A Day in the Life of a Field Engineer
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Presented by: Megan Hughes
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A Day in the Life of a Field Engineer
- 1. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 A Day in the Life of a Field Engineer
- 2. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 Agenda Definition Types of jobs and Equipment Commonalities Conclusion
- 3. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What is a Field Engineer? • Someone who routinely works at job sites away from the employer’s office • Usually provides on site support to clients
- 4. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What can I do as a Field Engineer? • Construction engineer • Land surveyor • Testing engineer • Sales engineer • Training engineer • Service engineer • Drilling engineer/Company (Wo)Man • Production engineer
- 5. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 CONSTRUCTION ENGINEER
- 6. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What does a Construction Engineer do? Design and execution of: • Roadways • Buildings • Dams • Rigs Assists in supervising field employees assigned to a particular construction discipline work area
- 7. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 Equipment • Steel Toed Boots • Hardhats • Heavy machinery • Harnesses
- 8. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 LAND SURVEYOR
- 9. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What is land surveying? Detailed inspection of an area by collecting observations and measurements in the field • Establish legal boundaries for the construction phase • Need knowledge of geometry, calculus, trigonometry, property law, and contracts
- 10. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 Equipment Historically • Theodolite in conjunction with triangulation Modern • Total Station
- 11. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 TESTING ENGINEER
- 12. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What is a Testing Engineer? Provide consulting services to wireless device vendors and operators • Developing and executing test cases to verify the functions and maintain quality standards of mobile phone products • Ensure cell phone towers are working properly
- 13. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 Equipment
- 14. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 SALES ENGINEER
- 15. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What does a Sales Engineer do? Articulates technology and product positioning to both business and technical users • Assures complete customer satisfaction through all stages of the sales process • May visit clients either at their office or in the field
- 16. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 Equipment Equipment • The product you are selling!! Products • Valves • Pumps • Bits
- 17. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 TRAINING ENGINEER
- 18. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What is a Training Engineer? Provides both proactive and reactive customer support • Implements, operates, and troubleshoots equipment • Trains current and potential users • Visit clients either at their office or in a formal training setting
- 19. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 Equipment Equipment • The product the client is using! • IT and company specific software
- 20. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 SERVICE ENGINEER
- 21. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What is a Service Engineer? Finding potential reservoirs • Seismic surveyors • MWD/DD
- 22. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What is a Service Engineer? Assessing the reservoirs • Formation evaluation
- 23. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What is a Service Engineer? Producing the reservoirs • Testing • Data analyst
- 24. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 DRILLING ENGINEER/COMPANY (WO)MAN
- 25. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What does a Drilling Engineer do? Supervise rig operations during the drilling phase • In time, will be involved with well design, planning, and rig operations • Interacts with contractors • Can deal with procurement processes
- 26. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 PRODUCTION ENGINEER
- 27. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What does a Production Engineer do? Production planning and scheduling for applicable industry • Interacts with contractors making sure product is delivered in a timely manner • Can deal with procurement processes
- 28. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 COMMONALITIES
- 29. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 What do all of these jobs have in common? • Unconventional hours • Unconventional attire • Directly interacting with clients, heavily teamwork based • Mostly troubleshooting and problem solving, little design
- 30. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 CONCLUSION
- 31. Presented by Megan Hughes, SWE ‘12 Conference,, Nov 8, 2012 Conclusion • The field engineer job is outside of the employers office • There are a number of jobs available for those who want to do field engineering • It requires soft skills as well as technical aptitude • The positions are usually a stepping stone to other job functions
Editor's Notes
- Today I am going to talk to you about different field engineer opportunities. Because it can be a unique job, I have highlighted some career paths but I am planning to leave most of the time for discussion.
- Does any one know the definition of a field engineer? What do you think they do? The simple, all encompassing definition is it is someone who works at job sites, away from the employer’s office. This is usually to provide a service to customers.
- So, now that you know what field engineering is, can you guess some of the jobs they perform? If you Google ‘field engineer,’ may jobs will appear, and some of them for companies you would have never thought, including Microsoft, Rockwell, GE, and Siemens.
- I started with one of the most commonly known field engineer jobs: construction
- We need construction sites to build almost everything. As a field engineer in the construction industry, you will be one of the on site managers. You will oversee the building of roadways, buildings, dams, rigs, etc. Additionally, especially if your work in on roadways and the transportation industry, your job will include maintaining the roadways. This job will include some design in the planning stages but mostly execution on site.
- As you can imagine, construction sites can be in remote areas, especially when there are newly developing neighborhoods or roadway developments. During the day, you will most likely have to wear hard hats and steel toed boots. There will be lots of heavy equipment and machinery present, including cranes, bulldozers, backhoe loaders, and generators. Although you will not have to operate them, it is a good idea to know how they work in case there are any issues with them. Most of the activity, as you can see and probably have seen before, will be done outdoors and will be from 6 am – 3 pm. Safety will be a big concern as well.
- Along with construction, but still within the civil engineering realm, is land surveying. This job is described by the detailed inspection of an area by collecting observations and measurements in the field. The observation portion deals with activity of the surrounding area and any markers that may be present such as fences; the measurements portion deals with elevation changes and a coordinate position to get a 3D point in space. Usually this is done prior to the design of any developments but can also be done for purely legal reasons. Due to this, it is imperative for the surveyor to have some knowledge of property law and contracts. Additionally, there is extra training and certifications required for this job. An equalivant of the FE exam is the FS (or fundamentals of surveying) exam.
- Even until the 1990s, surveyors had used basic measuring devices such as a tape measure, level, a theodolite, which measures angels in the horizontal and vertical planes, and then used triangulation to determine the three dimension grid an area encompassed. Today, they use what is called a total station. It combines the theodolite and an electronic distance measuring device (EDM). GPS systems are not as accurate and do not work well in dense brush areas so a total station is still the equipment of choice. A total station is pictured above – you may have seen someone using it on the side of the road. Technology has become such that total stations are now fully robotic and can email point data to office computers. Again, most of the work is done outdoors during daylight hours and in remote areas. Along with this, it is possible that one could spend a week surveying in a remote area that would require either long travel to the site or staying in a hotel around the area.
- The mobile phone/wireless industry heavily uses the field testing engineer position. It is defined as providing consulting services to wireless device vendors and operators. This includes the testing of new products (actual devices or wireless capabilities) to ensure they work properly with the network prior to commercialization or ensuring that cell phone towers are working properly. While the first case has more traditional hours, the second one is more of an on call lifestyle. Additionally, it could require travel both domestically and internationally.
- When doing this job, you will obviously need a mobile phone, laptop, and access to the wireless network you are testing. Depending on your location, you could also need a harness and hard hat.
- There are a number of products that require a technical background to apply a particular product or service to the customer’s needs. Therefore, the sales engineer position has been created. Their job is to accurately convey the product, its capabilities, and applications to potential new customers. They will also ensure that once the product or service has been sold, the client is 100% satisfied. The selling and QC process can take place at either the customer’s office or where the product will be used.
- Some of the products that require a technical background are valves, pumps, bits, and heavy machinery. You will be at the site where the products are installed, whether that is at a machine shop, mining site, or rig site. You will most likely be in steel toes and hard hats.
- A field service engineer can mean a variety of jobs, which is usually installing and maintaining equipment. However, I am going to focus on the field engineer position in the oil industry. The first sector I am going to talk about is finding the potential reservoirs. Seismic engineers work on boats or land units in remote environments. They run ‘streamers’ out behind the boat that collects data to create two and three dimensional modeling to find potential oil bearing formations. Part of their job is to run the streamers, pictured above, and the other part is to run the data acquisition and processing software. Measurement While Drilling and Directional Drilling engineers have similar type jobs. They execute a drilling program based off of these models. They prepare their tools to go down hole, monitor what comes up from them in real time, processes the recorded mode data, and gives the client the end deliverables. Both job types are on land or offshore vessels, making sure everything is going correctly and safely. Both will wear coveralls, steel toes, hard hats, and at times harnesses and lifejackets.
- Another field service engineer’s job involves assessing the reservoir after it has been reached, also known as formation evaluation. Similar to the previous jobs, part of their job is preparing the tools the client wants to run and the other part is data acquisition and processing. Some of these tools do the basic gamma ray, resistivity, and density/porosity; others are more complex devices that can do formation pressures or seismic mapping. The engineer on the job will be solely responsible for the job; when things go wrong, you must fix it. They will be out on the rig, with steel toes and a hard hat and usually are on call for a certain amount of time. They will be in a unit similar to the picture above and create ‘logs’ which is also pictured. Some of their job will require handling nuclear sources.
- The last step I am going to talk about is producing the reservoirs. This includes perforating, well stimulation (frac-ing), artificial lift, testing, and completions. Perforating will deal with explosives, while well stimulation will deal with chemicals and extremely high pressures, testing is a lot of collecting of data, observing sensors and monitors, and completions will assess the safety and efficiency of producing the well. Artificial lift is slightly different in that you will learn how to install the product to then sell it. Again, all jobs will be operating in remote environments and you will need to wear hard hat and steel toes. Depending on what are you are working in, you may also need to have H2S training.
- A field drilling engineer and company man will be out on the rig, supervising all drilling operations. It is part of their training to then move into the office as a drilling engineer. They need to understand all operations that occur on a rig– drilling, casing, cementing, wireline, mud engineering, mud logging, subsea, and ROV. If anything goes wrong, they are one of the go to people; if operations are not going as expected, they need to talk with their contractors to understand why. Additionally, they are in charge of ordering certain items on the rig, such as drilling equipment so they will need to have a knowledge of the procurement process.
- A production engineer is traditionally similar to a process engineer but in the oil and gas industry, can require rig visits and various hands on activities. It is similar to the drilling engineer/company (wo)man job as they are the one in charge of all activities and have to know each part of the process. They will also be ordering certain items on the rig, such as drilling equipment so they will need to have a knowledge of the procurement process. Any shut downs for maintenance or other issues will be handled by that person as well so extensive training will be required.
- Some of the common threads you have seen with the jobs presented in the past hours are mostly involving unconventional hours and attire, they usually are directly interacting with customers or contractors, and are largely troubleshooting/problem solving positions.
- In conclusion, the field engineer job is defined as operating outside of the employer’s office. I hope you have realized, if you didn’t before, that there are a number of options and avenues one can take if this is what they are interested in. They do, however, require a balance of soft skills and technical aptitude so you must like to be around people. Lastly, the positions tend to be a stepping stone to manager positions. You must understand how the field operates to become a functional project manager.