Translating highway engineering experience into other fields

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Bridgerseast

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Oct 31, 2019
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Now that I have my newly minted PE license, I am finally feeling marketable enough to make the leap out of highway construction. I work an obscene number of hours from April to November. Frankly, 16 hour days and 2 am bridge pours are getting harder and harder as I age.

I came across one opportunity that really piqued my interest: a PM dealing with small to mid-size, often backcountry dams. The job would entail overseeing repairs, inspections and rarely new construction. I am trying to fill out the application and the experience specific questions it asks, but I am struggling to translate my skills into a new field. It has been a while since I’ve been on the job hunt.

I honestly have little dam-related experience, outside of some hydraulic design and geotechnical courses completed during my masters. From the job profile, it looks like a lot of my current skills would apply, such as construction of embankments and concrete structures, interpreting geotechnical data, contract admin, quality assurance and materials testing, etc. That said, I am not naive enough to think there will not be a significant learning curve in some areas. Any advice from those who have jumped to a different field?

 
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