Working for a Non-PE "Discipline Lead"

[Roy T.]

I have a question. But before I begin I will say that there are many talented and smart folks out there who work within what can broadly be defined as the "Engineering" field.

I work for an Engineering consulting firm that offers Professional Engineering Services. My problem is this -- a young ambitious person has been promoted Engineering Manager or "Discipline Lead" of the Civil/Structural group in our company. He does not have a PE, his education is a BS from a foreign school, and based on my conversations with him - he does not high a high level of technical knowledge. Furthermore, his current credentials (Education) are not sufficient for licensure even if he pursued it.

He has a great personality and obviously senior management likes him. And that's all the good, not every needs to be a PE. However, as the ONLY license Civil PE in the company - I don't want to serve as an in-house signing and sealing machine. Or have my design recommendations over-ruled by a non-licensed individual. (A client is another matter - they b*tch about everythinig as is their right - but that is a different type of relationship than employer-employee)

I would have hoped that a national search for a well-qualified individual would have taken place - but that didn't happen.

Anyway, I think it demonstrates a certain contempt towards professionalism by the company. I don't feel good about it. Any thoughts?

 

[kevo_55]

Two words for you Roy T: Start looking.

Being the rubber stamp for the whole company is never a good thing. If the writing is on the wall that you'll have to stamp things that you did not personally control, then it is proper to cut and run.

Just my :2cents:

 

[chaosiscash]

IMHO, it depends on the situation. If you still have "responsible charge" of the design direction, its not really a big deal. I guess it depends on what his real responsibilities are. If all he is really doing is HR type stuff (perfomance reviews, hiring, firing, etc), budgeting, business development, and client interaction stuff, to me its not a big deal. If he is trying to direct your design or the design of others in the group you are the PE for, thats a whole different story. If that's the case I'd start looking for another job. Good luck.

 

[Matt-NM]

Roy

Unfortunately this type of thing occurs in many companies, including mine. People are given charity positions. I also feel that they should be competed, at least to give others a chance. In my company we have many who are "promoted" to engineer, who don't have engineering degrees. That to me is just plain dumb. That is why they have "senior" levels for each position. Just because somebody has been a good technician for years doesn't mean they all of a sudden have the skills to be an engineer.

I guess one thing you have to ask yourself is if you are compensated well enough to be signing off on all the compaines drawings. If you are, then it may be in your best interest to stick it out. If not, then it becomes dangerous. There are rules that PE's have to follow as far as what they can and can't sign off on. If you sign off on drawings that you really weren't involved in, and you somehow get caught, then you risk losing your license, or even worse being sued by a customer.

One thing you can do is to generate difficult technical questions about your projects, ask your new manager for the answers, and when he can't answer them, take the questions to his bosses and tell them that you need somebody else for these answers. That may open the dialogue of why he isn't able to answer the questions. They may be asuming that he is more capable than he really is. Keep it professional, as opposed to seeming like a complainer. Otherwise they might think that you are just being bitter.

Were you qualified for the position and if so did you want it? If you did, you may want to express to management that you were interested and now feel that the room for advancement in this company may not exist and that you may be looking elsewhere. Remember that with this economy, you almost need to have something lined up in case they get mad and turn you loose.

Let us know how things go.

 

[Supe]

Roy: Have any of your fears about this individual shooting down/overruling your designs, or are your fears just speculation at the moment? I've seen many an engineering manager take more of a hands off approach and really just take care of the politics associated with things. My director has a PE and a PHD and is a great boiler design guy, but really has no concept of the work I do. As long as I can justify what I'm doing, he tends to just roll with it (for the most part).

 

[Kephart P.E.]

Fortunately by law you don't need to stamp/seal everything. You can only stamp things by which you actually direct and supervise the design.

I would push the point. In a consulting firm I don't understand having a non PE in a supervisory position. If they like his personality so much make him the manager of Marketing.

That being said, if they guy was a truly exceptional engineer, I would try and make the effort to make it work.

 

[Roy T.]

Fortunately by law you don't need to stamp/seal everything. You can only stamp things by which you actually direct and supervise the design.
I would push the point. In a consulting firm I don't understand having a non PE in a supervisory position. If they like his personality so much make him the manager of Marketing.

That being said, if they guy was a truly exceptional engineer, I would try and make the effort to make it work.

Good replies, I appreciate them all.

Actually, I'm not particularly worried about myself, I've let it be known in a diplomatic way that anything i sign and seal will have to be a design i produced or had real control over. No arguments from anyone there. Plus a lot of what we do is currently industry "exempt" - although that is changing. My *real* concern is for the profession itself and to a lessor extent the company - I personally am treated well. But it seems as though top guys have contempt for the discipline (structural) and licensing in general. (This is mainly a mechanical, electrical and petroleum engineering outfit)

What bothers me given what all of us went through to get licensed. And no, I have to be honest, I did not express any real desire for the spot. I get paid well and the salary increase wasn't worth the hassel of managing lower level staff. But the position is clearly a design structural engineering lead and I assumed the company (given it's resources) would have picked a highly credentialed candidate for many reasons not the least of which to put on proposals.

why the big need for a credentialed top guy? - the company I work for pursues very high dollar work up against KBR, Bechtel, Jacobs and specialty offshore O&G engineering firms. Not exactly lightweights. A lightly credentialed structural discipline lead can't help them win future contracts.

 

[Kephart P.E.]

Good replies, I appreciate them all.
Actually, I'm not particularly worried about myself, I've let it be known in a diplomatic way that anything i sign and seal will have to be a design i produced or had real control over. No arguments from anyone there. Plus a lot of what we do is currently industry "exempt" - although that is changing. My *real* concern is for the profession itself and to a lessor extent the company - I personally am treated well. But it seems as though top guys have contempt for the discipline (structural) and licensing in general. (This is mainly a mechanical, electrical and petroleum engineering outfit)

What bothers me given what all of us went through to get licensed. And no, I have to be honest, I did not express any real desire for the spot. I get paid well and the salary increase wasn't worth the hassel of managing lower level staff. But the position is clearly a design structural engineering lead and I assumed the company (given it's resources) would have picked a highly credentialed candidate for many reasons not the least of which to put on proposals.

why the big need for a credentialed top guy? - the company I work for pursues very high dollar work up against KBR, Bechtel, Jacobs and specialty offshore O&G engineering firms. Not exactly lightweights. A lightly credentialed structural discipline lead can't help them win future contracts.

I work in exactly the same field although for a small regional company, and all of our "Manager Types" are PE's our clients expect it.

Now we do have some Construction Inspectors and Project Managers that aren't PE, but are all at least FE.