You Are More Than Your Job Title
It's time to challenge one of the most limiting beliefs in construction and engineering: that your job title defines your future.
In this honest, practical and grounded conversation, Stefanie shares her own non-linear career journey and the thinking behind her More Than an Engineer movement. She unpacks why “stability” is often an illusion, how fear and identity quietly drive burnout and why small career sidesteps can be more powerful than dramatic pivots.
If you’ve ever felt like something was missing in your career, but couldn’t quite put your finger on it, this one is for you.
Because you are more than your job title.
How Humor Disarms Construction’s Hardest Conversations
Construction doesn’t struggle because we lack expertise. It struggles because we lack safe ways to talk about the things we all know are broken. Everyone sees it. Few say it. And even fewer say it in a way that doesn’t instantly raise defenses.
That’s why some of the most meaningful progress in our industry doesn’t start with a white paper, a dashboard or a keynote deck. It starts with a laugh.
Not because the problems are funny, but because laughter lowers the guard just enough for honesty to sneak in.
Leading Through Chaos: What Construction Can Learn from the Military
It was one of those Mondays. The kind where your phone starts buzzing before your alarm does. By the time I woke up, the daily concrete numbers were off, by a lot, and by lunch we realized there was an entire floor in a multi-story building missing.
In construction, VUCA doesn’t just describe the environment. It describes Monday.
While originally defined by the U.S. Army War College to describe the chaotic conditions of modern warfare, you no longer need a battlefield to feel it. You just need a project under construction.
So how do we lead through it?
Specialization Makes Champions (Until It Doesn’t)
There’s a reason specialists exist. These folks don’t become elite by accident, but instead by living inside their craft long enough to see nuances that outsiders never will.
But there’s a dark side to specialization too. Because when all you know is one thing, all your solutions start to look the same.
Specialization without adaptability breeds fragility. However, the goal shouldn’t be to abandon specializing altogether, but rather to balance it.
Risk Averse: The Overlooked (and Inevitable) Gift of Failure
Failure is one of the greatest teachers we’ll ever have…yet construction tends to treat it like an embarrassment.
At the end of the day, every win is built on a graveyard of failures. Somewhere along the way, someone tried something, fell short, dissected what went wrong, adjusted the plan and tried again.
So instead of running from it, how do we build learning from failure into our culture?
Dear Interns: You’re Not Behind–You’re Just Getting Started
Sure, college is great for learning how to think critically, write 20-page papers at 2am and maybe survive on vending machine dinners and almost no sleep. But does it fully prepare you for onboarding into a real job?
Yeah, not really.
But here’s the good news: you’re not behind—you were actually built for this.
