Rolling Out the Welcome Mat for Structural Engineers

We’re incredibly excited to be rolling out the welcome mat for structural engineers on Drafting Marketplace. Engineering was always meant to be a component of our platform, but I’m not sure any of us thought it would be this soon.

It all started with simple conversations. A “what if…” over lunch. A “when can we…” on the floor at the Glass TexPo. The destination was clear, but the road was overgrown and covered in bramble.

Once we committed to doing it, we set a deadline: August 2023. Brandon, Tyler, and the development team agreed that the pressure of a real deadline would force the new feature into reality. They weren’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. The dev team clocked an absurd number of hours on creating and testing the engineering user type alone. This doesn’t include the many internal meetings nor the other tasks like strategizing how it would work, changing verbiage across the whole site, and marketing. There were so many late nights and early mornings. Worth it, though.

As of Wednesday, (8/2/23) at noon EST, the Engineering user type and functionality is officially active and ready for use. From this point forward, engineers can sign up for a free account and bid on engineering projects in the same way drafters already have. Glazing contractors can post projects specific to either engineering or drafting, and interact with bids, users, and documents in the same way. 

But we’re not quite done yet. This is where you come in. Yes, you, the person reading this. Your role is just as important as ours in making this launch a success. We’re relying on you to help us spread the word that engineering has come to Drafting Marketplace, to post a project or place a bid, and to communicate with us about how it’s going. We need your feedback, and we need that outside momentum. Without you, it’s just a website. You have the power to make it the marketplace and community we all want and need.

So here we are. The feature is live, and we're rolling out the welcome mat for structural engineers. We can look back at the past few months and know this was always where we were going, and it feels pretty good. And now we’re getting a glimpse of the landscape we venture into next. Are you coming with us?