Red Flags When Hiring an Engineer?

Judge every proposal on the same five checks. One: does it list specific deliverables — drawing sheets, calculation packages, energy forms — or just a dollar figure? Two: can you verify the firm's license with the state board in under two minutes? Three: do they carry professional liability insurance and say so? Four: do they define assumptions and exclusions, or does the proposal pretend there are none? Five: is the fee in the same universe as the other bids, or is it an outlier? A yes on all five doesn't guarantee a great engineer, but a no on any one of them is a genuine warning. The proposal is a preview of the working relationship — vague now means vague later, when vagueness costs real money.

Read the proposal the way a plan checker reads drawings: looking for what's missing. A serious proposal names the code edition, lists the sheets and documents you'll receive, states the assumptions it's built on (survey provided by owner, geotechnical report dated X, no hazardous materials investigation), and defines what triggers additional fees. It reads like a scope, not a sales letter. Watch for the specific evasions: 'permit processing included' with no definition of what that means. 'Coordination with architect' with no round count. A timeline with no dependencies named. And my personal favorite red flag phrase: 'we'll handle everything' — engineering doesn't work that way, and anyone who says it does is selling, not scoping.

On price: a bid 40 percent below the pack isn't a bargain, it's a scope gap — something the others included is missing, and you'll pay for it later as an extra or as a correction cycle. On license: verification takes two minutes on the state board's website; if the firm hesitates to give you the license number, walk away. On pressure: any engineer who suggests skipping permits, backdating documents, or stamping work they didn't do is asking you to share their liability. Decline, in writing. None of this requires engineering knowledge — just the discipline to check. The owners who get burned are rarely the ones who hired the wrong engineer; they're the ones who never checked at all.

• Vague proposal: lump-sum price with no deliverables, assumptions, or exclusions
• Unverifiable license: hesitation to provide a state license number
• No professional liability insurance mentioned anywhere
• Pressure to skip permits or stamp work sight unseen
• Outlier pricing: dramatically lower than every other bid means missing scope