What is it like to be an Engineer Officer and what is your favorite part about being one?

I became and engineer officer because I liked engineering and that was going to be my civilian career. I thought while I was serving my country I should get as much training as I could that would assist in my civilian career.

I am very happy I did that because the military training was a tremendous help with my engineering skills, plus management and leadership skills that gave my civilian career a major boost. It would be a smart decision to take advantage of all the military training you can get.

Thank you to everyone who has responded to this question! I have learned a plethora of information from all of you and am grateful for all of it; I would have never received this quality of information from online or an engineering army career management video. It will be about 10 months before I figure out where I branch and I hope it is EN. I will try to remember to comment on this post when I figure out what I branch. Again, thank you all for the time you took to help expand my knowledge on this great branch!

Cadet Fenton

Great idea Caleb to reach out like this! I had 28 years as an engineer officer and probably the best part was the diversity of this branch - from combat engineering where you are part of the maneuver formations and many times right there with the action, to corps or theater-Army level units like bridging, construction, survey and even dive teams! Before 911, we got to do some great things on non-combat deployments - go to Country X and build a bridge, or a school, or repair a hospital. Some commands, like USARPAC or AFRICOM are doing these kinds of "engagement" missions again. As an engineer officer, you become a "jack of all trades" and you can experience some of these kinds of missions even without a "hard" engineering degree. You'll learn about Project Management, and you need to know enough about a construction job site to keep it safe and on track. But it's a leadership role, not really a technical expertise thing most of the time. Good luck and Essayons!!

Well, for one, we have our own distinct buttons. No other branch is allowed their own buttons.
Seriously, as stated in prior comments, the choices are many; combat, construction, topo, civil works (USACE), etc. Engineer officers are usually in demand when they are looking to fill leadership positions in non-branch material slots. We have, as a whole, a lot of credibility at the Pentagon.

I was commissioned out of ROTC as an Engineer Officer and have enjoyed it. I spent all my active duty time as an Officer in combat engineer battalions (44th Eng, 1st Eng, 299th Eng). I was attracted to the Corps in college because I enjoyed doing all the Infantry tactics but was studying engineering. It is a very diverse branch - combat, construction, firefighting. The construction management will definitely assist in the Corps. It has also helped that I served under a number of great engineer officers (one in particular LTG Bostick). LTG Bostick was my battalion commander in the 1st Engineers.

Congratulations on your ROTC contract; your interest to be an engineer officer and also to study construction management will serve you well, if you have the interest, especially as an Army Reserve Soldier. Your path sounds much like mine at your age (I had been an armor/CAV scout and completed the construction engineer management course by correspondence). In my younger years I liked how a construction site resembled a military organization; everyone wore hard hats and tool belts - looking much like kevlars and LBE - and we worked outdoors half the time. I liked how as my Army and civilian careers grew the two paths complemented each other although at some point the Army has less need for construction management skills if you are in the Army Reserve because the USACE does not have much of an opportunity for Reserve Soldiers (unless you go on a MOB with them, good luck convincing your employer to keep your job for your) (and if you want to have your own business you'll be doomed unless you can find a good person to hire and keep it going for you when you are gone, it's possible though, but I know a lot of engineers who lost their businesses when they got mobilized during the wars) , so you'll find yourself focusing on operations at the brigade and battalion level while your civilian career grows beyond what the Army can offer (those operations are fun anyway for the most part). I'm in Las Vegas and was involved building a $400 million project, flying enough steel to build the empire state building but my work in the army never progressed to that level. I liked how what I learned in the Army translated to my civilian job and vice-versa, it was a good compliment over the years. There are IMA assignments with USACE that could be an opportunity at some point; also, geographically, you are in the part of the country that has many engineer units so you can have some career progression there. The Army was great because it helped me get my PE which completely changed my ability to manage my Army career - you'll need to make sure that your academic program is ABET accredited so you can take your PE. You'll find CM work to be very demanding on your time and it will be difficult to do both your Army career and your civilian career - there will be a lot of questions from your employer about "when you'll be done with your reserve career". Stay with it though because you have a right to serve the Army (drill was often the only time I had away from work to enjoy a weekend - thank goodness I had a great unit and the Soldiers were great to be with so it made flying back to Oregon a good experience). At one point I was encouraged to go work for the government so I did, getting hired by a building department it gave me the time I needed for my military career. I'm retired now, finishing my career as an O-6 RSG commander. Being an engineer has been great by being a highly paid specialist which allows for the investment of time in other pursuits - additional business activities to includes the Army Reserve. As your career grows you'll find that the Army is really your way of service because you'll be working for minimum wage at best as your career advances. I had to travel by air for much of my last 15 years in my career (you have to travel if you want to move up and grow in responsibility); the cost of travel to include airfare and lodging is paid by the Soldier, and it takes a tremendous amount of time to stay on top of all the evaluations (OERs alone seem to be a career in and of themselves - geez - the Army should just scrap that and have interviews like the real world for promotions - if someone wants a job bad enough they'll show up for an interview - but I digress). It was a good ride - just so you know, I was able to meet my education and career goals in the USAR - masters degree and war college - and grew in my civilian career where I'm making about $200K per year now and every year I make more money than the previous year. It's cool to have a nickname "Colonel" from my civilian coworkers - so, that's probably what I liked best about it. Good luck - you'll enjoy it, it's a good ride. - Brenden Scherr, COL, USA (Ret)

My favorite part is the education.
At every level of command, you have to learn in order to be successful. There is no assignment where you can just sit back and do.

You have to learn the organizations that you support. In 9 months, I supported 3ID, 3ACR and 82ABN. Three very diverse organizations with unique cultures.

Your education is important because you will be the engineer subject matter expert for planning and executing engineer missions. This means you have to be an expert maneuver planner, logistics planner, and intelligence planner.

You have to know how all the warfighting functions work, how they plan, how they execute, how they asses, on top of how engineers do it.

And, like others have pointed out, unlike other branches, an engineer officer must be able to lead a diverse type of engineer units. You may start as 12B platoon leader and be a construction company commander. Then be an S4 logistics planner for an engineer battalion that has construction and combat engineers to include bridging.

At the BCT, you'll have to work with and for the BEB commander (BDE Engineer) to ensure that the engineer tasks are seamlessly incorporated into the BDE S3 and S4 orders.

Move up to EN BDE staff and you may be responsible for planning and cooridinating engineer support with the CORPS Engineer for an entire theater.

At that level, you not only have to learn the Army, but how to plan and employ the other service's engineers, too. And if you're really lucky, you get to learn how to employ the engineers of other countries and their services as part of a multi-national force, which are all different.

If you love to learn, and always ask questions, you'll love being an engineer officer.

Essayons!

As others on this post have mentioned, being an engineer officer exposes you to a variety of missions and jobs from combat effects to construction to geospatial. You'll have the opportunity to serve in many different units and even other government agencies as you progress through you career. I have served in combat engineer units, BCTs, corps-level staff, facilities engineer in an MP BDE (long story) and MILCON planning.
You'll have a lot of educational opportunities (masters degrees, project management accreditation) and will often be the SME, even as a lieutenant; everyone will he looking for you as an engineer. I was prior service as well and chose to be an engineer officer from day one; never regretted it for a second! Essayons!

I may be a little prejudiced, but I think it is one of the most diverse branches. Look at all the enlisted engineer MOSs and you will get a little bit of all of that. There are several SI (?) for a degreed engineer, geospatial, sapper leader, professional project management etc. Look up engineer officer in DA PAM 600-3. Your captains career course is about 1/2 masters in engineer managment from Missouri S&T. I also think the management aspects easly translate to the civillian.

This is from a former 12N/E/J and current 12B. I will be sitting for a direct comission board this weekend probably to be an engineer officer.

Favorite part? Three words - Blowing Shit Up!
The job is a lot more complicated than that and I spent most of my career building stuff but blowing stuff up was always the most fun. Didn't really matter if I got to do it myself or it was just my Soldiers (watching them do their first real demo mission may have been the best part). I had the opportunity to build stuff for the Army all over the world and that was very rewarding as well.

As for what the job is like, three more words - maintenance, planning and hard work. As a Corp Wheeled, heavy and light engineer, I spent a lot of time making sure our equipment was in operational order. We generally spent one full day a week doing "motor stables" when in garrison. In the field, I'd guess that it's two - three hours of blade time to one hour of refuel, lube, load and move (if you want to keep the blades pushing). A Degree in construction management will do you well because every project requires detailed planning and management unlike any other branch (I held three branches). An infantryman will lay out his plan of attack and then develop the situation - if you do that laying out a bridge the two ends won't meet in the middle, the plan requires constant supervision and careful revisions and updating on the ground. We don't "wing it" or "play it by ear" when we build (We do improvise but only after careful consideration). As an infantryman, the ability to "wing it" was a daily requirement. Finally, being an engineer is hard work - you'll often be the first one on site and the last one to leave. You'll get dirty, oil covered and beat up. The ability to step back and do a quick accurate assessment of the situation while you're dirty, miserable and tired is critical.