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krispydude posted:I was hoping if a few of the ChemE guys that have popped in to this thread could provide some info on the career itself. Day to day activties, your current job description or past ones, likes/dislikes, stuff like that. I've been out of uni for 2 years on a B.Eng. At the time I came out with 4 offers. It's a fun job with lots of travelling and seeing interesting places. You'll end up working for an oil or chemical company. Food and pharma jobs are there too but not as common. There are basically 2 kinds of chemical engineers: Operations - You'll be given a section of plant to look after and you'll play a central role in keeping things running, improvements and troubleshooting. The other types of engineers will look to you for what to do and you talk to more people. It's more of a hands on role. And Design - You deisgn bits of plant (or entire plants) like distillation columns, heat exchangers, piping, pumps, reactors etc. Essentially a chemist comes up with a process and your job is to upscale it. This is more of a desk job but you do get to do site visits. Most of the time you're just doing boring rear end datasheets and lists. I've done both and to be honest it's whether you want more of a hands-on role or a abstract theoretical role. For me half-half would be ideal, but there's good and bad for both. Overall the workplace is quite friendly i.e. no one gives a poo poo how many hours you work or what time you come in as long as the job is done/the plant is running.
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Oct 21, 2009 15:42
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slorb posted:Any australians in here who have experience with the process of getting chartered? Basically you'll find all the operators are neutral about it and all the consultants push it - Mostly because it means they can charge you out at a higher rate. This is speaking for the chemical/process/oil&gas/mining industry by the way. All it does is give you the right to pracitce as an independant consultant, so maybe it's worth it down the line? It doesn't mean you can't practice overseas if you're not chartered (except in countries like Canada, where you do the work and they just get some Canadian guy to sign off things) If you're still keen and if you're a chem eng, then don't even bother with Engineers Aust. Go through IChemE instead.
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Dec 2, 2009 09:01
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Daviclond posted:I work in chemicals, but the need for a process design engineer will always be there. If you want to go pure design, then I recommend going for a large design firm - you may be pigeonholed into an a specific area depending on the company and most first years will just do pipe, valve and pump sizing. You might even get seconded to a site by the design company to help with projects or to do uprates. But even operators will have an in-house design division (Shell Global Solutions for example). And even if you work on-site, there's the projects team for small-medium in-house projects and day-to-day process optimisation type stuff. For larger projects, you may help a plant do uprate work. Working directly in industry itself is a different kettle of fish all together. I've done a design, plant and commissioning role. It's pretty diverse, and you get a lot of experience this way. The job market is fairly good, so there's a good chance you'll get what you want if your grades are decent and your heart is in the right place (i.e. one of those people who went into engineering because you like building stuff as opposed to the ones who wanted just a job out of it). Otherwise you can always go into banking or risk engineering I guess...
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Jul 25, 2011 19:16
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Daviclond posted:Off the top of my head there few big international design companies ones that specialise in oil and gas or have an oil and gas division are WorleyParsons, Fluor, AkerKaeverner (These guys change their names 10 times a year so not sure what they are now), Technip, Bechtel, SNC Lavalin, KBR. There are a bunch of them out there, just ask your uni for a list. Yeah, you either work for a consultant or an operator. Operators run/own the plants. I would say go for an operator, they have much more varied work, but I may be biased because that's my background. Although, some of my friends in consulting are still in the same kind of role they started off with. And, which ever you chose, go for a large company - they already have established project processes and standards and more slosh money for training.
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Jul 27, 2011 07:25
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Daviclond posted:Yeah I would definitely have a preference for the larger companies, for the reasons you said and for getting to a warmer country ASAP. I work on the equator, the heat is all it's talked up to be :P I would just start calling up places, can't hurt to ask. You might even be able to apply early! Also, not sure if you're already graduated, but some unis will do their final year design project or your honours project with a company - That could be your in? If not see if your uni will let you arrange for one and call up a few companies to see if they're interested. I mean hey, it's free work for them.
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Aug 2, 2011 14:54
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Daviclond posted:Did your degree have projects sponsored from industry? Litterally, all of our design topics were industry sponsored with prizes for the best project and such. I think there were about 8 or so companies with 10 different topics you could pick from. We got a grand out of it and a shiny certificate. That was the same with our honours project. Except I think there were a few uni only ones in that basket. Wickerman, since it's boring in the jungle, PM me.
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Aug 5, 2011 12:44
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I'm an Australian interested in getting a process/chemical job in the US. To give a bit of background, this is what I've been doing out of uni (all with the same company): -1 year on a sulphuric acid plant as the plant chemical engineer. -1 year in a design office doing detailed process design and feasability studies. -1 year as a commissioning engineer for a brownfield expansion. -1 year as a commissioning engineer in Indonesia for the companys biggest project ever - I also double as a hazard study leader and trainer in this role I could get a job pretty easily back at home with my experience and I get told I'm pretty good at whatever they throw me in consistently, but I just want to settle down and work overseas for a little while. I know the economy is pretty bad there at the moment, but do recruiters even look at expats? What are my chances like? Edit: Also, friends in the US basically say that you need a masters to really get anywhere - "bachelors is the new high school diploma" etc. In Australia a bachelors still means something. Will that look bad on my resume? namsdrawkcaBehT fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Nov 9, 2011 |
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Nov 9, 2011 12:22
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