Civil Engineer - Staff Professional

GeoTek is currently seeking Civil Engineering graduates or experienced engineers to join our team as Staff Professionals. GeoTek prides itself on our outstanding Mentor Program for new graduates. Because we believe in helping others be the best they can be, we assign you an experienced Senior Level Engineer to partner with and get you a vast amount of experience in our fields to develop you as a project manager.

The Staff Professional will assist senior engineers on all services provided by the company for the technical, operational, management, and administrative activities of the projects they are assisting with. Following is a brief list of those duties;

1. We give you a Mentor (Senior Engineer, P.E.) to help guide you through the first few years of your career and beyond. This gives you a resource for questions and direct communication with the top people in our company. You should meet with your mentor regularly.

2. We provide you experience at the “ground level” in as many of the areas of our business as possible. This teaches you the fundamentals of our business and makes you a stronger technical person and a better future manager.

The intent of this “ground level” experience is to make you a better-rounded engineer that has construction experience, can communicate with contractors, has a working knowledge of laboratory testing, and can manage field technicians. The top people in this company have all had several years of testing and inspection experience prior to starting their current positions. These people have indicated that this experience is a major reason they have been so successful in their careers.

The Mentor Program varies for every individual, but the basics are the same; you will spend around 1 to 2 months in the laboratory, approximately a year or more doing field inspections, and a few months doing special inspections, geotechnical, or environmental work. The goal is to make you proficient in as many areas as possible such as:

Laboratory: Everyone should spend some time in the laboratory. Sooner or later you will be in a position of reviewing lab work for your project. You need to understand what the procedures of the test, the limitations of the test and if the test results make sense for your project. The laboratory is a great place to learn how to classify soils which is critical to grading and geotechnical design.

Grading Inspections: During the earthwork construction of a project, a field technician performs inspections and test of the soils to verify the contractor has constructed the building pad in accordance with our design. This is the single most critical activity that any geotechnical company does. Spending months or even a year or two performing grading inspections is an important activity for any young engineer or geologist. This is where you learn how projects are built, how our geotechnical design reports are used, and how to effectively communicate with contractors. You can’t effectively do design if you don’t know how a site is graded. Often times as project managers, we need to be able to meet with clients and contractors and discuss problems on projects. This experience is where you draw your knowledge from to handle those situations.

Special Inspections: The vertical side of construction requires special inspections. This includes inspections of rebar, concrete, masonry, and steel. Regardless of whether you end up doing construction materials testing (CMT), geotechnical design or environmental work, the more knowledge you have of the construction business, the more valuable you are as a consultant.

Report Preparation: During the time spent in the field you will be trained on report and proposal preparation. Understanding what goes in to a final report makes us all better field technicians and ultimately better Project Managers. You will attend several seminars from our GeoTek University series of training on such things as Professional Conduct, Risk Management contract language, Billing, and Leadership, etc. These seminars will be helpful in your career and in learning to write technical proposals and reports.

Geotechnical: Regardless if you end up being a Staff Professional or Project Manager in CMT, Geotechnical Design, or Environmental work, your experiences in all areas are going to be extremely helpful to you. All areas or aspects of our business cross over and cross training is important. You will learn to do geotechnical field work consisting of logging bore holes and test pits and you will learn to prepare Geotechnical Evaluation Reports.

Environmental: Before banks will loan money to purchase real estate, they require a phase one environmental site assessment. Learning what is involved in researching the environmental data and site reconnaissance will help recognize hazards in the future and this will help you be a better consultant.

We have had a lot of success with this approach to growing quality employees and congratulate you on taking the first steps to a successful career with GeoTek.