r/ChemicalEngineering • u/Benign_Banjo • 1d ago

Career Advice I'm a new grad with a few early career questions for those who have time for some advice

I have a couple questions regarding my situation, so feel free to either follow along with my narrative or just answer individual questions if you like.

I graduated in May with an average GPA and consulting internships, but no process/manufacturing experience. The job search was really, really tough but I just landed a job and started 2 weeks ago! However, it's not an engineering position.

I'm a Bioprocessing Process Chemist. Luckily, bioprocessing is my top industry aside from food, so I feel like I'm in a good place (not working in paper when I don't wanna be there, etc). The job itself isn't bad by any stretch, but I'm doing chemist work and getting paid like a chemist (i.e. shit). So here's my slew of questions.

  1. Is this a valuable experience to have? (Process Chemist). I don't do any technical work, but I get to coordinate with Controls and see the PIDs and how the plant runs. I don't want to get pigeonholed.
  2. Is it ok to keep applying to jobs? There's some local jobs that just were listed this week (different companies) with actual entry level engineering positions. Also in the industries I like, notably a shit ton more pay, and actual engineering experience.
  3. IF it's ok to keep applying (see question 2) should I even mention my current job. I feel uncomfortable putting 2 weeks on my list of experience but also don't want to lie? Not sure how to navigate that situation.
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u/sl0w4zn 1d ago

I'm not too sure on your questions, but I'm on the other end where I'm hiring for design work. A lot of the engineers we hired with operating experience leaned towards lower performance in calculations and drawings that we produce. So I'm wary of people without applicable job experience, even if they had transferrable knowledge. Like we probably won't give a strong salary offer at the get go. I would recommend you find a job more aligned with what you want to do long term 5+ years. It will be much smoother.

For job hopping, you are valid to feel guilty about leaving, but you didn't go to school to be a chemist. I have seen numerous people leave under a month because the work was not what they wanted to do. Whether it's alignment in industry, the work itself, or etc. It happens a lot, but you better have a good reason for it in your interviews.

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u/AfraidAvocado 18h ago

Can you elaborate on the issues you’ve seen in engineers with operating experience? Usually i hear that on the ground experience is a good thing in the early years of your career so this is an interesting take

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u/sl0w4zn 8h ago

Keep in mind we've had to put 3 of 4 people on PIPs, so not a huge number, but compared to the 1 of 15 (mid to senior) engineers it's a lot. Our work is heavy on the design package type of work where it's made of calculations, reports, drawings and specifications. It follows NQA-1 quality assurance level, so lots of paperwork and documentation of inputs and the likes. We've needed more mid to senior experience-level of engineers and thought the operating experience would be great to build up technical knowledge within the team. They were great for things like thinking about how much pipe length needed to be reserved for welding and some practical knowledge of which valves worked better for the function, however this info becomes general knowledge once shared. They struggled to meet our expectations in the deliverables, and they we also let them be remote-workers since they had experience. The combination made it harder for them to reach out for help, but for the level they were at, I wished they were also more autonomous.

There's habits like checking company & client procedures to know how to prepare the calcs, asking for go-bys, and a certain level of quality we expect a mid-senior level to have. They just didn't, and we correlated with they don't have as much "calc" experience.

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