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[Chern]

Dear all,

 

I am starting this thread to ask about the career path of being a research engineer. If I have posted this in the wrong forum, I apologised in advance.

 

I would like to ask if anyone can advise me on how to better prepare myself in order to become a research engineer? The job scope of the research engineer that I am looking for involves working in laboratory (or process simulation) for new process technology (preferably oil and gas industry) and also some scale-up work which turns the bench scale production to pilot plant or industrial scale. I have recently graduated with a PhD in chemical engineering (my thesis works on improving the formulation of overbased lubricant oil additives) and have a bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering. Currently, I am working in an Oil and Gas Consultancy firm in Malaysia (with 2 years experience) where I design oil and gas plants (mainly Offshore Front End Engineering Design).  Unfortunately, the company I work in does not have research facility in Malaysia. They do have a research team in Europe but I believe they do not work on  pilot plant or industrial plant scale-up.

 

I have tried to do some search online and find that most of the companies that do pilot plant/laboratory scale-up are mostly the big players in the oil and gas field (Shell, Chevron, BASF, Exxon, General Electric and etc.) and their research facilities are mainly centred in US and Europe, with some companies slowly shifting their research facilities to India and China in recent years. I do not mind relocating for work but the competition will be great if I wanna apply for a job oversea and the vacancies for research engineer usually require the engineer to have pilot plant scale up experience which I don't have (although I have the research and plant design skills which I think are useful for the job).

 

It will be great if someone here who have the experience of working in such position can share their views with me on what sort of characteristics these companies are looking for in a research engineer and how can I better prepare myself in order to have a slight edge over others while applying research positions oversea.

 

Thank you in advance.