Honestly saying, there is no scope of civil engineers with programming knowledge in India yet. The reason is very simple, there is no company which will offer you jobs in these areas and ultimately you will end up in IT sector or pure civil engineering job.
On the other hand, there is enormous amount of opportunities in countries like US, UK, Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Australia etc. The development of core engineering softwares is done by the core engineers only. Following are the various possible career options for a civil engineer with really good programming skills.
- Computational Mechanics
It is one of the few disciplines introduced in early 2000s. It includes all computational aspects involved in solid mechanics and fluid mechanics. Concepts like FEM, FVM and meshing algorithms are readily used in this area.
2. Geotechnical engineering
Geotechnical engineering softwares are developed on various concepts. Softwares like GEO 5 uses analytical approach where beast softwares like PLAXIS uses FEM. Today, foundation design is done by softwares only.
3. Structural design
Structural design has vast variation for every structure. The design steps and the codal provisions are manipulated to form an algorithm. Development of these softwares require you a solid foundation in structural design. One can join Bentley or CSI to enter in this field.
4. Geomatics
Geomatics is extensively used in various fields. Geomatics softwares are developed by computer engineers too. One can easily enter in this field with a good knowledge of maths and image analysis.
5. Transportation Engineering
Design of pavement, roundabouts, runways, flyover etc is generally done by softwares. Autodesk develops highly sophisticated softwares in this field. Click here for more info Sidharth Bhattacharjee’s answer to What are the software used in transportation engineering field? These softwares are generally developed in Germany.
6. Environmental Engineering
This is very vast field and has plenty of scope in software development. Click here for detailed info- Shiva Kumar’s answer to Which softwares are useful for an environmental engineer?
One should try to develop their interest in programming. Try to avail benefits from NPTEL online lectures. Learn numerical computation and it’s application in civil engineering. Then try to get internship at Autodesk, Bentley, CSI etc. using their online portal.
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