What is the Life of a Chemical

Engineer Like After Graduation?

A Career Handbook by Future ChemE

It was like I’d stepped onto the set of a post-apocalyptic movie. I was starting my
second Chemical Engineering job out of college. The manufacturing site had been
built in the 1950’s, when synthetic fiber revolutionized the fashion industry and it
was still profitable in the United States to employ an army of seamstresses to
assemble garments in
rows and rows of
buildings housing
sewing assembly lines.

This however was 2013,

and the company had
long since consolidated
local operations down
to bulk chemicals
manufacturing. The
empty decades-old
garment buildings stood like monuments to the ghosts of manufacturing past.

Now instead of hundreds of humans, we had tanks – reactors – separators – and

control rooms where a handful of highly trained humans operated the computer
systems programed to monitor and control the chemistry happening in the field.
And in charge of all of that, we had engineers trained in chemical processes, critical
thinking, and trouble shooting. This was my new domain as a Chemical Engineer.
Chemical Engineering is the most diverse of the
Engineering disciplines – so there’s a lot of ground to cover in answering the
question,

“What is the life of a Chemical Engineer like after graduation?”

Chemical Engineers are university-
trained engineers who work with
fluids in Process Units. That means
anywhere you need a reactor, big
or small, a separator, big or small,
some pumps, a compressor, and
lots of pipes or tubes to tie them all
together – that’s a job for a
Chemical Engineer.

ChemE’s can work in:

Industrial plants
Research labs
Hospitals
Universities
Military bases
and more.

It’s useful to think ahead before beginning (or finishing) your studies in
Chemical Engineering, because the role you take as a Chemical Engineer changes
everything about your lifestyle, including:

Your living Your clothes

accommodations The amount you
Your commute (both travel
distance and method, The place you sit (or
ie bike, train, car) stand) to work

As your career progresses, you may move back and forth among these roles,
and it’s worth considering which lifestyle appeals to you most in order to tailor
your experiences and electives to that career path.
 Let’s take a look at
environments and
lifestyles encountered by
Chemical Engineers after
graduation.

Industry
About half of Chemical Engineering graduates end up
in industrial manufacturing, from oil to pharmaceuticals to food
and everything in between.

A manufacturing chemical engineer could work in a more rural

plant environment, where they have their own office and dress is
casual, as engineers frequently end up throwing on FRC’s (Fire Resistant Clothing)
in order to enter into the process unit areas.

During times of Turnaround (unit downtime in order to address regular

maintenance needs and implement capital projects) they may need to spend 12+
hours a day for several days on end in the unit process area. There, they may work
exposed to the snow and cold or rain and heat, in steel-toe boots, FRC’s, a hard
hat, safety goggles, ear plugs, and wearing a radio and an air hazards monitor. In
these situations, they can usually spend downtime in the area control room,
monitoring process conditions on the control panel and cooking breakfast with the
shift operations team.
Research
If a Chemical Engineer works in a research environment, they
may have an office at a distinguished institution, or spend most
of their time in a lab with a coat and safety glasses. Hours are
typically the traditional 8am – 4:30pm, although a researcher on
the brink of a breakthrough may work later, while a relaxed one
may choose to call it a day early for part of the year for some work/life balance.
Researchers often work on long term projects with regular checkpoints when they
might present progress or findings to the CEO or other management.

Workplaces may be in remote, agricultural areas at research outposts, or they could

be at the center of big cities, in pharmaceutical labs or city universities. Researchers
may work mostly alone or with a team.

Government
For government positions, an engineer may work at a large
federal site such as a military base with security gates, many layers
of restrictions to access their office, and business professional
attire required. Or they may work at a more casual, small county
office, possibly interfacing more with the public or wearing field
clothes to do water surveys or hydraulic studies. As a government engineer they
might work in the patent law office, as a water resource engineer, with regulatory
compliance, flood control, or many others.

Path to ChemE (For all my best secrets for Chemical Engineering students, check out FutureChemE.org)
Contracting
As an engineer who works as a contractor, they could have a
remote office and spend a large part of their year traveling to
different cities, staying in hotels and becoming safety certified to
enter many different industrial sites. They would carry a laptop
and FRC’s and be prepared to consult any number of user
manuals to troubleshoot processes and equipment. The type of work they do
might be a long-term assignment to a customer site, where they spend several
years and integrate as one of the daily employees, while technically being
employed by a third party, or they could be brought in for a few weeks at a time
on short term projects.

In addition to manufacturing support, Contractor engineers are often used for

Design and Commissioning jobs. Design engineers work heavily with computer
modeling software and work with multi-disciplinary teams, meaning mechanical
and materials engineers, electrical engineers, safety reviewers, budget
appropriations managers, etc. Commissioning engineers manage big installations
of new plants or labs, working with the constructors and the operating team to
ensure all checkpoints are met, what’s in the field matches what’s on paper, and
preparing all teams for the handoff.

Corporate
Engineers working in business support roles at a
central office may commute through a big city by train, bike or car
to work in a glassy corporate office building, with skyscraper
views, where they may be given a cubicle, professional business
wear expected. They may manage product logistics and direct
manufacturing orders at the rural production sites. They may sit in lots of business
strategy meetings with corporate management, discussing new expansions,
product marketing, and overall company finances.

Working in a corporate environment may come with perks such as a flexible work
schedule, corporate parties and dinners, and catered lunch or stocked break rooms.
Sales
An engineer working in sales can expect plenty of travel, but
attire would scale up depending on the event, with suits highly
likely at sales pitches. They might work a circuit of technical
conventions domestically, or visit corporate sites worldwide. They
may take potential clients out to dine several times a month. They
might make presentations, cold-calls, and treat clients to sporting events and other
hospitality. Sometimes the role will come with a company car.

On the other hand, Sales chemical engineers may work fully from home, travel
rarely and work primarily with supply chains and customer service software,
fulfilling orders and managing logistics teams.

Job Titles
Details may vary by workplace, but the basic chemical engineering
principles remain the same no matter what the process:

Reactions and Separations, Fluid Transport Dynamics, Troubleshooting and

Problem Solving.

Here are a handful of example job titles for Chemical Engineers:

Manufacturing Engineer Patent Lawyer

Environmental, Health and Controls Engineer
Safety Engineer Project Manager
Plant Commissioner Product Manager
Projects Piping Line Editor Segment Leader
Management of Change Logistics & Supply Chain
Records Keeper Director
Unit Team Leader Sales and Marketing Engineer
Plant Manager Process Improvement
Design Engineer Engineer
Development Leader Lean Manufacturing Leader
Engineer I/II/III Quality Assurance Manager

I hope you got a lot out of this guide. For more information, check your e-mail and
follow @FutureChemE on social media. -Ruha