6 replies to this topic

[ANUJ M AGARWAL]

I am a Chemical Engineer with 16 years experience in petrochemical industries. I worked most of the time in Operation and some years in Process Engineering. Since I am in Process Engineering, I like to deal with design concepts and now looking to join design base company. I appeared in couple of interviews but I faced following main problems and companies are not willing to take me.
1) Though I am working in Process Engineering but that is in manufacturing unit not directly in design company.
2) In interviews, I was asked the questions of design but in more deep which I don't know.
3) As I have 16 years experience so they can not take me as Engineer only and also can not take me at some hire level because my relevent experience is not there.

Now I really not understanding that why a manufacturing unit professional can not come in design companies. I think my such experience should also be of great help to design the process equipments, pipe lines etc.. Any how I am very much interested to go in design field and for that I want to learn equipment designing, safety valve calculations, simulation softwares.

I need to know that what are the places or training centres where I can join in real design base companies.

regards,
Anuj M Agarwal

[Zauberberg]

Anuj,

I am completely following your way of thinking. The fact that EPC companies "do not like" Operations engineers is just a misconception or some kind of pre-defined way of thinking, leading to the incorrect conclusion that Operations people simply are not "good enough" for process design subjects.

Before joining engineering and consulting company, I have been working in petroleum refinery operations (ADU, VDU, FCC, Gas Plants, Naphtha Reformer, Distillate HDS, Amine Unit) and technical service for almost 5 years. And by having many discussions with external companies (such are Shell, Technip, Axens etc.) I came out with strong belief (and this has been confirmed from their side) that process operations engineers are the most succesful people in the area of process design and consulting - just because of their vast experience in process equipment ACTUAL operation in the field, which is something that - even the most genious process engineer who was always sitting in the office, far away from the plant - will never catch up to the level that is possible to obtain after going through plant startup, shutdown, troubleshooting, on-line modeling and model tuning, performance monitoring etc. In a few words, you start to think of a plant as of a live organism (which is certainly true!), understanding that process design can never be so simple and straightforward as it may look when reading design manuals, engineering procedures, best practices etc. And I see it now even more clearly after joining design company... Sometimes, you will find yourself wondering how people cannot grasp such simple subjects such are: thermosyphon reboiler circulation, column pumparounds and heat flows, pressure control, pressure drop VS heat transfer utilization in heat exchangers etc. And after spending some time in studying different standards, you can become a person who will be frequently asked for a professional advice. By saying this, I do not have any bad thought about process design engineering experts - this is simply not true. I have met many people who enriched my knowledge and improved my engineering way of thinking, and I really enjoy their presence.

By writing this post, my intent was to encourage you in your further efforts for finding job within process design and consulting areas. There are no mystics in this job, just a logical continuation of your present experience and knowledge - and it is absolutely beautiful!
Be persistent enough, keep knocking, and you will find the door open for you. That is how I see things. And it is promised by Hristos.

Best of luck,

[ankur2061]

Hi Anuj,

I am a design professional too and I have faced similar issues in my career.

I started as a production engineer in the synthetic fiber and polymer fields and after working in a manufactring plant for 11 years as a process engineer switched to design. Now I am in design for the last 11 years.

It was a very tough transition. I was called for an interview twice in two days and was grilled for several hours on basic chemical engineering fundamentals. What helped me to overcome this hurdle was the intense preparation I did before the interview i.e going back to the text-books which I had long forgotten since college. What the interviewers liked was my attitude and willingness to take up a new challenge. However, I did have to start lower down the rung due to lack of experience. I did catch up with others by my sheer perseverance and the advantage I had of having first-hand practical knowledge of plant operations which some of my colleagues who had directly joined engineering did not have. Also since the consulting firm which I joined was mainly involved in consulting of fiber/polymer plants this gave me an advantage.

However, when I wanted to switch jobs to other consulting companies after 8 years of working in this particular consulting company I again had to face issues regarding my experience. My company was mainly in fiber/polymer jobs and other consulting companies pointed out my lack of experience in oil and gas/petrochemicals which hurt me in my endeavour to change my company. Although it indeed is a very sorry state of affairs, considering the fact that performing pump hydraulic calculations in a polymer plant or in a refinery, the basic procedure remins unchanged, but that is the way things are.

But there is a happy ending for all of those who have worked hard and are willing to burn the midnight oil. One of my seniors who had gone to the gulf and who liked my working invited me to join his company which is primarily in oil and gas. And today, I am in design consulting in oil and gas.

Here the idea is not to bore the readers, but just to tell that if you want something badly, you will get it if you keep persevering.

Regards,
ankur2061

[Art Montemayor]

Anuj,

My experience and background concurs precisely with what Zauberberg is sharing with you and I support what you are trying to do.

I also started out in production and operations. I accumulated 7 years in production, production management, and project engineering. And, as Zauber rightly points out, this gave me a huge jump start on process design. My field problems and bad experiences were converted to opportunities for deep, insightful learning into the workings and detailed design of such unit operations as compression, distillation, gas processing, fluid flow, heat transfer, energy generation, power, instrumentation, and (more importantly) process safety.

When I made my transition into process design I found I was head and shoulders above my peers with first-hand knowledge in such fields as process controls, equipment specifications, detailed design, P&ID generation and modification, process startups and shutdowns, relief scenarios, and compressor and pump applications. I was also often consulted on driver selections for rotating equipment, due to my hands-on experience. But the most satisfying and real measure of all the important knowledge I accumulated during those early years was to be realized in my presence within Hazops and PSSRs (Pre-Startup and Safety Reviews). Very few fellow process engineers have challenged me when I speak out during Hazops and PSSRs. It isn’t because I’m smarter or a better dancer. It’s simply because I have more intimate, detailed knowledge of what happens in the real world with the equipment in question. I’ve been there and done that. People around you are in need of such expertise – whether they will admit it or not – and they will pay you for it (as it rightfully should be).

I recommend that you work carefully on your resume and structure it such that it correctly reflects your strongest points in regards to valuable, hands-on knowledge and skills. A process design engineer must be capable of delivering complete, accurate, constructible, and safe specifications for process equipment. That is the bottom line. Knowing a lot of differential equations, Equations of State, and playing around all day with a simulator is fine and often a requirement. However, that is not where the real worth of an experienced process engineer is. People (or lead engineers) within engineering companies who believe that hands-on experience is not important are very ignorant engineers (and there is a lot of these around). They forget that when all the bets are down and you have to deliver the finished goods, you must have persons (or a leader) who are capable of walking authoritatively into a conference room filled with client representatives and proceed to accurately and authoritatively explain and defend a process design package that includes a detailed Hazop and Operability Review. The only people who qualify for this type of leadership position are those who have gone through the trenches and fought the good fight out in the field. Unfortunately, there are very few such engineers around today. Most process engineers today are not given the same opportunities Zauber and I got. They tend to spend their careers totally immersed with software, computers, text books, theory, and simulators that create their only experience with the processes they design. This is not reality. They know it, can’t do much about it, and are always looking for someone who can tell them how a reciprocating compressor really works and why it functions the way it does. They reside in a “virtual reality” world and can only speculate as to how the equipment they are responsible for sizing will actually work in the real, hard atmosphere of a production unit.

You should take pride in your self-esteem and the hands-on knowledge you have accumulated. This know-how will accumulate interest and worth as time goes by and opportunities present themselves.

[pleckner]

I can sympathize with you but the other-way around.

I’ve been in the E&C business for all but my first 3-years out of college. After 10-years in an E&C but working on inorganic processes the company was closing down and I had to find other employment. I really wanted to move to an operating company and so concentrated my search to them. They wouldn’t hire me thinking I’ve been in E&C all this time and wouldn’t be able to function in a plant environment. I was looking not to production but as a plant engineer but it didn’t matter to them, I wasn’t qualified. I had start-up experience, plant-troubleshooting experience, and training experience but to them I wasn’t qualified for their plant.

At the same time, I was still considering other E&Cs. I finally moved to another E&C that dealt mainly with petrochemicals but I had a little convincing to do there as well. What does someone who worked on inorganic processes know about working with hydrocarbons? I sold myself as a chemical engineer, a problem solver, can do pump calculations, heat exchangers, design mass transfer equipment, etc. I got the job.

Ten years later I tried to move into an E&C that dealt with the bio-pharmaceutical industry. It took a long time and a real lucky break but I finally made it. Again, these people didn’t think I could work in the bio-pharmaceutical industry since I came from the petrochemical arena. To date, I’ve proven them wrong.

Management in these industries (and I hope you are reading) need to change their mindset. We are chemical engineers all trained the same way. We can think and solve problems and have a tremendous technical background. Yes, there are nuances of your industry but we can learn quickly because that’s the way we are trained.

OK, now one more comment and this isn’t going to be a positive reflction for people like yourself but is not directed at you specifically. Look at some of the questions that come up on this and other chemical engineering forums. The questions relate to topics so basic that I sometimes wonder how the person graduated from college. The type of question can give the person’s position away if they don’t specifically tell us, and it looks like a lot of the questions that are being asked but really shouldn’t have to be are coming from people in the production arena. Sorry but this is my observation (but keep asking so we can help you!). Perhaps the hiring managers in E&Cs are seeing the same problem and have developed a prejudice against plant/production engineers in general; the same type of prejudice I've experienced but in reverse.

[JoeWong]

Anuj,
I have heard of a lot of encouraging statements from Mr. Montemayor, Phil, Zauber, Ankur...

Let us see how your future manager and hire personnel think.

Sincerely ask yourself why you have been production for 16 years but suddenly change your career direction ? I can tell you that the hire personnel will have same question and doubt on decision.

Prejudice against somebody not in similar discipline and slightly different frequency is common human behavior. So do the future manager and hire personnel.

Your future manager and hire personnel may expect you to deliver performance same as other engineer with similar year of experiences. They worry whether you can deliver but they even worry if they have budget and time to train you to deliver.

There are a lot of success story of career change for engineer with 3-5 years. Career change for engineer with 16 years really needs extra high determination. Your future manager and hire personnel may worry on your determination.

Last but not least, your future manager and hire personnel will agree that an excellent engineer should have design and real hand-on experience. You have fulfilled the second half (while other may only fulfill first half)...however their worry/doubt will always make them think that it is easy for an engineer with design experience to gain hand-on experience but not the other way...

I am sorry to tell all these negative points (you may aware) but all these are real facts. The intention is just to bring up for you to think about but not to destroy you...But i believe success will only favor those people with high determination and willing take extra effort.

GOOD LUCK

[Technocrat]

Hi Anuj,

You can try some of the things to boost your resume power:
1. You can join courses teaching CAD, process design, equipment design, piping design, simulation, project management etc.
2. You can join a technical vendor which offer technology solutions to EPC and operating companies. The solution can be an item of equipment or a service (like HAZOP, safety consultants). Look for the consultants and vendors who prefer operating personnel and they are there.

You need to formulate your biodata after few years with the vendor such that you can highlight your strengths in design and operations to get a further better job. You can then join an EPC as a specialist.

There are a lot of opportunities available in the world, you need to identify them. Please keep in mind that Hard Work and Positive Attitude is the key to success.

I was also working as production engineer in polymer and petrochemical plant. I always wanted to change my career from operations to design. I attended a lot of interviews with EPC companies but failed due to lack of design experience. Today I am with a world leader in special equipment design due to my willingness and positive attitude.

Now Smile.

Regards.