What is your work environment as an Engineer

[qiudogcool]

Hi! I am a project engineer ( Communications) working for a small consulting company. I am paid hourly. We use time sheet for everyday. I work in a cubicle with no privacy. Everybody who walked passed by can see my screen. We don't have a lot of jobs. So I work 40 hours every week but not all 40 hours are billable. We do get paid over time for the same hourly rate.

What is your work environment? Are you paid salary or hourly? If you are paid salary, how many hours do you work every week? Do you have to punch clock?

 

[jglavin PE]

Where I work (Consulting - Power/Lighting), all the engineers are salary and the drafters are hourly. We are fairly lucky to all get offices.

For the salaried folks, we aren't held to strict standards for office hours, although some of the guys do work a fair bit of overtime. We have a yearly billable hours quota (individual and as a group) and always hit it as long as the company is busy. We do keep timesheets and have a in/out board so we can keep track of who comes and goes, but no punchclock.

Me personally, I don't find myself working a lot of overtime; I usually average around 40-42 hours. We are on a 4/9+4 (half-day friday) schedule, and I usually find that is sufficient to get all my work finished without staying late.

The main performance metric we use is our billings - every month we meet as a company and go through everyone's individual billings for the previous month and talk about them - if they were low, explaining why, or if they were high, exchanging attaboys. If new folks struggle with billings for more than a few months they usually get let go.

 

[qiudogcool]

Hi Jglavin,

So you work at least 40 hours per week? Are there times that your company is slow and you don't have projects going on? I sometimes have to sit there just to get my 40 hours but have no projects going on. I think salaried folks have a more flexible schedule. Is it true? If you don't have much to do, can you just go home early without using PTO time?

 

[jglavin PE]

It's generally frowned upon here if you don't have 40 hours on your timesheet for the week, even if half of them are non-billable. So I'd say no, if we don't have anything to do we can't just leave, unless we worked late earlier in the week. I've left on many occasions (or not come in friday morning) when I had been up late on a monday or tuesday that week working on a deadline.

 

[qiudogcool]

I guess engineering firms would all be similar. Maybe some government jobs don't require sit for full 40 hours. I wonder if my experience in communications still count if I change the field power or others.

 

[jglavin PE]

Yeah, if you're in consulting I think most firms are pretty similar. All the colleagues I've kept in touch with seem to have about the same environment, although some companies keep their employees much busier (e.g. they keep their staff trimmed below what it should be and just load everyone up).

 

[Kovz]

I work for a multi-discipline engineering firm that does consulting work for steel and chemical plants (industrial). I am hourly, but get paid straight time for anything over 40 hours. The drafters/designers get time and a half. I typically work exactly 40 hours a week. I'm not a fan of overtime. I'll only do it if the job really requires it.

I sit in a cubical, but only department heads and project managers get offices.

We work 4/9's and a 4 (half day) on Fridays.

If we are slow and I am unbillable, I just charge to overhead. I try not to charge much time to overhead, but sometimes there is just simply no work and I don't want to overrun my budget on a job if I can't be productive.

 

[cupojoe PE PMP]

My first firm was straight salary, some weeks you could get by with 40-45 hours per week, but during busy phases of a big project you would usually get stuck working 70 hours for 3-5 months, no OT. The flip side, is I think starting pay for young engineers is above average. Some folks on long term field assignments (9-12+ months) would usually get a 5-10% bump, but that also means committing to 60-90 hour weeks during that time period. In the office, we didn't have strict hours, so no one really said anything if you took off a couple hours early on Friday but were still getting your work done. My new firm is salary + OT + annual bonus, OT is straight time and only available when project conditions require it (to get through a push or meet a deadline) and the work you are working on is billable type work (no OT for overhead projects), but if you are being a rockstar hopefully that is recognized and included in your bonus.

 

[iwire]

i see a lot folks here work a lot OT, just a reminder, if the company is billing the client for your hours..they need to pay you as well..(government contract only)

 

[seandapaul24]

Hi! I am a project engineer ( Communications) working for a small consulting company. I am paid hourly. We use time sheet for everyday. I work in a cubicle with no privacy. Everybody who walked passed by can see my screen. We don't have a lot of jobs. So I work 40 hours every week but not all 40 hours are billable. We do get paid over time for the same hourly rate.

What is your work environment? Are you paid salary or hourly? If you are paid salary, how many hours do you work every week? Do you have to punch clock?

Dude it suck big [email protected] wish I had gone into medicine..there is def more chicks in medicine to fit my sturdy 2" bolt into..

 

[Submarine Guy]

I considered switching over to a firm that pays salary + OT but decided against it in part due to what I perceived as an unpredictable work environment. Some weeks would be 40 hours but other weeks it may be a lot more depending on approaching deadlines.

It seems like there would be more pressure trying to generate billable hours too. I like being able to do my job without thinking much about what project I'm charging my time to. I have to admit though, getting paid for overtime hours would be nice.

 

[jglavin PE]

I went from being a consultant to working for the city as an owner's rep. Without getting too specific, I'll just say my organization is aviation-focused.

I took a pay cut moving to the public sector, but for me the job itself is so much better. First, the stress of constant deadlines and clients breathing down my neck is gone. Second, I have so many chances to get experience in interesting and new roles, since only a small portion of my duties are design-focused. Things like construction management, technical writing, public speaking, among others. All great opportunities to get outside my comfort zone. I spent 7 years doing consulting and looking back I felt like the last 5 of that was spent doing the same thing week in and week out.

As far as working environment... I have a cube, but I expect when I hit the 10 year mark (total experience) in a few years I'll move up to a senior position and into an office. That's the plan, anyway. Cube isn't too bad... we spend a lot of time in meetings or in the field anyway so I'm usually at my desk less than half the day.

Currently our department is having a lot of trouble finding talent... I have no idea why, I love this job.

 

[engineergurl]

Hi! I am a project engineer ( Communications) working for a small consulting company. I am paid hourly. We use time sheet for everyday. I work in a cubicle with no privacy. Everybody who walked passed by can see my screen. We don't have a lot of jobs. So I work 40 hours every week but not all 40 hours are billable. We do get paid over time for the same hourly rate.

What is your work environment? Are you paid salary or hourly? If you are paid salary, how many hours do you work every week? Do you have to punch clock?

Dude it suck big [email protected] wish I had gone into medicine..there is def more chicks in medicine to fit my sturdy 2" bolt into..

you aren't supposed to do that when they are unconscience dude.

 

[KundaliniZero]

I work in a subway in a south american country. For all of us we work 45 hours per week we get paid a salary (one in a month). But i am in a condition where i could work less hours i arrived 30 minutes late in the morning, no problem. I like this flexibility the job is no evil like other companies.

In my country is pretty usual in any kind of work to stay more than 45 hour without earning more money for that. The law said this is prohibited but well you know. The 50% of my friend electrical engineers work a lot of hours, more than 45 for free, the other 25% get paid for these hours and another 25% is rebel and do not work more hours than 45.

The most of employees have to continue working at home or stay in the building because companies put goals difficults to obtain with the objective of getting a worker working a lot of hours but earning the same amount of money.

A friend was so tired of working at holiday that he quit. He stayed 2 years. The problem is the goals are to high for 45 hours and we are under pressure of your boss. I lived this situation 2 years ago i quit my first job because of that. In my second job i worked like 60 hours but i liked it then i get fired with other 100 coworkers because the project had finished.

But i live in a good company now, well paid but the job is too easy i am thinking of quit.