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Alwayslearningelec

Senior Member
Location
NJ
Occupation
Estimator
So have been estimating for a long time(15 years) know can't tell by some of my posts...lol.

I'd really like to switch over to engineering, CAD/BIM etc. Probably very hard to make that switch at this point in my career and remain at same pay scale, correct. Even putting pay aside I'd imagine it would be hard to make the switch with no CAD/BIM or engineering experience. Would have to be trained.
 
We had a great CAD person at our company for several years but she was actually an architect and knew little about electrical work. Great shop drawings but she had to be fed the information by someone else. As with many of these skills IMO they require some degree of education to really master them. Would you be willing to go back to school to learn these new skills? From what I've seen over the years is that the migration from estimator has typically been to a project manager.
 
infinity said:
We had a great CAD person at our company for several years but she was actually an architect and knew little about electrical work. Great shop drawings but she had to be fed the information by someone else. As with many of these skills IMO they require some degree of education to really master them. Would you be willing to go back to school to learn these new skills? From what I've seen over the years is that the migration from estimator has typically been to a project manager.
Click to expand...
I would be. But your right about est to PM.
 
Many large projects are requiring coordination via BIM at the pre-construction stage. The BIM operator is almost always trained on the job.
See if a large Contractor (whether Electrical or General) would take you on.
Also many Engineering firms are transitioning from CAD to BIM which requires some concept of how things get installed to show things in 3D, which might benefit from your experience, so maybe take a BOCES class for BIM, then go to an Engineering firm and work your way up.
 
ron said:
Many large projects are requiring coordination via BIM at the pre-construction stage. The BIM operator is almost always trained on the job.
See if a large Contractor (whether Electrical or General) would take you on.
Also many Engineering firms are transitioning from CAD to BIM which requires some concept of how things get installed to show things in 3D, which might benefit from your experience, so maybe take a BOCES class for BIM, then go to an Engineering firm and work your way up.
Click to expand...
Thanks Ron.
 
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