Why is everyone quitting their Engineering jobs | Great Resignation

How To Choose The Right Engineering Firm To Work For:

📗 Chapters 📗
0:00 Intro
0:38 Why are engineers quitting their jobs?
1:15 What does this mean?
2:47 What can we do about it?
2:56 Pay & engineering salary
4:21 Meaningful work
6:24 Stress, work-life balance, and burnout
8:30 Career advancement
10:04 Schedule flexibility
10:51 Toxic work environment

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Mat Picardal is a structural project manager at DCI Engineers. This video and this channel does not necessarily reflect the opinion nor beliefs of DCI Engineers. All thoughts expressed are purely his own observations and experiences.

Disclaimer: Product links are 'affiliate links' so if you click and buy something I get a small commission. This affects you in no way and helps support the channel.

Disclaimer: Mathew Picardal, P.E. does not technically hold the title "structural engineer" in California. Any claim of it in the videos or descriptions is unintentional and is superseded by the title "structural project manager".

#civilengineering #softwareengineering #greatresignation

[MatPicardal]

Why did you change jobs or what made you want to quit?

[chevypowerish]

22 years as a Manufacturing/Mechanical engineer. Was a Senior engineer managing people and projects nationwide and assisting internationally within my company. I was only making 5% more than my employees with 1 year of experience. Looked for other work in town and can't even make the $160, 000 to buy an average priced (450, 000) house. So, I quite my job 2 years ago and am becoming an Electrician. NO stress, NO micromanaging, NO full days of meetings, No burnout.
Honestly, I got a degree in the top 98% of the hardest degrees to achieve and paid in the lower 25% of professional pay. So good luck American companies.

[HHHPedigrees]

Civil Engineers need to stop accepting $15/hr internships and $60k/yr full time jobs and drive the market floor up!!!

[hadrianaugustus]

Guy who leaves at 5pm is smart, be that guy.

[bamffatboi]

I quit and went back to get my masters because of lack of meaningful work. don't treat me like a tech when I'm an engineer.

[RIfMlLVrdhpPYbHCcTqjnEFGgNyKku]

I got my first M.E. Job after Graduating at Detroit Mercy. Applied to thousands of jobs and finally got one they paid $16/HR and they wanted me to work 7 AM - 6 PM, the President and Director kept shit talking me behind my back, because I didn't 't know what DVP&R was out of college and yelled at me for asking how to operate a table saw for the first time. The Director fired me saying "I really wanted someone who would go beyond the call of duty, someone with a passion to go the extra mile, someone with extra ambition, give me your badge." Went Back to School for 6 Months, took the DAT, got into Dental School and not looking back. The Dental Community is very friendly, welcoming, pays good, provides flexible hours, and the classes were easier.

[matasipil]

This kind of thing also often happens in my country (Indonesia).

- low salary (average $2500 - $5000)
- project demands that are above self-ability
- too much working time
_ toxic works environment


Some of my friends have even turned to being traders or farmers instead of becoming engineers

[edwaterengineering]

Couldn't agree more Matt! As an engineer myself I had to take almost a year off to revaluate if I really wanted to continue down the engineering path. After the break I rediscovered my love for the career and haven't looked back since. My Tip: Know your worth!

[hadrianaugustus]

Constantly understaffed, which causes a lot of stress and unpaid overtime. Low pay. Depressing atmosphere.

[Soli_KicksTV]

I am an EIT with MSc in structural engineering and I am scheduling my PE exam in March. I work for a small firm up North Ohio. I have been working for the company for almost 3 years and I am paid $58k a year, which I honestly feel I am underpaid. I know someone who just graduated and got a job for 75k in the same area, so that hit me hard. Something I learned about small firms is if the company decided to stay small and not growing, that will have a negative impact on their employees and no one gets a raise. It is not just money though, all the other factors you mentioned are really important.

[johannndsouza]

Engineering is not a high paying job. Not in Canada at least. 60k in 1960s was our starting salary, fast forward 60+ years our starting salary is 62k. Every other profession caught up and beat us. We also get treated like garbage and we are scape goats.

[Applehamzzi]

Doing structural engineering (design) for about 5years. I am on the verge of changing careers. It is so sad that I used to love and be passionate about structural engineering and now, I just don’t care… either I am depressed or burnt out. I dont know what to do

[rock]

I studied engineering to do what I love, but I ended in a nightmare where I am doing boring unimaginative crap work because engineering job market sucks I cannot even tell you where to start

[TheLuminousOne]

Engineering sux!! Low pay, little appreciation, high-risk, toxic offices. 😄

[trustinmyselfalways]

For building plant operations I can say that engineers are essentially flying a plane although it is stationary. So to the outside housekeeping management or even general management they see you in thought or monitoring systems (Much of our work is like mental gymnastics constant analysis of critical systems and troubleshooting) To the outsider your doing nothing so they demand you fix the light out above the stapler guys desk cause that's more important then figuring out why the safety relief valve is going off to the boiler system that could completely level the place.

[Augusto]

companies already know what they have to do to avoid employees from if they don't do it, it's because they don't care.... it seems that it's more profitable for them to hire newbies that work for much less money.... theres not much to do about it

[ncvlkjs]

"Life is too short and the world is too big to be stuck in one place and be voluntarility miserable."

Well said. I need to print this off and stick it on my wall.

[sppoitier]

The reasons that you've described on similar for almost every industry and job under the sun. Unfortunately, there will never be such a thing as a perfect job.

[justina]

That last point about life being to short to stay in an unhappy environment was golden, and it applies to all aspects of your life!

[reborn]

A well paid engineer requires years of experience while another person gets the same salary in tech field during their first year.
I think thats the problem with engineering, high level of experience and knowledge required while most are underpaid, may be replaceable by AI in future years.