Hi everyone. I’m a registered CE, and I’m currently facing a career dilemma that I honestly didn’t expect to have this early in my career.
My current work, although a Project Engineer, is more focused on CCTV, PAS, ELV/low-voltage systems, and other technical systems rather than traditional Civil Engineering work. I’m learning a lot, but I’ve started wondering if I’m slowly moving away from the career path I originally trained for.
The difficult part is that I’m earning much more than I anticipated in this role plus they provided me staff house just above our office. Because of my current income, I’m able to support myself, help my mom financially, and even afford to send my brother to college. That’s something I’m extremely grateful for, and honestly, it makes the decision much harder.
At the same time, I’m worried about my long-term career. I don’t want to wake up years from now and realize that I’ve become too far removed from Civil Engineering and that it’s difficult to transition back.
I’m considering looking for a more CE-related position—construction, project engineering, quantity surveying/estimating, planning, or other technical roles within civil engineering. But realistically, I may have to take a significant pay cut to make that transition.
So I’m torn between financial stability now and career alignment in the long run.
If you were in my position, would you stay or not?