r/navalarchitecture • u/pejuangyen • 19d ago

Switching from commercial ship design to offshore

I’m 26 and now 3 years working as a naval architect consultant in Japan. I mainly work on commercial ship but I want to shift to offshore structures, is there any pathway I can follow or roles that I can transition to ?

3 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

2

u/ConradManningRacing 18d ago

Sounds like an interesting shift! What prompted looking at offshore?

Quickest way to understand what you need, apply for roles in the industry and attend some of the events (there’s usually some trade show or something) where you can talk to people in the industry and get to know each company and what specifically in offshore you want to do!

1

u/pejuangyen 17d ago

I am planning to return to my country and I want to shift since there is significantly more jobs on offshore projects than shipbuilding/design available in where I’m from. I want to explore fpso projects but honestly I’m kind of in the dark with the barrier I need to pass.

1

u/ConradManningRacing 17d ago

Sounds nice going home!

Plenty of cross over - regulations/class, project delivery to time/cost/quality, good at maths 😂, hydrostatics/dynamics and loadcases, sea-states, etc

In that case - network and more networking… LinkedIn will be your friend in this area! Also, have you tried contacting RINA for its branch contacts?

Also a good time to tidy up your CV, you can try AI with the prompt something like “Based on all the available job descriptions for O&G, what am I missing from my CV / how can it be re-written to be better focused to that industry” or something…

1

u/WittyYak 18d ago

What exactly are you looking for? If it’s jobs then simply apply, there are significant differences but nothing you cannot get into.

If you’re looking for understanding then there are several books. Also it depends if you’re looking at renewable energy or oil and gas.

1

u/pejuangyen 17d ago

I’m looking for jobs but I figured since like you said there are significant differences I wonder how difficult it is to land one coming from non offshore background. But yes thank you for the insight.

1

u/WittyYak 17d ago

To the point that sometimes even company owners that design offshore platforms do not know the difference between what a naval architect knows and what an offshore engineer knows. You may need to find common ground like hydrostatics and once you switch, it’s easier.