Help with changing industries

May 29, 2021 10:19 PM

I am a mechanical engineer with ~ 15 years experience in Oil & Gas manufacturing (ie, Refining) and want to make a career switch to something in the Energy Transition / New Energies space. I’m looking for resources and advice.

I have worked for Mega Oil Corp since I graduated from school, in a variety of asset reliability, maintenance, and project management type roles. My company has made significant changes to their strategy due to climate change and the oncoming energy transition, including creating large sections of the business devoted to New Energies, with significant investment. I had a plan to get an internal transfer to one of these divisions, and thought I was about 2 years away from pulling it off, 5 years on the outside.

Then this week, we found out that my site is being sold. My job goes with the sale, so I am being transferred to the buyer. I am ring-fenced, so my internal transfer plan is a bust. The buyer is not someone I want to work for long term, has zero presence or investment in new energies, and just generally will have very limited room for advancement for me.

So I want to start exploring options to move jobs / industries in the next 6-24 months. However, I am struggling with how to navigate this.

I realize that “New Energies” is a pretty huge space which can be a number of different things – wind or solar energy, battery technology, carbon capture and sequestration, biodiesel & plastic to chemicals, etc. I’m not actually particular about which of these to go into, but I want to be in a growth industry that is working towards making the climate situation better, not a dying industry that’s making it worse.

I live in Houston and have a strong preference to stay in Houston. We’d consider moving but I would need to know I’d exhausted all local possibilities first.

My questions –
Any advice, specific to either the New Energy space, or just generally, about moving industries?

Recommended resources (blogs, news sites, etc) where I can read up and become more knowledgeable? Bonus points if specific to Houston.

Many of the jobs I’m seeing posted online are more on the business side rather than the technical / operational side, which does not fit with my experience. Does anyone have any insight on what it would take to be considered for the more business/ commercial side roles?

Please – I know many here think that all oil companies and all people who work for them are evil. The news this week has seriously damaged my family’s financial stability and if my former company wasn’t serious about their commitment to the Energy Transition, I would still have a job with them. Please be kind.

Throwaway email -
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posted by anonymous to Work & Money (4 answers total)

)full disclosure I work for them in DK)

Orsted (danish green energy company) has a US presence with onshore and offshore projects. We were involved in the 2 east coast offshore projects that have been in the US news recently and made a recent acquisition of Lincoln Clean Energy which strengthens our position in US onshore. Here are our onshore projects, some located in Tx.

https://orsted.com/en/our-business/onshore-wind/our-onshore-wind-farms

we have been recognised for our sustainability and our green energy projects so I think it would be worth giving Orsted a look.
posted by alchemist at 12:55 AM on May 30, 2021

I'm an engineer as well, but in a very different field. Here's what I would do if I were in your situation:

- Are you a member of any professional societies? If not, join one now. ASME would probably be a good place in your mechanical engineering wheelhouse, and they would probably have lots of resources like codes, practice guidelines, and maybe even courses for continued education. Jobs would also be posted here.

- Next, I'd try to find national professional societies or associations related more directly to the field you want to get into. I'm not 100% clear on exactly what you're looking for, but I googled "green energy professional societies" and found lots of interesting things, including this certification for "Renewable Energy Professionals". If this isn't quite right, just change your search terms - there are societies for all kinds of careers and it could be perfect to join a local committee or a technical group! You could tighten your search to be Houston specific too.

- Are you registered as a professional engineer? There may be some resources with your Texas licensing board; at the very least you could find some state-specific engineering news.

- You also may need to start cleaning up your resume and thinking about interviews and such, which might be a big adjustment if you've been working with the same company for many years! If recommend reading some of the guides on Ask a Manager to get your head in the game for writing good cover letters and understanding what a good interview would look like (apologies if this seems condescending, I definitely don't mean it that way and needed similar advice when switching from academia back into industry).
posted by Paper rabies at 12:08 PM on May 30, 2021

There is a lot of capital being poured into hydrogen right now. I gather some of the expertise that hydrogen companies will need overlaps, to a degree, with the expertise that oil and gas companies have -- particularly in areas like storage and transportation. Perhaps some of your talents would be useful at a hydrogen startup.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:01 PM on May 30, 2021

Before you completely give up on your current megacorp, build your network with the non sold off part. Reach out internally to the teams that work on what you want to do, and see if there's any way to accelerate your transition, or at the very least figure out how to stay with the main company. You may not be there in terms of specific expertise (as you state you have technical vs business generation expertose) but you know how megacorp works and are an engineer with local skills, connections and knowledge of local laws which is ultimately still useful to them.

I would network like mad, cold call and reach out to anyone who works with the teams you would have wanted to transfer too and build those relationships. Do informational interviews and get your name out there. If you end up moving with your job site, make sure to reach out to those new contacts every month or so to keep your name top of mind for new roles that may better suit you.

In the climate change transition world the best opportunities right now at more senior levels really do go to personal recommendations, as the professional certifications (degree, experience or otherwise) aren't as well established yet.
posted by larthegreat at 2:51 PM on May 30, 2021 [1 favorite]