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Old 12-13-2017, 10:00 AM
 
33 posts, read 35,805 times
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Me and my wife, both civil engineers (me transportation, my wife water resources) with about 5 years of experience under each belt, are looking to move to Washington from FL, as some of our closest friends are there. Most of our friends are computer scientists and work in Microsoft or Amazon. We do not have a problem weatherwise anywhere in the WA. Jobs are main priority. So here I am, looking for some honest advice/suggestions

Civil engineers (transportation/water) who work in WA or moved to WA for jobs, how is the market now for us?
Are there a lot of companies to switch around if needed?
How is the pay (in general) according to your experience?
Who are the major clients (WSDOT, County etc.)?
I did some searches and see more jobs in Seattle area (as expected) and better pay but not sure how the pay-rate relate to the cost of living. What areas will you suggest that would be best to move to as a transportation engineer?

Love to hear your thoughts, suggestions!
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Old 12-13-2017, 05:15 PM
 
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,721 posts, read 58,054,000 times
Reputation: 46185
I have 3 friends that work out of Vancouver WA - Federal Highway Dept... They do interstates, and one does exclusively National Parks .

Sweet gig. Income tax free; 10 minutes to airport! Office is adjacent to the site of a National Park property (Ft Vancouver) HUGE park, Peaceful, Good hiking / walking / quiet (except for the next door freeway and airport!!) and great 'historic' rental homes on the site.

Check USA jobs.com

Personally (as a CE & ME...) I would do international assignments for a while. If possible... We did ours while kids were ages 5-15.

Helps the resume, income, and travel budget..

PNW has pretty good jobs with Army Corp and Bonneville Power. Lots of Wind Power and Alternative energy projects (Especially interesting in Chelan County) And east (Server Farms)

PNNL is a great gig, but will need to hunt for CE role.
https://pnnl.jobs/richland/washington/usa/jobs/ (Consider the Sequim location)
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Old 12-15-2017, 11:33 PM
 
246 posts, read 320,730 times
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I landed a job out here two years ago and moved from SLC. I’m up
In the San Juan’s, which is about 60 miles north of Seattle and 15 miles out to sea.

Most of the municipalities advertise with www.governmentjobs.com.

Most of the mid to large sized consultants have an office in the Seattle-Bellevue area. My experience with a lot of their job announcements is that a lot of them are just for resume gathering and there may not actually be a job there.

If you have a LinkedIn profile, you can set it so recruiters can see it and you can specify areas you are looking to relocate to.

The starting salaries for State jobs are a bit low. But I believe they are set at 75% or 80% of their max salary and you get a pay bump every 6 months until you are at the max. So if you go for that, money might be tight for a couple years.

As for cost of living: it’s high in the Seattle area. King County has one of the hottest housing markets in the country and the traffic is terrible.

The bottom line is there is a lot of work, there are a lot of companies & municipalities looking for people, but there are also a lot of engineers. Be persistent and you’ll find something.

Last edited by Beernik; 12-16-2017 at 12:36 AM..
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Old 12-16-2017, 01:03 AM
 
36 posts, read 52,514 times
Reputation: 46
I am an aquatic scientist and my wife does marketing for an environmental consulting firm. So we are not engineers but work with many. The market is great right now for civil and environmental engineers. There is a lot of demand in our area for stormwater and wastewater since these are major issues for Puget Sound cleanup and recovery. There also seems to be demand for traffic engineers based on the last company my wife worked.

There are a lot of companies to switch around. Seattle is the hub for many consulting and engineering firms that serve the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, WA, Oregon, Idaho). So there will be plenty to switch around if needed.

I think you and your wife will easily get $70k-80k, maybe more if you have more experience or more management level.

The major clients seem to be WSDOT, King County, Pierce County, Snohomish County, City of Seattle, and SoundTransit.

The pay rate does not work well with the cost of living if you plan to buy a house. No salary will unless you are a software developer at Microsoft or Amazon making $150k plus bonuses and stock. There are a lot of people who make a lot of money in this area, and everyone else struggles to get by through being house poor or putting up with a horrendous commute.

If you and your wife are willing to live further away from Seattle, I would suggest South Sound (Olympia and Tacoma). You would be closer to opportunities in state capital in Olympia like WSDOT and LOTT and housing prices would be cheaper. From Tacoma and Puyallup, you could take Sounder to Seattle.

Feel free to message me with any questions!
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Old 12-17-2017, 12:37 PM
 
33 posts, read 35,805 times
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Thanks, good to know that market is good for civil engineers up there. Do you have any links that show the pre-qualified consultants and also list of consultants with projects awarded recently? I am looking at both government agencies as well as private consulting companies to apply to.
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Old 12-18-2017, 08:00 AM
 
246 posts, read 320,730 times
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WSDOT doesn’t prequalify A&E firms. Per State law, all A&E contract are supposed to be awarded based on qualifications, not price. So qualification is determined at the time of bid & the price is negotiated later.

It’s weird to me, coming from Utah. Everything there is price based & qualifications are evaluated second.
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Old 12-19-2017, 08:53 PM
 
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I would not be afraid of Seattle King County since both you and your wife are civil engineers, but your income will go a lot further in Pierce County and there are some good engineering jobs down there. Are either of you PE's yet? Western Washington is a good place for water resources and transportation since we have a lot of water and traffic. Here is a good link for city jobs:

AWC JobNet - Search results

Also check out the following firms: Reid-Middleton (transpo, airports), Berger Abam (transpo, marine), Otak (water), KPG (local transpo), KBA (construction management), Perteet (local transpo), Parametrix (multiple including local transportation), DOWL (development, transpo), PBS (transpo, utilities incl Stormwater), David Evans (bridges), CH2M (lots), HDR (transportation), Sargent (bridges), Gray Osborne (transpo), barghausen (site development).

Most of these firms do more than what I listed. I just listed them for the work I know they have done. Many of them hire both transportation engineers and water rescource engineers and consider this a prequalified list of good firms. Good luck!
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Old 12-20-2017, 11:10 AM
 
33 posts, read 35,805 times
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Excellent, this thread have been very useful so far for our job hunt. Locations and the list of companies are definitely helpful.

If it matters, I am already a PE, my wife is an EI. Both of us have our Masters degree.
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Old 12-20-2017, 02:56 PM
 
84 posts, read 142,544 times
Reputation: 69
One other thing to consider is if you and your wife are eventually planning to have kids and one of you will be staying home for a long time period when the kids are little it is worth considering having the one who is planning to stay in the workforce get a public sector now job because the cost of health insurance will destroy your monthly budget. I currently work in the public sector and when I first moved here I worked for one of the private firms that I listed. I was paying 100% of the insurance premiums for my wife and two kids, it was very expensive, and the deductible was high.
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Old 12-20-2017, 03:28 PM
 
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,721 posts, read 58,054,000 times
Reputation: 46185
Quote:
Originally Posted by WAIDOR View Post
One other thing to consider is if you and your wife are eventually planning to have kids ... the insurance premiums for my wife and two kids, it was very expensive, and the deductible was high.
Good point / reminder for others in the future who will read this.

Medical in WA (and most of USA) is / will not be affordable. Working overseas assignments with kids is a BIG plus (often company will pay EDU costs, and international and even international PUBLIC schools are generally MUCH better than USA / especially elementary and middle schools.)

then... at HS age you can come back to WA for "Free FT college instead of wasting away in HS"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Start

Our kids benefited from traipsing around the world following great engineering jobs. We homeschooled until they entered Running Start (cuz we didn't stay in one country too long, and my job was 'regional sourcing' so we traveled nearly everyday.) Many eng co-workers used international schools to great benefit for their kids (especially the international public schools. Kids we know brought up that way secured excellent international jobs.
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