Professional and Career Topics

Hello everyone!

I want to discuss a serious topic - changing careers and acquiring new skills at different stages of life.

I know people with 10, 20, 30, or more years of experience in one or related fields. At the same time, there are people who try to transition from a successful or not-so-successful legal career into engineering or technical fields, where they have zero experience. The questions I'm interested in are:

Do you know examples where this has worked?

How do employers perceive candidates with significant age and zero experience in a new field if they are eager to learn and acquire new skills?

Are there hidden barriers or biases that make such transitions difficult?

Is it worth "changing horses midstream" when you already have significant experience in one field, or is it better to develop new skills within your current area of expertise?

I would love to hear your experiences, success stories, and advice. Let's discuss how to effectively combine previous professional experience with learning new competencies and overcoming career-related stereotypes.

Even within closely related engineering fields, I've noticed a common challenge: employers often view it as unprofitable to retrain an experienced professional in the fundamentals of a new role when they could instead hire an entry-level employee to perform the same work at a lower cost. As a result, experienced candidates are typically expected to bring transferable skills-such as project or staff management-if they want to be seriously considered.

Hello everyone!

I want to discuss a serious topic - changing careers and acquiring new skills at different stages of life.

I know people with 10, 20, 30, or more years of experience in one or related fields. At the same time, there are people who try to transition from a successful or not-so-successful legal career into engineering or technical fields, where they have zero experience. The questions I'm interested in are:

Do you know examples where this has worked?

How do employers perceive candidates with significant age and zero experience in a new field if they are eager to learn and acquire new skills?

Are there hidden barriers or biases that make such transitions difficult?

Is it worth "changing horses midstream" when you already have significant experience in one field, or is it better to develop new skills within your current area of expertise?

I would love to hear your experiences, success stories, and advice. Let's discuss how to effectively combine previous professional experience with learning new competencies and overcoming career-related stereotypes.

Darya, your post touches on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, as I went back to school at age 34 for my civil engineering degree and started in the field five years ago at age 38. Before that, I was a licensed attorney and held several roles in that field. To make a long story short, beginning an engineering career later in life after working in a very different field has provided substantial advantages as well as significant drawbacks thus far. I prefer not to share too many personal details here on the message boards, but I am happy to correspond directly with anyone interested in learning more. 

Dear Catherine,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience - it is truly inspiring! Your story perfectly illustrates both the challenges and unique advantages of changing careers later in life. It's encouraging to see how someone can successfully transition from law to engineering and build a meaningful career in a completely new field.

I'm very interested in learning more about how you navigated that change, especially any strategies or approaches that helped you overcome barriers, gain credibility in engineering, and balance the learning curve with professional responsibilities. Were there specific experiences or mentors that made a key difference for you during this transition?

If you're open to it, I would be delighted to continue this conversation and learn from your insights.

Warm regards,
Darya

Darya, your post touches on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, as I went back to school at age 34 for my civil engineering degree and started in the field five years ago at age 38. Before that, I was a licensed attorney and held several roles in that field. To make a long story short, beginning an engineering career later in life after working in a very different field has provided substantial advantages as well as significant drawbacks thus far. I prefer not to share too many personal details here on the message boards, but I am happy to correspond directly with anyone interested in learning more. 

Hello everyone!

I want to discuss a serious topic - changing careers and acquiring new skills at different stages of life.

I know people with 10, 20, 30, or more years of experience in one or related fields. At the same time, there are people who try to transition from a successful or not-so-successful legal career into engineering or technical fields, where they have zero experience. The questions I'm interested in are:

Do you know examples where this has worked?

How do employers perceive candidates with significant age and zero experience in a new field if they are eager to learn and acquire new skills?

Are there hidden barriers or biases that make such transitions difficult?

Is it worth "changing horses midstream" when you already have significant experience in one field, or is it better to develop new skills within your current area of expertise?

I would love to hear your experiences, success stories, and advice. Let's discuss how to effectively combine previous professional experience with learning new competencies and overcoming career-related stereotypes.

I came out of college with a BS in Mathematics and taught High School for 8 years (primarily AP Calculus AB and BC). I decided I didn't want to teach for 30 years for many reasons, none of which are related to not enjoying actually teaching, so I started thinking about what else I could do. I signed up for some AutoCAD classes at a local community college and started going to school at night and by the end of the school year I jumped ship and took the first engineering field opportunity that came my way. I originally was targeting mechanical but my first job was with an MSE Retianing wall block company doing design estimates. 8 years later I'm just a few months and  some paperwork away from being an officially licensed PE in the geotechnical field. I have had a lot of good mentors (and a few bad ones) and learned lessons from all of them. I've had to work pretty hard, including lots of late nights and long hours studying for both the FE and PE Exams but I've come this far and my engineering career is continuing to grow.

To answer some of your questions more specifically:

Yes, in my case it did, and is working.

Most of the employers I have had have looked at my past career life as good experience, but ultimately I owe a lot of my success to the first few for being willing to take a chance on someone relatively untested. It also meant I started at the bottom of the ladder, my work peers became people that I theoretically could have taught Calculus too a few years earlier, but I never let that bother me. In my experience as long as you can sell yourself well to get a foot in the door and enter every opprtunity with the mindset of learning as much as possible - you grow from there.

To this day I don't have the same technical background someone who graduated with a true Engineering degree does, and because of the path my career took I missed out on some of the intiial field work that most young geotech engineers would get. I am doing the best I can to fill in those knowledge gaps as I go. Lifelong learning. There are of course also the homelife components to all of this as well. WhenI decided to make this transition I was married with two kids under the age of 5. That of course adds difficulties to any transition, but my wife has always been my biggest cheerleader and convinced me I could do it during times when I doubted myself completely.

I am now in a position where I am truly getting to utilize my passion for teaching (that I never lost) and my engineering experience. I play a big part in training and coaching the young new hires. I'll close with a paraphrase of a Mike Rowe quote that I've grown to love. "You don't have to follow your passion, but you should always take it with you."

Hello everyone!

I want to discuss a serious topic - changing careers and acquiring new skills at different stages of life.

I know people with 10, 20, 30, or more years of experience in one or related fields. At the same time, there are people who try to transition from a successful or not-so-successful legal career into engineering or technical fields, where they have zero experience. The questions I'm interested in are:

Do you know examples where this has worked?

How do employers perceive candidates with significant age and zero experience in a new field if they are eager to learn and acquire new skills?

Are there hidden barriers or biases that make such transitions difficult?

Is it worth "changing horses midstream" when you already have significant experience in one field, or is it better to develop new skills within your current area of expertise?

I would love to hear your experiences, success stories, and advice. Let's discuss how to effectively combine previous professional experience with learning new competencies and overcoming career-related stereotypes.

Jon, thank you very much for sharing your story. It is a powerful example of how persistence and continuous learning can completely reshape a career path.

I especially found it interesting that you mentioned starting from the bottom again and consciously accepting that position. This requires not only technical effort, but also psychological adaptation and humility, which is often underestimated.

Your point about mentorship is also very important. In your opinion, what played the biggest role in your transition: your mathematical background, your personal motivation, or the support from mentors and employers who were willing to give you the first opportunity?

Also, do you feel that your previous teaching experience gave you any unique advantage in engineering practice compared to traditional engineering graduates?

Thank you again for sharing your journey. It is truly inspiring and very valuable for this discussion.

I came out of college with a BS in Mathematics and taught High School for 8 years (primarily AP Calculus AB and BC). I decided I didn't want to teach for 30 years for many reasons, none of which are related to not enjoying actually teaching, so I started thinking about what else I could do. I signed up for some AutoCAD classes at a local community college and started going to school at night and by the end of the school year I jumped ship and took the first engineering field opportunity that came my way. I originally was targeting mechanical but my first job was with an MSE Retianing wall block company doing design estimates. 8 years later I'm just a few months and  some paperwork away from being an officially licensed PE in the geotechnical field. I have had a lot of good mentors (and a few bad ones) and learned lessons from all of them. I've had to work pretty hard, including lots of late nights and long hours studying for both the FE and PE Exams but I've come this far and my engineering career is continuing to grow.

To answer some of your questions more specifically:

Yes, in my case it did, and is working.

Most of the employers I have had have looked at my past career life as good experience, but ultimately I owe a lot of my success to the first few for being willing to take a chance on someone relatively untested. It also meant I started at the bottom of the ladder, my work peers became people that I theoretically could have taught Calculus too a few years earlier, but I never let that bother me. In my experience as long as you can sell yourself well to get a foot in the door and enter every opprtunity with the mindset of learning as much as possible - you grow from there.

To this day I don't have the same technical background someone who graduated with a true Engineering degree does, and because of the path my career took I missed out on some of the intiial field work that most young geotech engineers would get. I am doing the best I can to fill in those knowledge gaps as I go. Lifelong learning. There are of course also the homelife components to all of this as well. WhenI decided to make this transition I was married with two kids under the age of 5. That of course adds difficulties to any transition, but my wife has always been my biggest cheerleader and convinced me I could do it during times when I doubted myself completely.

I am now in a position where I am truly getting to utilize my passion for teaching (that I never lost) and my engineering experience. I play a big part in training and coaching the young new hires. I'll close with a paraphrase of a Mike Rowe quote that I've grown to love. "You don't have to follow your passion, but you should always take it with you."

Hello everyone!

I want to discuss a serious topic - changing careers and acquiring new skills at different stages of life.

I know people with 10, 20, 30, or more years of experience in one or related fields. At the same time, there are people who try to transition from a successful or not-so-successful legal career into engineering or technical fields, where they have zero experience. The questions I'm interested in are:

Do you know examples where this has worked?

How do employers perceive candidates with significant age and zero experience in a new field if they are eager to learn and acquire new skills?

Are there hidden barriers or biases that make such transitions difficult?

Is it worth "changing horses midstream" when you already have significant experience in one field, or is it better to develop new skills within your current area of expertise?

I would love to hear your experiences, success stories, and advice. Let's discuss how to effectively combine previous professional experience with learning new competencies and overcoming career-related stereotypes.