General > General Technical Chat
Working as a self-employed engineer
pidcon:
I am interested to know how many of you are working as a self-employed engineer? Do you run your own company or work on a contract job from time to time? If you could share your experiences on how you got started and how you kept going, that would be great. Thanks.
cliffyk:
Way back when in Cambridge, MA some school buddies and I started a consultancy we dubbed "Second Opinion"--we offered our collective expertise to review construction/engineering proposals for a wide variety of clients; we got a negotiated percentage and fees for any savings and/or improvements we identified. It was pretty neat because we were essentially "armchair quarterbacks" tearing into and apart other people's work.
We did reasonably well and were morphing toward general project oversight and management services. However as time passed we each went our way and that was that.
After moving to Florida in the late 80s I "hung out a shingle" and did some IT consulting work that ended up as a position with the State of Florida--did that for 22 years, retiring in 2016...
pidcon:
Hi Cliff. Thanks for the input. Judging from the lack of responses, I think it's safe to say that it's hard to start a tech/engineering business when engineering is considered as a cost centre. Even harder to keep it going competing against global players.
tpowell1830:
Hi pidcon, I started working at Boeing as a contractor in 2012 as an electrical engineer on the Starliner project. I designed the switch electrical interfaces for the main console and when I was done with that, I caught the eye of the harness interface Lead, who hired me to do all of the wire harness interfaces and that lasted until October, 2016. I was picked up again in April, 2017, from a test group who needed wire harnesses done, and worked that until October 2018. Caught the eye of the manager for the Presidential Airplane wire harness implementation and started in February, 2019. Worked that until April 1, 2020 and was laid off because of all the Boeing problems, made complex by the corona virus. I am now unemployed, waiting for the next job...
With that said, I am 66 years old and I could retire, however, I am able and willing to work, but it is a bad market. I don't recommend contract work. I did try many times with Boeing managers to get on as a Boeing employee, but it never happened. The gaps above were unpaid gaps, so that is a big downside.
T3sl4co1l:
I've been doing contract/freelance/consulting for some years now. It's good.
Speaking of which, I'm open for new projects right now. :-+
Tim
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