To summarise, have an interview next week for a materials engineer position (grad). Very keen for the job but studied mechanical engineering at uni.

Wondering if there’s anything specific I should concentrate my time on? What’s day to day like in the industry / position you’re in?

It’s for an oil and gas company (but not one of the big players), mainly advicing on material selection / testing.

Any interview advice also appreciated!

Cheers

Do a bit of reading around CO2 corrosion. That’s the predominant corrosion mechanism on the inside of all the pipelines/piping.

External corrosion is due to seawater assuming your employer is mostly North Sea based. Look up coatings and cathodic protection.

I’ll look up some links for you and post a bit more later.

Good luck!

(20yrs as a materials/welding engineer in oil & gas)

I consult in coatings and corrosion which has some cross over.

If its a grad position and you have an interview it’s likely they have training programs in place to bring you up to speed. My understanding is that the industry is heavily regulated by standards. Depending on where they operate that could be NACE, NORSOK, ISO or others.

Maybe NACE or iCorr would be a good place to do a bit of reading around corrosion. Whether that’s relevant I don’t know. Generally it is, as it’s a massive problem.

If it comes down to strength and other properties for structures, vessels, pipes etc. I’m a little out of my comfort area.

TWI (the welding institute) have some good resources but obviously focussed around welding. Likewise some of the class societies such as DNV produce good information and guides. They do work in O+G and other offshore activities but tend to focus more on ships.

I’d do some of the usual stuff for prep. Look at the website, read it, find out about the company values and culture as you’ll be expected to fit. Try and find out what they are working on or at least what areas they work in. Glassdoor (if the company are big enough) may have some info on the types of interview they do. Situational/”Tell us about a time when”, a chat or something else. For grads you normally get all three, the later being way of finding out how you think, and deal with challenges. Look up their competitors. How are they different. Come up with a reason why you want the job, find something to be enthusiastic about. Look up the company and staff on Linkedin – is there anything useful on there.

If you are asked a question, answer it, don’t go off on a tangent. Try and structure your answers and say what you did. Use “I” not “We”. STAR is often a reasonable guide. Situation, Task, Activity, Result.

Whenever I interviewed science grads in my previous role I was looking for some of the following:-
-Enthusiasm (general and for the subject)
-Intelligence/Critical thinking skills
-Preparation (because if you haven’t done the background reading for a job interview will you do it for an experiment/project?)
-Attitude (because no one knew the subject area, we’d teach that).
-Self motivation (see preparation) having done something beyond the minimum. Everyone I spoke to had a 1st or 2:1. What extra did you do? I want someone who’d going to look for positive things to contribute outside their core job.
-Evidence (of the above)
-Fit – did you give a good impression, can I imagine working with you 8 hours a day.

jonba makes a good point above. The best thing to read is ISO 21457. That’s the international standard that governs materials selection in the industry. It’s pretty dry reading but if you read through it a couple of times you can bluff your way through an interview. They know you’re a mechanical engineer so won’t be expecting you to know everything. Hopefully you can get a copy off the internet – if not PM me.

I’ve had an amazing career. Travelled the world and earned good money. I love being a materials engineer – I like being a specialist in something. On the negative side you’ll need to reconcile your conscience with the environment aspect. Plus there’s probably not an entire career in oil and gas left for a fresh graduate. I also don’t imagine the pay and travel are going to be the same for you as they have been for me. Don’t let that put you off though – just want you to be aware of pros and cons.

valve engineer here.

NACE, standard corrosion resistant materials (duplex CRA etc) but more importantly what johnba says regarding attitude.

good luck

Sorry, I should also answer your other question.

Day to day I sit in front of a computer. I spend most of my time writing reports and coding (Python). It pretty much revolves around calculating corrosion rates and occasional cathodic protection calculations – lots of maths. A couple of times a week I’ll attend meetings and occasionally give presentations. I don’t get out of the office much due to Covid bollocks.

However, in the past I would spend about 3 months of a year travelling somewhere. I’ll be visiting suppliers and overseeing manufacture of some component. In a previous job I’ll be conducting my own fabrication activity (I used to work for a pipeline installation company), so would spend loads of time in an industrial setting or on a pipe lay vessel. That’s was quite enjoyable when I was young, but I’m over that now. As a graduate companies make sure you get out of the office to see what’s happening on the ground. That also means you’ve got to be willing to work long shifts if it’s somewhere like a pipe mill, and you’ll probably be put on nights. Lots of graduates these days think they’re above that kind of thing, but my view is it’s all part of the learning process. Plus I had to do it, so it’s only fair you do too.

As above, you will be getting interviewed for a Grad position so I would focus on preparation of yourself. How you would handle different situations, and knowing when to ask for help is very important.

Certainly find more about the company. -i.e. find out what the company does, where they operate. etc.

Be mindful of codes and how they apply in order of relevance, as in, regional laws first and fore most then, client specs, industry standards, internal best practices etc.

Safety is paramount in the industry, so this is also good to work in to answers.

Companies will have procedures for doing things also so try to work this into the answers as well. The procedures often tie in with doing things safely.

Think about renewables also as this is becoming a factor for most companies.

From a / material selection perspective as Fanatic 278 said above re corrosion mechanisms and cathodic protection, only thing to add is Codes play a big part in the industry and material selection is predominantly done through computer programs based on product and environmental data, so knowing about the relevant ones will be a good place to start. You wont be expected to know the details of the codes as you will not be expected to buy them. So Nace/ISO 15156 is a key one, then the likes of DNGL-ST-F101, multiple ISO specs and EEMUA 194

Then from a physical material perspective look at the 2 or 3 most common material grades used Subsea.
Carbon manganese from 355- 480 yield strength typically called X52,X60,X65,X70.
Duplex and Super duplex.
If you have time some austenitic Stainless steel (316) and structural grades like S275 and S355.

Then look at the typical manufacturing processes like line-pipe manufacturing, Forging and wrought products.

Don’t bury yourself in detail. Just understand what they are.

Then plenty of examples about how you manage time, worked to deadlines, what you do well and what you don’t do well, working to budgets etc

Good luck

I manage a Sour Service testing laboratory in Manchester, for a consultancy that primarily consults on materials (read corrosion) issues for Oil & Gas industry. I have a MEng Materials Science degree.

All of the above is super advice.

Some awareness of the existence of industry standards such as ISO15156, NACE TM0284/TM0177 might be useful but I would not expect any graduate to know any of the detail within, how they’re applied, etc.
Materials selection and corrosion testing is quite niche, even within the industry. I spend much time speaking with people who know they want some sort of test doing to qualify their material but nothing about what that testing actually is, how it is done, etc.

jonba’s general interview advice is top.
They know you’re qualified on paper so want to see who you are, how you carry yourself, and so on. Whether you are someone they could work with.

As far as my current role goes it is now management, albeit with a large portion of project work at the moment due to business needs, so not that applicable.
Previously when I was exclusively managing testing projects there was a lot of wearing routine. Most of the interest was in managing resourcing, liaising with clients, etc. The juggling, as it were. The consultancy side of the business always seemed more interesting to me, less routine and more engaging. Try to get some sort of rotation in your role, as grad schemes often have, so you can find out about yourself what you actually like to do.
Be prepared to work hard to understand what you’re doing and what you need to do.

Feel free to send me a PM if you wish.

Wow, some great advice here and really appreciate everyone who’s commented. There’s an awful lot to take in and some of the terms are familiar as I’ve been doing some research thus far.

The particular noting of the standards is a great bit of info to have and another avenue to look in to. I’ll be sure to read back through all the comments again and those who’ve offered to have a chat via PM, I’ll certainly take you up on that offer, many thanks!

As for the company, it’s relatively small, about 8 – 10 employees according to LinkedIn, my guess would be the interview could be with the founder and another materials engineer.

From previous experience, how does it reflect when you’ve had a bit of a nosey on someone’s LinkedIn? Does it come across as doing research or being a bit nosey?

Thanks

From previous experience, how does it reflect when you’ve had a bit of a nosey on someone’s LinkedIn? Does it come across as doing research or being a bit nosey?

Probably best to do it incognito. There’s an option on LinkedIn to hide your identity but it’s buried deep in the settings somewhere.

If you want to PM me the name of the company then I might know them and offer some specific advise.

If someone’s put stuff on LinkedIn they’ve done it to be read, so it’s not nosey. I wouldn’t go into detail about what you’ve read in their profile, I’d mention it with other research you’ve done on the company.

Its on LinkedIn to be read. I’d take it as a positive if I had someone in interview who looked me up. Ok to talk about an article or white paper if recent but don’t comment on posts they’ve liked etc.

Again I’d be happy to know someone read my last article. It was niche so probably had a limited audience! Cryogenic spill protection standards and coatings for LNG.

I always enjoy these threads – some great advice above by the way.
One thing I would add – don’t forget about the non-metallic bits… Typically the weakest bits of any given system.
If the role involves more than metals have a look at ISO23936-1 and -2 as starting point and look up rapid gas decompression (RGD). As has been said above I wouldn’t expect a fresh grad to necessarily know anything in detail but I would be impressed if they knew about their existence.

I head the Material Engineering Group of a sealing company and we happily employ mechanical engineers (although my degree is straight Chemistry) – in fact I have a new grad starting in September who is a mechanical engineer.

One possible thing to bear in mind regarding professional accreditation – material engineers often go down the IOM3 route to chartership rather than IMechE and I’d be expecting any grad to be asking me questions about our mentorship programs.

Used to manufacture oil and gas pipeline components, did a bit of nuclear as well i think.
Look up the properties of common high strength and commonly used materials such as the various inconels and duplexes. Just about everything we made was of pure unobtainium and had ridiculous lead times on any scrapped material, like 6 months for a forging.
I would imagine being conversant with more easily sourced alternatives wpuld be advantageous.

Assume there will be more people on a spectrum than a Sir Clive Festival

I’d have to echo jonba’s thoughts on what the interviewers are likely to be looking for. I’m in O&G, I also trained as a mechanical engineer. I now work mostly as a stress engineer.
When I’ve interviewed for graduates, it would be similar to your potential employer interviewing for graduate materials engineers – I don’t expect them to know *that* much about stress analysis fresh out of uni.

Someone with the right attitude and approach can learn whatever they need to know while on the job – but if they’ve got the wrong attitude, it’s never going to work.
I’m much more interested in their attitude, their interests, and their approach to solving mechanical/logical problems than in how much they know about the subject matter.

Not a material engineer but I was involved with coil tubing and was considering writing a program that simulated fatigue for pipe as it is repeatedly run over gooseneck. There was already software that tracked the number of bend cycles each section undertook and the tubing was retired after n cycles. Tube was welded seam so failure tended to be on weld and pretty catistofic / dangerous.

Point being there are applications of monitoring repeat bend cycles.

Thanks again for all the advice and additioal input. Certainly plenty to go on there. I’ve contacted a couple of staff members via LinkedIn who were graduates of the same university, hopefully they can offer a bit of insite.

There seems to be quite a lot of cross over between all the different job roles mentioned above with some recurring themes which helps to steer my direction of focus.

@AD

@fanatic278

PM’s coming your way.

As a general question, I have quite an interest in FEA, is this something that is used often for materials testing? Assuming it’s a method of simulated destructive testing, seemed to gather some interest for another position I’d interviewed for and that was as a data analyst for a utlities company.

Thanks again!

Yes, I think FEA is used regularly.

I’ve seen it used in structure design and accident modelling. Common in fire design to understand damage to parts of the structure. I my memory is correct it is covered in the Eurocodes (EN 1990 onwards). Something these guys do https://pfpspecialists.co.uk/services/fire-engineering/

I’ve seen it used in O+G, ship building and the like. Normally around big lifting and installation operation where the behaviour needs to be modelled in unusual situations.

FEA only works if you have good data to put in and that comes from materials testing and smaller scale models. I don’t know if it really counts as FEA but I had some interesting conversations with this company https://www.tecosim.com/ who use digital twins and modelling to reduce the amount of destructive testing needed in car approvals.

I assume people outside of the bike industry are doing things like this

https://bikerumor.com/2021/05/21/sram-prototypes-ai-optimized-3d-printed-cranks-using-autodesk-generative-design/

What kind of questions would you be expecting to ask in an interview for this sort of role / position if you were interviewing?

I tend to ask what brought someone to the role as it’s a good opportunity to learn about someone and can then ask more questions, what projects I may be involved in etc.

Any others would be appreciated.

Cheers

There was a survey done years ago, maybe still relevant, survey of a big number of personnel interviewer people, the results were remarkably similar, they asked: what are the main 3 things you look for in a candidate? answers were 1. they turn up. 2. openness. 3. honesty.

All said they work this out and make a decision in the first 10 minutes.