When I got out of school, I had trouble finding what job titles were related to my field. Spoiler alert: my degrees are in chemical engineering... And "chemical engineer" is a fairly rare title. However, with a decade of working at these sites, it's a little easier to translate.
Plant engineers generally report to the plants themselves. These staff members typically handle working with outside contractors and consultants. However, the main returns on investment (for the company) are (1) identifying process improvements and (2) being on call for any issues at any times. Did a heat exchanger start acting up on Memorial Day? You are probably coming on site.
This is excellent experience! To me, it is the core of what chemical engineers can do, but you will also find a good number of mechanical engineers as well. If you start at this job, try to integrate yourself with the operators as much as possible. They will always argue with you, but you can get a huge amount of traction if you work with them. Listen to the older members especially... There is hidden tribal knowledge that you can use to find issues.
Design engineers are, unsurprisingly, involved in the design of plants. If you are in the USA or Western Europe, you are probably doing brownfield (aka upgrades on existing plants) vs greenfield (brand new plants from scratch) work. You are going to be making assumptions on your systems, which you will want to clearly present to the user, but you will need to meet said plant requirements. Your career depends on your stuff working, so make sure to put in your safety factors.
If you start at this job, your ability to make re-usable spreadsheets will help. Make templates for every calculation you find yourself doing on a regular basis. Keep your folders separate and document your assumptions. Make sure you keep in touch with your vendors when you specify equipment: your sales representatives (or their technical staff) are going to be your best friends!
This is a great job to start at, as you can easily transition to senior plant jobs, but would have a hard time transitioning from a plant engineer to a senior design engineer.
Project engineers are assigned, as one might guess, to projects. Typically, you are going to be choosing between cost, quality and speed. If you work for a good firm, you will get 2/3. If not, expect 1/3. That said, you will receive complaints from your customer and will need to address them. Some will be valid.
Your ability to manage customer expectations is crucial. Try not to take anything personally here, keep in mind the subcontractors and the project's critical path. If you are getting such a position, make sure you understand Gantt charts beforehand. RSMeans will be your field.
You may also see titles like project manager in your career future, especially if you pick up your PMP (or equivalent).
Commissioning or field engineers are titles I would be wary of for a first job. If you have at least 3, maybe 5, years in, then go for them. You will be given a project that is not working, very little time to fix it and, if you are exceedingly fortunate, the phone number of the design engineer who had designed it. You need to figure out what they did wrong, politely explain it, come up with the resolution and then execute.
If you do this, it is great experience. I would simply not recommend it for a first job. Get involved with the project as soon as possible, read as much as you can about it, talk to as many people as feasible... but expect bumps. This can be really rewarding.
Technical sales engineers are, for reasons I do not understand, often looked down up. I find that ridiculous. The best sales engineers that I know understand their customer's technical problems and find solutions. They usually rely on application engineers to find the details of their issues, who usually work for the same firm.
If you are in sales or applications, make sure to befriend your customers. Try not to sell parts, try to solve problems. Make sure you do not create problems by selling the wrong parts.
I hope this helps! I will try to do one on controls job titles later on.
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