What is consulting engineering? It’s when firms offer expert engineering knowledge to clients, including advice and design services.
In essence, consultants apply their expertise to projects owned by others. Often, it’s because the projects fall outside the scope of a private company or public agency.
The projects can encompass various types of work:
- A city hires you to design an underground tunnel
- A utility enlists your help to manage a construction project
- NASA employs you to design a space component
- Apple engages you to design their new facility’s infrastructure
As a consultant, you can work on a diverse array of projects. At the same time, your involvement tends to be temporary. You complete your work, and then you move on once your tasks are finished.
In a nutshell, consulting is another way of saying you provide “engineering services.”
My experience as a consultant engineer and being familiar with consulting stigmatizations
Drawing from my experience as a consultant engineer for over a decade, I’ve become quite familiar with the various stigmatizations surrounding consulting.
Believe it or not, I almost didn’t pursue a career in consulting engineering when I was in college. I had engineering buddies who would constantly say that only idiots went into consulting. They believed consultants never did any real engineering work.
Boy, were they wrong.
In this article, my focus is on addressing the existing stigmatizations around consulting. More specifically, I’m going to debunk each stigmatization, shedding light on the true nature of consulting engineering.
Here are the most common consulting stigmatizations you’ll likely encounter:
- Limited application of knowledge in the real-world
- Being just a paper pusher
- Confined to working in an office
- Unchallenging work
- Being at the mercy of clients
- Repetitive tasks
- Limited learning opportunities
- Becoming a legal punching bag
- Financial risks
Let’s dive in and dispel these misconceptions!
Important Note: There are many different types of consulting engineering firms, each focusing on a specific area of expertise.
Additionally, some firms concentrate on design work, while others provide solely written guidance. Consequently, it’s impossible to generalize the work of consulting engineering firms.
#1 Extensive real-world application knowledge
As a consultant engineer, I can tell you that we are hired for our specialized technical skills and experience.
In fact, consulting engineers are responsible for the engineering of nearly every public project. This includes designing:
- Substations and electrical grid infrastructure
- Roads, tunnels, and buildings
- Renewable energy projects (e.g., wind farms, hydroelectric facilities, nuclear power plants)
- Water pump stations, water treatment plants, and water infrastructure
Additionally, numerous private sector companies such as Tesla, AT&T, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft also rely on consulting engineering firms.
The list goes on, but the point is that a significant amount of engineering work is handled by consulting engineering firms, especially in the public sector. I would even argue that I see very little hardcore engineering done within the public sector itself.
This is an essential factor to consider when deciding if government engineering work is the right fit for you.
Important Note: Usually the more diverse a private company is, the fewer consultants they’ll use. And these companies rarely hire consultants for their core engineering work, and if they do, it’s a signal that they haven’t yet mastered how to run their business.
For example, I may design a substation to power a new Apple data center, but I won’t design their new iPhones.
In the public sector, the engineering work model is different. The engineering for public infrastructure work is only to serve the public. So it’s not a concern when consultants do almost all the engineering work. There’s no proprietary information to keep secret.
#2 More than just paper pushers
You won’t rake in the big bucks by merely pushing papers around. Sure, you might fool a naïve business with one project, but once the truth comes out, you’ll be out of business in no time.
There’s a reason some consulting engineers command jaw-dropping hourly rates of $300 or even $655! These consultants offer invaluable services that justify their premium fees.
Consulting engineers tackle a plethora of technical tasks. As I highlighted earlier, they provide engineering services for countless clients, making their expertise indispensable.
Important Note: Many companies don’t want on-staff engineers. It’s costly when you don’t have enough projects to keep them busy. Especially when projects require a series of different disciplined engineers. You don’t want to keep electrical, civil, structural, and so on, engineers on staff sitting idle. It costs companies much less to hire out for any engineering work than to have engineers on staff.
#3 Office life versus field work
While some consultants may be confined to their desks all day, the exceptional ones venture out to project sites and manufacturing facilities. After all, there’s only so much you can learn from staring at a computer screen.
Design work, for instance, requires you to step out of your office. To effectively carry out your job, you must visit the site of a new hydroelectric facility, for example, to gain a deeper understanding of the design requirements. This is because visual inspection and on-site collaboration with the entire engineering team can prove invaluable.
During the construction phase, your presence becomes even more critical. You must ensure that the project is executed correctly, which is impossible if you’re lounging in your office with your feet up on the desk.
That’s why I can’t stress enough the importance of hands-on work for engineers. Besides, I’ve shared my near-death experience while doing engineering work, debunking the absurd notion that consultant engineers are office-bound all day!
Important Note: If you work in the software industry, you can sit in your office all day long. However, if you work with anything related to the physical world, at some point, you’ll need to leave your office.
#4 Embrace the challenge
As a consulting engineer, your projects could range from designing 120-volt commercial building lighting to engineering nuclear power plants and components for NASA’s critical missions. In fact, few realize that NASA outsourced many parts of the Apollo program to consultants.
In 1962, NASA awarded a contract to ILC Dover, a Delaware-based company specializing in engineering systems, to develop spacesuits for the Apollo missions. After an extensive design process, they created the essential life support system for astronauts.
Your expertise and skillset determine the projects you undertake as a consultant, with virtually no limit to the challenges you’ll face.
I often tackle demanding engineering tasks, far more challenging than anything I encountered in school. This highlights why many engineering students are ill-prepared for real-world work and why engineering education falls short of being ideal.
#5 Navigating client expectations
In life, you’ll always be somewhat at the mercy of the person paying you. Consider these examples:
- Consulting engineering firm: your client
- Corporate employee: your employer and customers
- Corporate CEO: your shareholders
- Public agencies: the public
As a consultant, I’ve never felt completely powerless. Sure, you might occasionally encounter a difficult client, but they’re few and far between.
Here’s a brief overview of the process behind a consultant’s offered services:
- A customer hires you to execute a detailed scope of work.
- You bring the client’s vision to life.
- Throughout the process, you ask questions to clarify any uncertainties.
As an expert engineer, you must do what’s best for your client—that’s why they’re paying you the big bucks. Your client may occasionally question your judgment, but it’s crucial to stand your ground and explain your decisions.
If a client’s proposed design is flawed, don’t let them overrule you. As an engineer, you must adhere to the engineering code of ethics, especially since your client will hold you accountable if anything goes wrong.
Bad engineering is never an option to save time or money, regardless of your client’s demands!
#6 Diverse and exciting work
In consulting, you’ll immerse yourself in a wide range of projects, diving into all sorts of fascinating work. This contrasts with being a specialist, where you focus on a single type of work within a company.
Sure, as a consultant, you could choose to concentrate solely on commercial lighting design, carrying the same cookie-cutter design from building to building. Naturally, this approach would become repetitive. Personally, I’d go insane if I were to do this type of design work repeatedly.
To illustrate, here’s a shortlist of diverse projects I’ve tackled in a single year:
- Hydroelectric power plant design
- Utility-owned wind farm design
- 230,000-volt substation design
- 230,000-volt transmission line analysis
- Short circuit analysis for industrial customers
- Water treatment plant power and controls infrastructure design
- Control system design for factories
- EV charging station design for vehicles
- 12,000-volt to 230,000-volt control relaying design for substations
Important Note: Each of these projects can be the work of a single engineer for their entire career. For example, an engineer can specialize in hydroelectric power plant design only. That’s all they do year in and year out.
At the same time, take note of how all the work relates together. It’s all related to power and controls. Thus, if you’re good at one thing, you can easily cross over to another.
I genuinely enjoy working on various exciting projects. I’ve been involved in public projects for every large city in California and have collaborated with numerous major private companies.
Without a doubt, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work on such projects in a regular large corporation. Moreover, the level of variety you’ll experience in consulting is unparalleled.
Additionally, with each project, you delve deep. You’re not merely scratching the surface with superficial work. Some designs can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and design failures could injure or even kill thousands of people. Thus, in-depth understanding is essential.
#7 Boundless learning opportunities
I’d argue that you’ll learn more as a consultant engineer than in a regular place of employment due to your exposure to numerous types of work.
Each new project offers an opportunity to learn something new, and with each project, you gain fresh perspectives from people in different fields.
In contrast, within a large corporation, you may only receive one type of project, which then becomes your sole focus for months on end. Consequently, you’ll only learn about a specific niche subject.
Important Note: As the hired expert, consultants teach others. In other words, you’re not going to learn much from the people you work with.
Rather, as a consultant, you learn by doing the following:
- Speaking with other engineers in your office
- Learning on your own time
#8 Navigating legal challenges
Undeniably, we live in a litigious society, and litigation comes with any work you do.
However, certain types of work carry more liability than others. For instance, an engineer who designs bridges bears a tremendous amount of responsibility.
A failed bridge design could injure or even kill many people. Given that consultants tackle a lot of design work, they hold significant liability, potentially becoming legal punching bags.
Indeed, many hire consultants to shoulder the blame if anything goes wrong, which is one reason why some companies and agencies avoid in-house work.
But, if you adhere to the engineering code of ethics, you should avoid trouble.
Important Note: For professional practice in engineering, two components exist.
You need a license to assign liabilities (e.g. Professional Engineer, PE, license). You need engineering skills to complete technical design work.
These are two separate matters, but both are necessary.
Now, for example, let’s assume you work at NASA, which is exempt from PE licensure. NASA becomes liable for the mistakes any of its engineers make.
So, employers in exempt industries legally protect their engineers. As a result, their engineers don’t need PE licenses. But as a solo practicing engineer, the PE license takes the place of the employer.
The PE license signals to the state and the public who to go after if something goes wrong. Thus, as a consultant, you’ll feel the brunt of legal issues.
I discuss more on PEs, Professional Engineers, here.
#9 Financially stability
Consulting engineering is not inherently more financially risky than any other job.
At established consulting engineering firms, you form deep relationships with clients, which leads to a continuous stream of new projects. And if you’re starting a one-person consulting firm, you can gradually build up your client base over time.
The key to success is maintaining your skills and providing excellent service. This approach ensures clients return and generates word-of-mouth marketing.
In the end, if you’re an inadequate engineer or work for a weak company, you risk losing your job, whether you’re a consultant or not.
“What is consulting engineering?” wrap up
Consulting is a thrilling opportunity to tackle all sorts of awesome engineering challenges. The only limits are those you set for yourself. And if you’re itching for the business world, you can even start your own engineering consulting firm.
What’s more, companies and agencies are increasingly outsourcing their engineering work, which means that the demand for top-notch consulting engineers is on the rise. So, if you’re passionate about engineering and love the idea of taking on new and exciting projects, consulting may be the perfect fit for you!
What are your thoughts on the consulting engineering field? How impactful do you view consulting engineering firms to be?
SUBSCRIBE TO ENGINEER CALCS NEWSLETTER
Koosha started Engineer Calcs in 2020 to help people better understand the engineering and construction industry, and to discuss various science and engineering-related topics to make people think. He has been working in the engineering and tech industry in California for over 15 years now and is a licensed professional electrical engineer, and also has various entrepreneurial pursuits.
Koosha has an extensive background in the design and specification of electrical systems with areas of expertise including power generation, transmission, distribution, instrumentation and controls, and water distribution and pumping as well as alternative energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and storage).
Koosha is most interested in engineering innovations, the cosmos, our history and future, sports, and fitness.