Once upon a time, I worked as a field engineer for an electrical contractor. It was a very enlightening experience that fully demonstrated that time & money is the backbone of every construction project.

Bidding Phase: Once a project was opened to the contractors to bid, a field engineer would collect the contract documents (i.e. drawings and specifications) and review the requirements of the document. The review is identify the scope of work for the project and to ask questions in the event that the scope is unclear. In addition, my duties involved assisting in the time, material, & cost estimating of a project. This portion also required contacting vendors and soliciting quotes for products that met the project specifications.

Contract awarded: Once the contract was awarded, the civil contractors were the first to start the foundation work on the project. During this time, the electrical department has to go back to their notes on estimating to begin compiling product data of materials planning to be used at the job site. All products supplied by contractors has to be approved by the engineer.  Once approval is received, products are ordered and scheduled to arrive at the job site at specific dates.

The Field (Job Site): During construction phase, a field engineer will remain on-site to assist the project in various ways. Such tasks include interfacing with the design engineers and trades personnel, reviewing installation requirements of products to be installed, identifying potential issues that may impact time and/or costs, generating construction progress reports, requesting additional information from the design team, etc.

One of the memorable moments with my past employer was a discussion concerning an issue where we found that there wasn’t any power routed to a specific location. He said something along the lines of…   Mickey, I know you’re perfectly capable of solving the problem by routing wire and conduit from one location to another. However, if you were to solve the problem, then we (the contractor) would be responsible for that solution and have to stomach the costs for that solution. Instead, I would like for you to present the problem to the engineer in a RFI (request for information), and have them direct you on how they would like to fix it. By getting the engineer to direct us to fix and how to fix the problem, we’re able to submit a change order request such that the engineer pays for the corrective work and not the contractor.

Summary: Time is money, and money runs your projects. As a field engineer, you’ll witness the money side of the business where decisions are based on costs. You’ll find mistakes, budgeting constraints, and a drive to get a project finished correctly so that everyone can finally go to the next project.

-M