Structural Engineer Resume Example (2026)
By FindAJobAI team Updated How we built this page
Structural engineer job postings tend to ask for the same baseline: a licensed (or license-track) engineer who can run lateral and gravity analysis in a standard software package and produce calculations a plan reviewer will accept without revision. What separates candidates is evidence that their designs held up in the field, not just on screen. A structural engineer resume should name the building type, the software, and what happened when the design met a contractor or a reviewer.
The example below is a structural engineer with five years split between a staff role doing foundations and a project role leading lateral design on multifamily buildings. Notice how each bullet states the structure, the governing code or load case, and the result, instead of counting drawings produced.
Structural Engineer resume template
This example as a one-page template: one column, standard headings and plain text, the format applicant tracking systems read most reliably.
After you sign up, Create my CV builds your own resume in this same one-column layout, from your real experience.
Mid-level structural engineer resume example
A complete one-page example for a fictional structural engineer: every bullet pairs an action with what changed because of it.
Example resume · fictional person
Rowan Pearson
Structural Engineer
Denver, CO · [email protected] · (720) 555-0155 · LinkedIn · Portfolio
Summary
Structural engineer with 5 years of experience in multifamily and mixed-use buildings, working in ETABS, RISA-3D and AutoCAD. Designed the lateral system for a 6-story, 180-unit apartment building that cut structural steel tonnage by 12%, and caught a shop-drawing error that would have left 40 columns under-reinforced. Known for clear calculation packages and close coordination with architects and contractors.
Experience
Structural Engineer, Highline Structural Group
Denver, CO · Mar 2022 – Present
- Designed the steel moment-frame and composite floor system for a 6-story, 180-unit apartment building, cutting structural steel tonnage by 12% against the architect's early scheme.
- Ran wind and seismic load analysis in ETABS for 9 mid-rise projects a year, catching a drift problem on one 12-story tower that would have failed code by 15%.
- Reviewed 140 RFIs and 60 shop-drawing submittals a year, keeping structural review turnaround under 3 business days.
- Coordinated rebar and post-tensioning details with 3 general contractors, resolving field conflicts that would have delayed pours by a combined 2 weeks.
Staff Engineer, Cascade Engineering Partners
Denver, CO · Jul 2019 – Feb 2022
- Designed foundation and retaining wall details for 15 single-family and small commercial projects, using spread footings and helical piers depending on soil reports.
- Built hand and spreadsheet calculations checking RISA output for 5 senior engineers, catching a beam undersized by 20% before permit submittal.
- Produced construction drawings in AutoCAD and Revit for permit sets, cutting average drafting turnaround from 10 to 6 days after standardizing detail sheets.
Skills
- Analysis: ETABS, RISA-3D, SAP2000, hand calculations per ASCE 7 and ACI 318
- Materials: Structural steel, reinforced concrete, wood light-frame, post-tensioned slabs
- Drafting: AutoCAD, Revit, Bluebeam
- Codes: IBC, ASCE 7, ACI 318, AISC 360, local seismic and wind provisions
Certifications
- Professional Engineer (P.E.), Colorado, 2021
Education
- B.S. Civil Engineering, Colorado State University, 2018
Fictional example by the FindAJobAI team: the person, employers and numbers are invented. Keep the structure; use your own work and numbers you can explain in an interview.
Entry-level structural engineer resume example
A recent civil engineering graduate with an EIT and one internship at a small design firm. Education sits right under the summary, and a senior design project stands in for building experience, ending in a specific load result rather than a grade.
Entry-level example resume · fictional person
Quentin Vasilenko
Structural Engineer
Fort Collins, CO · [email protected] · (970) 555-0119 · LinkedIn · Portfolio
Summary
Entry-level structural engineer with a B.S. in Civil Engineering, an EIT certification, and an internship doing foundation and framing checks at a 12-person design firm. Comfortable in RISA-3D and AutoCAD, with a senior design project analyzing a pedestrian truss bridge under AASHTO loading. Looking for a first full-time structural role in commercial or light industrial buildings.
Education
- B.S. Civil Engineering, structural focus, Colorado State University, 2025
Experience
Structural Engineering Intern, Pinecrest Design Partners
Fort Collins, CO · May 2025 – Aug 2025
- Checked gravity loads on 18 residential floor framing plans in RISA-3D, catching 2 beams undersized for snow load before permit submittal.
- Drafted foundation and framing detail sheets in AutoCAD for 6 small commercial projects, cutting the senior engineer's redline rounds from 3 to 1.
- Measured and documented existing framing in 4 older buildings for renovation permits, producing as-built sketches used in the structural narrative.
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Colorado State University, Civil Engineering Department
Fort Collins, CO · Sep 2023 – May 2025
- Built a finite-element model of a 60-foot steel truss footbridge under AASHTO pedestrian loading, identifying a diagonal member that would yield under full occupancy load.
- Tested 30 concrete cylinder samples for a compressive-strength study, logging results used in a department report on mix design.
Skills
- Analysis: RISA-3D, hand calculations per ASCE 7 and ACI 318, basic ETABS (coursework)
- Drafting: AutoCAD, Revit (coursework)
- Materials: Steel, reinforced concrete, wood light-frame
Certifications
- Engineer in Training (EIT), Colorado, 2025
Projects
- Pedestrian truss bridge (RISA-3D, AASHTO LRFD): senior design project sizing a 60-foot steel truss, including a hand-checked connection design for the heaviest joint.
- Garage retrofit study (hand calculations, ACI 318): analyzed an existing concrete garage for added solar panel dead load and confirmed 2 columns needed reinforcement.
Senior structural engineer resume example
A licensed S.E. twelve years in, now leading a structural team on institutional and high-rise work. The bullets move from running analysis to setting review standards and owning the structural budget on major projects, and the summary names the team and the project values.
Senior example resume · fictional person
Harlow Blackwell
Senior Structural Engineer
Seattle, WA · [email protected] · (206) 555-0184 · LinkedIn
Summary
Senior structural engineer with 12 years of experience across high-rise residential, hospital and higher-education projects, licensed P.E. and S.E. in Washington. Leads a team of 5 engineers and owns the structural scope on a $120M hospital expansion, with zero major corrections across the last 15 jurisdictional plan reviews. Strong in ETABS, performance-based seismic design and construction administration.
Experience
Senior Structural Engineer, Cascadia Structural Collaborative
Seattle, WA · Apr 2020 – Present
- Lead a team of 5 engineers on institutional and high-rise projects, reviewing calculations and assigning scope across 10 active jobs at a time.
- Own the structural design and $4.2M fee budget for a 300-bed hospital expansion, coordinating lateral and vibration-sensitive floor systems with 3 MEP trades.
- Ran performance-based seismic design in ETABS for a 22-story residential tower, cutting structural steel weight by 9% versus the prescriptive code baseline.
- Set a peer-review process for calculation packages across the firm, cutting jurisdictional plan-review corrections from 6 per project to under 1.
Structural Engineer, Harborline Engineering Group
Seattle, WA · Jul 2015 – Mar 2020
- Designed the lateral system for 6 mid-rise multifamily buildings between 5 and 12 stories, standardizing shear wall details that cut average design time by 15%.
- Led structural due diligence on 20 seismic retrofit evaluations for unreinforced masonry buildings ahead of Seattle's mandatory ordinance deadline.
- Mentored 3 junior engineers through their P.E. exam preparation, two of whom passed on their first attempt.
Structural Engineer, Prairieview Consulting Engineers
Portland, OR · Jun 2012 – Jun 2015
- Designed foundations and framing for 40 single-family and small commercial projects, using spread footings, grade beams and screw piles based on geotechnical reports.
- Produced construction drawings in AutoCAD for permit sets, coordinating redlines with 8 general contractors through construction administration.
Skills
- Analysis: ETABS, RISA-3D, SAP2000, performance-based seismic design, nonlinear pushover analysis
- Leadership: Team leadership, fee and schedule management, mentoring toward P.E. licensure
- Codes and materials: IBC, ASCE 7, ACI 318, AISC 360, steel, concrete, seismic retrofit of masonry
Certifications
- Professional Engineer (P.E.), Washington
- Structural Engineer (S.E.), Washington
Education
- B.S. Civil Engineering, Oregon State University, 2012
How to write a structural engineer resume
Five steps, in the order a recruiter reads the page. The format around them stays plain for every job: one column, standard headings, newest role first.
Header: name, target title and links
Use the title "Structural Engineer" even if your title was Project Engineer or Design Engineer, and list your P.E. or S.E. status and state right in the header line or summary, since many postings filter on licensure.
Summary: what you do and your best proof
Name your license status, the structure types you design (multifamily, industrial, institutional) and your main software, then one result: a design problem you solved or a review you passed cleanly. Skip lines like "detail-oriented engineer"; every applicant claims that.
Experience: newest first, a result in every bullet
Open each bullet with the structure or the load case, then the software or code, then the result: what you designed, checked or caught, and what happened because of it. Counting drawings produced says little; a drift limit met or an error caught before construction says a lot.
Skills: grouped, in the ad's words
Group them into analysis software, drafting tools, codes and materials. Put the structure type you design in next to general skills like 'seismic design' so a reviewer can see your specialty at a glance.
Education and certifications
List your degree, year and license status (EIT, P.E. or S.E.) with the state, since licensure is state-specific. Without project experience, add a Projects section with one or two analyses tied to a real code and a stated result.
Skills to put on a structural engineer resume
Hard skills are the tools and methods of the job; soft skills are how you work with people. Each comes with one way to prove it, because a skill named only in a list counts for little. Add the ones you really have.
Hard skills
- ETABS
- Name the building type and height you modeled and one lateral or drift issue the analysis caught.
- RISA-3D
- Point to a gravity or connection design you ran in it and the beam or column size it changed.
- SAP2000
- Mention a bridge, industrial or specialty structure you modeled in it, since firms often split tools by structure type.
- Hand calculations
- Show a quick check you did by hand that caught a software input error before it reached a drawing.
- AutoCAD
- Tie it to the drawing set or detail sheets you produced and a turnaround time you improved.
- Revit
- Mention coordination with architectural or MEP models and a clash you caught before construction.
- Seismic design (ASCE 7)
- Name the seismic design category and the lateral system you used to meet it.
- Reinforced concrete design (ACI 318)
- Give a slab, beam or column you sized and the load case that governed it.
- Steel design (AISC 360)
- Name a connection or member you designed and the governing limit state, such as shear or buckling.
- Foundation design
- State the soil condition from the geotechnical report and the footing or pile type you chose.
Soft skills
- Cross-discipline coordination
- Describe a conflict with architectural or MEP drawings you resolved and who you worked with to fix it.
- Communicating risk
- Give an example of explaining a structural limit to a non-engineer in a way that changed their plan.
- Attention to detail
- Mention an error you caught in a shop drawing or calculation before it reached the field.
- Mentoring
- Count junior engineers you've trained or reviewed work for, and a result like an exam pass.
- Prioritization
- State how many active projects you juggle and how you decide which gets attention first.
- Code research
- Describe tracking down an ambiguous code provision and how you resolved it with the jurisdiction.
Structural Engineer resume bullet examples: weak vs strong
The same work, written two ways. The strong version names the tool, the scope and a result; the numbers are examples, yours must be real.
Weak: Designed structural elements.
Strong: Designed the transfer girder and column scheme for a 9-story podium building, resolving a 3-foot offset between parking and residential column grids without added steel cost.
Names the specific design challenge and its resolution.
Weak: Used ETABS and RISA.
Strong: Modeled a 14-story tower's lateral system in ETABS and found a torsional irregularity the architect's layout caused, fixing it with 2 added shear walls instead of a full redesign.
Shows the software catching a real problem, not just listed as a tool.
Weak: Reviewed shop drawings.
Strong: Caught a mismatched rebar schedule in a contractor's shop drawings that would have left 40 columns under-reinforced, flagging it before concrete placement.
A specific catch with its scale and the consequence avoided.
Weak: Worked with architects.
Strong: Redesigned a cantilevered balcony detail with the project architect to cut 18 inches of structural depth, preserving the ceiling height in the unit below.
Shows collaboration and a concrete design tradeoff solved.
Weak: Prepared calculation packages.
Strong: Wrote the wind and seismic calculation package for a 220,000-square-foot warehouse, getting it through city plan review with zero structural comments on first submittal.
Ties the paperwork skill to an outcome reviewers care about.
15 more structural engineer resume bullet examples
Grouped by area of the job, so you can find the ones closest to your work. Keep the shape (action, scope, result) and replace the invented numbers with your own.
Lateral and gravity design
- Designed the steel braced-frame lateral system for an 8-story office building, keeping story drift under 0.015 at the top floor per ASCE 7.
- Sized a transfer beam carrying 3 floors of parking-to-residential column offset, avoiding a 2-foot increase in floor-to-floor height.
- Modeled a 150,000-square-foot warehouse's wind load path in RISA-3D, sizing bracing that saved an estimated $45,000 in steel versus the contractor's initial scheme.
- Redesigned a cantilevered canopy's connection after a site visit found 3-inch deflection beyond the design limit, cutting it to under an inch.
Plan review and construction administration
- Answered 120 RFIs across 4 active job sites in a year, keeping average structural response time under 2 business days.
- Resolved a plan-review comment on a hospital's seismic joint by adding 2 supplemental details, avoiding a resubmittal cycle that would have added 3 weeks.
- Reviewed 75 shop-drawing submittals for a 14-story residential tower, catching a rebar lap-splice error in 18 columns before concrete placement.
- Attended 40 site visits over one year, documenting field conditions that led to 6 approved field changes instead of formal RFIs.
Foundations and retrofits
- Designed spread footings and grade beams for 25 single-family and small commercial projects based on geotechnical reports with varying soil bearing capacity.
- Evaluated 15 unreinforced masonry buildings for seismic retrofit ahead of a city ordinance deadline, prioritizing 4 as highest risk.
- Specified helical piers for a building on expansive clay soil, cutting projected foundation settlement from 2 inches to under a quarter inch.
- Analyzed an existing concrete garage for added rooftop solar dead load, confirming 2 columns needed reinforcement before permit approval.
Team and process
- Set a calculation peer-review process adopted by 8 engineers, cutting jurisdictional plan-review corrections from 6 to 1 per project on average.
- Trained 5 junior engineers on the firm's RISA-3D modeling standards, cutting onboarding time for new hires from 6 weeks to 3.
- Standardized 20 detail sheets for repeat multifamily clients, cutting drafting time per project by about 15%.
Structural Engineer resume summary examples
Two or three lines on what you do and your strongest proof. Start from the one closest to your level and use your own facts.
Structural engineer with a civil engineering degree, an EIT certification and an internship checking framing and foundation details at a small design firm. Built a senior design project analyzing a 60-foot steel truss footbridge under AASHTO loading. Strong in RISA-3D and hand calculations.
Structural engineer with 5 years in commercial and multifamily buildings, working in ETABS, RISA-3D and AutoCAD. Designed the lateral system for a 9-story podium building and resolved a column-grid offset between parking and residential floors without added steel cost.
Senior structural engineer with 13 years of experience leading design on institutional and high-rise projects, licensed P.E. and S.E. Leads a team of 5 engineers and owns the structural scope on a $120M hospital expansion, with zero major corrections across the last 15 plan reviews.
Common structural engineer resume mistakes
Each one is easy to make and quick to fix before you apply.
Listing software with no design attached
ETABS, RISA and AutoCAD in Skills say what you can open; the bullets must say what you designed or caught with them. Pair each tool with a structure and a result.
No license status stated
Many postings filter by EIT, P.E. or S.E. status and state. State yours plainly in the summary or header, even if it's 'EIT, exam scheduled.'
Counting drawings instead of design outcomes
'Produced 50 drawing sheets' says little about judgment. Name a load case, a member size or a drift limit, and what happened because you got it right.
Hiding construction administration experience
RFIs answered and shop drawings reviewed show you can support a project past permit. Count them and give your average turnaround.
No structure type or building scale named
Residential, industrial and institutional structural engineers solve different problems. Name the building types and typical scale you've designed.
ATS tips for a structural engineer resume
Applicant tracking systems turn your file into text that recruiters search, mostly for the skills and titles in the ad. They rarely reject a resume on their own; one that parses badly or misses the ad's words just doesn't come up.
- List the analysis software you've used by name (ETABS, RISA, SAP2000, STAAD.Pro); ads usually name one or more.
- State your P.E. or S.E. license and the state, since many postings filter on licensure.
- Name the structural materials you design in (steel, concrete, wood, masonry) rather than just "structural design."
- Mention the applicable codes (IBC, ASCE 7, ACI 318, AISC 360) you apply regularly.
For the format itself, run the free ATS resume checklist.
Everything for Structural Engineers
- Structural Engineer cover letter examplesThree example letters and a short email version
- Structural Engineer interview questions30 questions with sample answers
- Structural Engineer job descriptionDuties, skills and requirements
- How to tailor your resume without lying
Other resume examples
Structural Engineer resume FAQ
What software should a structural engineer list on a resume?
Name the analysis tools you actually used, such as ETABS, RISA-3D, SAP2000 or STAAD.Pro, plus drafting tools like AutoCAD or Revit. Pair at least one with a project where it mattered.
Do I need a P.E. license to get a structural engineering job?
Many firms hire non-licensed engineers under a P.E.'s supervision, especially earlier in a career. State your EIT status or exam progress if you're not yet licensed, and your P.E. or S.E. once you are.
How do I show structural engineering experience with no projects built yet?
Count internships, senior design projects and coursework that involved real calculations, such as a truss or beam design to a code standard, and state the load case and the result.
Should a structural engineer's resume include construction administration work?
Yes, if you've done it: RFIs answered, shop drawings reviewed and site visits show you can support a project through construction, not just design it on paper.
How we built this page
The FindAJobAI team wrote the three example resumes, the bullets, the skills and the advice for structural engineer roles. The people, employers and numbers in the examples are invented; the structure, the tools and the way each bullet is built are the parts to copy.
Once we track enough live structural engineer job ads, this page also shows the skills they ask for most, counted the same way as our in-demand skills report.
Last reviewed on November 1, 2026.