Position: Senior Structural Engineer
Travel Required: Yes
Position type: Permanent
Location: Witney, Oxfordshire
Level/Salary Range: Negotiable
Date updated: 13/03/2023
Job Description
Senior Structural Engineer position overview:
- Leading and managing structural design on projects as required; undertaking detailed engineering design of a wide variety of buildings structures.
- Represent SWJ Consulting at meetings with the client, other professionals and suppliers.
- Delivering excellent project work within agreed deadlines and within budget.
- Ensuring appropriate service/design decisions are met.
- Keeping senior staff informed of important and relevant design decisions to make sure that the objectives of the company and the client are achieved.
- Coordinating your work with other members of the project team, including graduates and technicians.
- Attending site visits
- Ability to assess, prioritise and organise self.
- Ability to prepare drawings using AutoCAD/Revit or prepare mark ups using the company standard within Bluebeam.
Qualifications and Education Requirements
- Strong and relevant project experience
- Chartered or Near Chartered engineer – ICE, IStructE most likely.
- Strong academic, engineering degree qualified (or equivalent). Additional qualifications such as PhD, MSc, MEng or MA are welcomed but not essential.
- A desire to get involved in highly technical problem-solving.
- Knowledge of tools such as Sofistik, TEDDS, TSD or similar is beneficial.
- Ability to sense check calculations and challenge solutions.
- Experience of working with a range of structures e.g. buildings, substructure and foundation in a range of materials e.g. concrete, steel, timber, masonry
- Capable of operating as technical lead as well as a team member; also in a team and on your own
- Experience of site investigations and supervision including desk study reports
- Be innovative and looking to use and further develop your technical delivery skills.
- Good team management skills and on-the-job training of junior engineers
- Experience and understanding of quality, environmental and safety project requirements.
- Proficient in use of MS office
Why work with SWJ?
Our Vision
SWJ is a rapidly growing, award winning, highly respected Structural Engineering Practice based in West Oxfordshire. Our developing client portfolio present challenging, varied, often extra ordinary schemes and the directors require additional help to allow us to deliver these schemes to the standards that we have set ourselves. Hence, we are seeking a senior structural engineer.
Our Values
Our values can be summarised as follows:
1. We are committed to treating every project on its individual merits and put forward solutions that are specifically engineered to meet the project needs.
2. Accuracy and attention to detail are central to everything we do, and we hold a total commitment to producing work that is correct at the first time of asking. 3. We demonstrate our respect for our client and the structure by ensuring that we always deliver the service irrespective of the scale of the project.
4. We will continuously innovate and push the boundaries that can be achieved with the knowledge and tools at our disposal. 5. We will be the best engineers and technicians that we can be and never settle for mediocrity.
What We Ask Of Our Employees
Be Inquisitive – There is nothing wrong with asking the question “why?” and not accepting the answer “because it is”. Some of the greatest advancements that humanity has made has been by people asking the right question and not being afraid of the consequences of challenging the status quo.
Communicate Your Ideas Clearly – As a consultant, we are paid to think and provide solutions to our clients’ problems. The successful implementation of those ideas depends on our ability to communicate those ideas in a clear and unambiguous manner. We need engineers who speak clearly, write concisely and are comfortable with presenting ideas to a group.
Be Able to Have an Argument – We aren’t talking about hurling crude abuse at another individual at a distance of six inches. What we do need are engineers and technicians who can arrive at a position based on their knowledge and skills and are able to defend that position when called upon to do so using reason and logic.
Be Accountable – We do not indulge in the blame game but do undertake project debriefs to look for opportunities to improve. We expect our employees to take responsibility for their actions and when something does go wrong to ask the question “what else could I have done to avoid this?” or “how could this be done better?”
Don’t be Afraid to Fail – It is important to try new ideas, new techniques, and new software within a safe environment so that we can improve ourselves as individuals and thereby the quality of the service we offer our clients. Adopting this approach means that we will, on occasion fail to deliver what we wanted but that is how we learn and improve.
What Do We Provide Our Employees in Return?
The Directors of SWJ recognise the contribution that our team make to our success, and we understand that without our team we do not have a business. So, what else do we offer our employees other than a salary, bonus, pension, and holidays? Our aim is to provide our employees with an environment in which they can thrive both professionally and personally during their time with us.
Family Environment – Our team is a small and close-knit team, the majority of whom have known and worked with each other over the last five years giving us a sense of camaraderie and friendship that allows us to support each other both professionally and personally. We have tried to create an environment that is fun for our staff to be part of by injecting humour wherever we can into what can be a very dry and serious profession.
Flexible Working – When we set the business up, we wanted to create a business that allowed us to work around the needs of our families/dependents and that is what we want for our staff as well. Life is short and there are more important things than work. Even before the pandemic arrived, we allowed people to work from home or alter their hours to suit their needs and by trusting our team to get the work done, our faith has been repaid many times over.
Continuous Learning – One of the benefits of having a small team is that the Directors of the firm will be personally involved in your training and development. Not only are we able to offer a combined 55+ years of experience working on a variety of building structures and the use of digital construction techniques we also have Professional Reviewers working in house that are able to guide your development towards membership of the ICE and IStructE at the level of your choosing. We supplement the individual mentoring by the Directors and senior staff with dedicated training courses, in-house training through an online portal and lunchtime CPD seminars.
Successful candidates will be able to:
1. Support the Directors’ of SWJ by leading and managing the design of building structures projects.
2. Self-monitor and report on key metrics for project performance to Directors.
3. Use and adapt a number of software packages and understand how they can best be leveraged to provide a quality design and make best use of your time. 4. Prepare sketches illustrating the design intent and size and disposition of the structural members for circulation to the design team
5. Check drawings, prior to approval, against preliminary sketches for accuracy and identify opportunities to refine and improve the design
6. Check reinforced concrete schedules against the general arrangement drawings and calculations.
7. Demonstrate a highly motivated and positive attitude towards productivity, engaging and aligning with the company’s vision, values, purpose and culture.
8. Embrace our culture of encouraging excellence by taking the time to challenge, guide and develop others within the team
9. Demonstrate a passion for continuous learning and development, both personally and professionally
Within three years you will be:
- Leading the design and managing resource within the business.
- The point of contact for projects and be responsible for the design from concept to completion.
- Starting to develop your own portfolio of clients.
- Assisting in the professional development of junior colleagues
- Assessing various computer design packages for their potential to improve the level of service that the business is able to offer and make recommendations to the Directors for their adoption.
Apply If: You have an MEng, BEng or MSc engineering degree and can demonstrate the passion, ambition, and attitudinal ability needed to meet the profile and grow into a future leader.
How to apply:
In addition to your CV please submit a covering letter that includes;
- Why you are currently looking for a new role
- What you are looking to achieve in a new role
- Your relevant technical skills
- Your current salary package and availability.