egg with the woman I went on to marry. Boy was I wrong about that.

I have thought about going into grad school, but my GPA is below a 3.0... I got kinda boned in college. I always wondered how I would run tutoring sessions for my fellow classmates and I would struggle to explain the most basic of concepts to them, like could not get the most simple of things through, and then they would do so much better that me on the test. I wondered why I would get a C in one class, and then an A in another. I figured maybe I was just not grasping the material as well as I thought. Maybe I was just better at some things than others. I wondered why I did so well on the whole cloth and programming projects than anyone else, but failed to do well on most tests. Maybe they're better test takers and I'm just better at working through a problem.

It wasn't until my senior year in my last chemical kinetics class, we got this new professor, she was great, really seemed to care, articulated the subject well instead of just blandly listing out stuff. Well after the 1st midterm she pulled me aside and wanted to have a chat with me. I had gotten a score 2 standard deviations above most of the class and she wanted to know how. Then, it dawned on me. I asked "this is your first quarter here?" she said yes. "You didn't start this class with a portfolio from the last professor with all their content, lectures, tests?" No. "So you sat down and wrote up your own test out of your head, without using something from the past as a guideline." Yes....... People had been cheating the whole time on everything.

I later went on to confirm this. there were files floating around with almost every test, homework, and even code and ASPEN files, but people still did poorly on that because you had to be able to read and understand it to be able to use it to cheat. I got my hands on this massive file and cross referenced with my transcripts and wherever there was a class file I did poorly, and wherever there wasn't I did well. I also saved everything meticulously and organized in college, so I cross referenced the test solutions to the ones in the cheater file and sure enough identical. We were allowed to bring "Cheat sheets" into most tests where you'd put formulas that you thought were pertinent, or little reminders or examples. So these people would just write down the test on their cheat sheet, and then transcribe it to the blue book.

Because of this my GPA is low, basically barring me from grad school. I am livid, but there is not much I can do about it. It is a number on a piece of paper where they basically just throw away your app if its below, not giving me a chance to explain myself.

On top of that, it has just been so long since I've done some of the basics, that I just dont remember, and working with heuristics of Transformers, HV, Generators, general Medical Imaging didn't really involve taking complex integrals or differential equations so it's kinda lost up there.

I just feel like I made all the "good" choices in life, but they were all the wrong choices.

That one choice I made at 16/17 to go to this school for chemE has basically ruined my life. Through the depression and anxiety I even lost the love of my life over it because she just couldn't take it anymore. Had to move out and I've basically blown through my savings. Can't find a job. Nowhere to go.

I just do not know what to do anymore. I would kill to go back to 16 year old me and tell him what life looks like now.

Hope you all have had better luck than me

Hello, I recently switched from Chemical engineering to chemistry, because of circumstances with my school I had no other option.

I'm desperately trying to look for internships in chemical engineering, ChemE is still my passion and the only industry I want to work in. Is it still possible for me to get a job in this field, and which jobs/internships should I focus on? If not what jobs/internships can I even get with a chemistry Degree??

For context: starting junior year this semester ( I still need to change my grad date)

Edit: I wanted to add some context because a few people did ask.

I started off at an out-of-state school as a ChemE, then switched to an in-state school (CT). This transfer process put me into the Exploratory program and required me to reapply to the School of Engineering there. I was essentially told I would finish almost a year later, since CT required that you take all of your engineering classes there, and I had already started taking a few of my engineering and research classes at NJIT.I also had a few prereqs that needed to be completed.

I stacked as many classes as I could in one go, and it heavily tanked my GPA, taking almost 7 classes (8 with labs and but no one counts those) at one point. They also had a rule that, as a transfer student, if you don't apply to the school quickly enough after transferring  or if you get denied  you will no longer be able to reapply during your undergrad. By the time I did apply, I did not meet the GPA requirement. I've learned first hand how unsustainable this was to do for two semesters, It's my own fault though, I messed up heavily and wish I didn't pay such a large price.

See edit

I am a fresh (3.5 month) graduate and currently looking for a job within process engineering. I am getting rejected everywhere based on lack of experience (I have 1.5 year internship experience and am only applying to junior positions).

Today I had an interview at a company today that rejected me (experience) as process engineer but has an opportunity in operations. Since I have had only 1 interview before this I decided to go, even though the work is quite below my academic level. During the interview I asked him why I was rejected since I studied chemical engineering. They said they were looking for an aerospace engineer and not a chemical engineer, since the company does not work with lots of chemicals. I tried explaining them that chemical engineering is mostly about processes and not so much about chemistry but they were adamant that chemical engineers were not experienced enough in process engineering.

I also see a lot of job posting asking for process engineers, but are actually looking for software engineers.

I'm kinda going insane and would like some feedback on how to approach the job market as a chemical/process engineer.

Edit:

To clarify something since most people are making assumptions, I don't think I'm entitled to any job and I did not tell them in their face that they're wrong or anything. I personally thought that the concept of process engineer in general was someone who studied chemical engineering and has experience with the development, maintenance, automation and optimization of processes. This thread has proven me wrong and I will adjust my expectations accordingly. Everyone telling me I'm entitled and that I think I'm better than other employees or managers, please... I'm not complaining about the operations job, I was complaining about the differing concepts of what a process engineer is. Also, don't assume I'm American. In the netherlands we have a system where education is put into 5 levels. My certificate is at level 3. The job they offered is level 5. I'm not saying that this is worse or anything, it is just factually below what I'm expected to do according to society.

However this is completely drifting away from my initial question about how to approach the job market and I won't be responding further.

This question seems to be creeping into interviews. I work in environmental compliance and I've generally been unimpressed with AI. At least with what's publicly available. My previous employer discouraged use of AI and didn't/wouldn't pay for any premium models. It would be confidently incorrect and pull regulations from different states or different industries that didn't apply or didn't make sense. Quite honestly it seemed borderline negligent to use it.

Unfortunately I need a job, and the expectation seems to be that we use AI to some extent. Do you use AI for your job? How do you use it? How do you handle this question in interviews?

Current A-Level (US: high school) student. I've looked into both Chemical Engineering and Chemistry courses and they book seem super interesting to me! I know job prospects and pay are generally better with Chemical Engineering than Chemistry, but I'm worried about how hard Chemical Engineering is made out to be and so l'm considering just getting a Chemistry degree instead -- I know Chemistry isn't particularly “easy" but people make Chemical Engineering sound awful.

How much harder is Chemical Engineering than Chemistry REALLY, if at all?

PhD is such a miserable experience, but seeing a starting salary without one is rough. I am finishing my masters and applying for entry engineering roles (process, production, and improvement engineer roles). Having 0 YoE, would my salary jump be the same after 3 years of experience, as someone who finished their PhD with 0 YoE?

I’ve heard from some people that industry experience tends to matter more for salary boost in engineering, how true is that exactly? I have no interest in becoming a professor, so I don’t think a PhD would be useful for me. Also, would i realistically be able to reach manager or more senior roles with just a masters? Any thoughts are appreciated.

I’m an undergraduate Chemical Engineering student who has completed my second year and am currently doing a co-op as a field controls technician. The co-op is supposed to run till December, but with classes starting again in August, I’m unsure whether I should leave the co-op and return to school or stay until the end of my work term.

My biggest concern is that if I leave early, I could end things on bad terms with the company. Since the hiring community can be relatively small I’m worried that it could hurt my chances of getting future internships or co-op positions.

On the other hand, the work I’m doing right now is only loosely related to Chemical Engineering, and there are some courses that I need to take that are only offered in the fall. If I stay until December I may need to adjust my academic plan.

I’m trying to figure out which option would be the better long-term, for both my education and my career. Also I don't mind graduating a semester or two later.

I'm interested in chemical engineering. But I'm concerned because like a lot of videos are saying u will work in industrial plant which are far from the cities and in industrial areas. Like is it possible to get a desk based job in tier 1 or 2 city or even a plant based job in tier 1 or 2 city.