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I think it depends on your field of engineering and how much you enjoy the work. I find environmental engineering to be satisfying and a very dependable/lucrative income compared to many other non-engineering fields I might have been interested in.
Add to that most other fields that pay similarly or higher (doctor, lawyer, etc) require more/costlier schooling and it’s a pretty sweet deal to be able to go into the job market with only a bachelor’s or masters and making a decent wage right off the bat.
Of course the same enshittification/race to the bottom for prices affects us too but I don’t know if there’s any career that escapes that entirely.
I would also think maybe certain engineering fields are more stable than others. Mine is particularly recession-proof since we’re driven by regulation (and bipartisan-supported regulation at that), not the economy. Massive layoffs are not that common in many of the other more “physical” engineering fields like structural, electrical, or mechanical either and even if you are laid off there is usually another company hiring. The skills are pretty portable as well so if you want to change careers you have a pretty good chance at being successful.
Is it a field of rainbows and butterflies? No, but it’s a hell of a lot better than plenty of other jobs out there and it pays the bills.
Yeah I feel you on that, the fieldwork stage of the job can get tiring really fast, especially with the more routine stuff like asbestos and LNAPL spills. Vapor intrusion work is less of a bear, we’re doing a lot of that lately and it’s nice because it’s indoors in the winter. I work in a larger company with a variety of projects so I’m not always doing the same thing and that definitely helps. In my current company people do tend to graduate out of the field positions fairly quickly (like 5 years) and move on to a desk job or at least a partial desk job but those first few years when you’re in the field a lot can be hard and maybe impossible if you have any dependents that keep you from traveling.