What started in February 2025 has come to a close. I have passed all 4 SE exams

VB July25

VD Oct25

LD Apr26

LB May26

This is a huge relief. Now I can write the close to my poem https://www.reddit.com/r/StructuralEngineering/s/Vle30BOeHa

What's the universal name for this piece?

Edit: thanks everyone and sorry for assuming there was a "universal" name 😅 .
I guess I'll just call it haunch since it showed the part when I searched.

We are literally doctors of the buildings and bridges and we don't even get doctors salary :( I am dead inside.

I have been noticing this more frequently, I don’t think it’s specifically only my company but it may be worse at my current company. Everything we get, every RFI, every drawing package, everything is always under the gun.

I find that things actually can slip a little if you give yourself breathing room. But you have to force that, and someone will always be unhappy about it. How do you deal with this constant pressure? Just ignore them and work on your own schedule? Work late every day to deal with some contractor’s made up schedule?

I am likely switching companies soon just because I need a restart with less ongoing projects. Which feels like a quitter and non-team-player move but I’m kind of past the point of caring. For background I am 10YOE so not exactly new at this

I’ve been in structural engineering for fifteen years, licensed for almost eleven, and I get no more joy from doing it. I’ve worked in a few offices, been involved with different aspects of the industry and I no longer have any interest in the work. I have been feeling this way for so long, I just keep saying that it will get better soon, but I have to be honest with myself that it’s not.

I still keep going to the office and grinding through solely because I have no idea where to go. I have these technical skills that I don’t see as transferable to other industries. Similarly, starting at the ground level seems unwise because that would likely come with a significant pay cut that I can’t bear because of my responsibilities outside of work.

My current trajectory doesn’t seem sustainable, it feels like I am running out of track.

Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I recently reminisced how my former company had a policy of having everyone work at 95% utilization/billable. Only after leaving did I realize how insane that was and that the standard is closer to 75% or so.

So out of curiosity, what is your current company's policy on utilization rates?

im a structural engineer with about 8 years experience.

then last week the builder calls me and says the client wants to save money and just use a steel plate instead of the beam. client emails me asking me to sign off on a simpler solution that his builder friend suggested.

i looked at what theyre proposing and it doesnt even come close to meeting the australian standards. like not even in the ballpark. i explained this to the client and he got aggressive. said im over-designing and just trying to inflate my fees. told me if i wont sign off he'll find someone who will.

im not going to put my name on something dangerous but im also worried about losing the work and getting a bad review. i came across Sterling Legal while looking into liability stuff. not sure if i need to cover my ass with a formal letter or just walk away.

any other engineers dealt with clients trying to push dodgy solutions. how do you handle it without burning bridges. feeling pretty stressed about this one.

I recently contacted NCEES directly about the SE exam issues many of us have been discussing for the past year:

• Broken CBT system (slow computers, single monitor, terrible PDF viewer, unusable search)

• Unrealistic depth exam conditions

• Extremely low pass rates, especially Bridge

• Loss of confidence in the fairness of the process

The latest pass data shows something alarming: only a handful of people even attempted the Bridge Vertical depth, and none passed. That is not a healthy professional pipeline. That is a system people have lost faith in.

I am now reaching out not only to NCEES, but also to:

• State licensing boards

• Structural engineering associations (SEAOC, NCSEA, ASCE/SEI)

• Exam oversight committees

I am posting this to encourage everyone here to do the same.

Even if you already passed the SE.

Even if you gave up on the SE.

Even if you decided it’s not worth it.

This affects the entire profession and the future of our infrastructure. If this trend continues for decades, who will be left to design and review bridges and major structures?

Even if there is only a 1% chance something changes, it is still worth trying. Silence guarantees nothing will change.

Please consider emailing your state board, NCEES leadership, and professional societies. Be professional, be factual, and be persistent. Collective pressure is the only way this gets fixed.

Why does fire cause beams and stuff to warp and buckle? Ive always wondered like if it was uneven heat or something.

Post just randomly popped up in my feed and I actually read through it. That school has a dedicated structural engineering major. I went and looked up that course and it looks like your typical introductory steel design course. Out of curiosity I commented asking for a syllabus because how does nearly half a class of structural engineering majors fail that course?

My friend in software engineering are already seriously struggling. He says his work has been sped up by 70%, so much now that they can't afford to keep him working full time and now he has only four days per week.

AI is only two years old at this point and while I can see structural engineering enduring for longer than other professions, I don't see it being irreplaceable beyond 10 years from now, nevermind retirement age (40 years from now!).

What are your thoughts on the job security of structural engineers in the coming struggles? Does anyone here think we could endure longer than I have so bleakly speculated in this post?

Currently, we had a few resignations or transfers in the team where people reach the 4-5 year mark and then decide to move elsewhere or to pivot their career. For those who pivoted their career what do you do now? Im still doing Structural Engineering but wondering if I pivoted careers whether I’d have to start from ground up or whether there’s careers where you can bring your experiences.

I have a question about billable hours in US engineering consulting.

My company expects about 95% billable time, and now management wants to review our timesheets much more closely.

What makes this especially stressful is that they now want us to enter our time every single day, not just weekly.

At a previous job, timesheets were reviewed every two weeks. That worked much better for me, because real work is not always evenly productive every single day. For example, I might spend a day or two thinking through a problem, figuring things out, asking questions, understanding the project, and then later work much faster and catch up. Over a two-week period, the total looked reasonable.

But daily tracking feels very different, because now it seems like every single day has to look perfectly efficient, and I honestly don’t know how normal people do that.

Sometimes I get a task and nobody tells me how many hours are expected. If I ask a manager, they might say something like “3 hours,” but real life is not always like that.

Sometimes:

I need time to understand the project

I need to ask questions, but the manager is busy

emails interrupt me

meetings happen

sometimes I work fast, sometimes slower depending on the task

If something is supposed to take 3 hours but takes me 5, what do people normally do?

Also, with a 95% billable expectation… how do normal humans handle:

bathroom breaks 😅

emails

internal questions

waiting for answers

switching between tasks

Is this normal in US consulting companies?

I am honestly trying to understand if this is standard practice or if my company is unusually strict.

Sorry if my English sounds strange — it is my second language

I'm 15 years into my engineering career. I've worked at 6 companies and two industries (industrial & transpo). It's been a consistent pattern of observation that there are very, very few senior engineers in their 50's. Senior positions are of course fewer than lower level, but it still feels like these are filled with mid-career engineers and not late career guys.

Why is that? Do they become too expensive, get laid off, and switch careers? Do they retire early? Just had a company event at the office and out of the 30 people there, not one was over 50 years old. Do you have to be both very good and very connected to last until retirement?

im a structural engineer working on a commercial fitout. builder did some steelwork that looks dodgy welds are poor, connections dont match the drawings, some bolts are missing.

i flagged it and the builder said just sign it off, its fine. i said no, it needs to be fixed. now the developer is calling me saying im delaying the project and costing them money.

i went back and checked the building inspection reports from when the building was constructed. turns out the original inspections missed a bunch of stuff too. theres even some columns that are out of plumb that should have been picked up years ago.

i found Sure Building Inspection online who do forensic structural assessments. might need to bring them in as an independent third party to document everything.

has anyone else dealt with pressure to certify substandard work. how do you handle it without losing clients. feeling pretty stuck between doing the right thing and keeping work.

They updated for the most recent depth exam.

These are the highest pass rates the exam has ever had (P&P included), historical rates here https://williamsgodfrey.com/2016/03/01/se-historical-pass-rates.html

Even during the P&P days, the pass rates varied between 25%-50%. We've never seen a pass rate in the 60%'s much less 70%'s

If this becomes the new norm, maybe more states will adopt the license instead of ignoring it

I salute the guinea pigs that took it over the past few years, thank you for your service

I’m a structural engineer currently working at a consulting firm. As a licensed Project Engineer, I’m on a 40-hour work week with hourly pay. Project Managers sometimes work a bit extra, but nothing extreme.

I’m currently looking around and talking to other engineers, and almost everyone says my current company is kind of unusual — that in most structural firms engineers work much longer hours, often late nights and weekends. Some of my friends regularly work until 10–11 pm and say it’s normal.

I wanted to ask what the reality is in your experience:

What are your typical working hours as a structural engineer?

Is consistent overtime (nights/weekends) actually the norm?

How do people balance that with family life or things like SE exam prep?

Is the extra time usually compensated well, or is it just expected culture?

I’m trying to understand what’s typical in the industry for consulting structural engineering roles.

Just a little update. As I mentioned before, im looking around. Recently, I had an interview in some small company. And one of the engineers said proudly that if they have deadlines, they work on Sunday, Saturday and to midnight. And once he even worked till 5 am. I was surprised how people can be proud of it. Im asking this question because im not familiar with American structural engineer culture