Here’s something most people outside the industry don’t realize: there are no millwork engineering programs.

None.

Everyone in this field learns on the job. And that worked—when the job still looked like it did ten or fifteen years ago. When junior engineers worked in the office, walked the shop floor daily, talked to the people building what they drew, and could physically touch the parts they were designing.

That’s not how most millwork engineering happens anymore.

You Can’t Draw What You’ve Never Seen

One of the most common issues I see with newer engineers isn’t drafting accuracy — it’s spatial understanding.

Drawings look clean. Elevations are organized. Sections are labeled. But when you step back and think through how something would actually be built, the logic breaks down.

I’ve reviewed plenty of drawings where everything “looked right” until you asked a simple question:

What happens when someone tries to install this?

In many cases, the answer is… they can’t.

This isn’t a software issue or a standards issue. It’s a lack of physical reference. If you’ve never watched a cabinet get assembled, never seen an installer fight a bad detail, never stood next to someone trying to make your drawing work in real life, it’s incredibly hard to visualize the consequences of your decisions.

School Teaches Design — Not Construction

I went to architecture school. I have a four-year degree. It taught me how to think conceptually — how to understand what a client is really trying to solve, not just what they’re asking for.

What it didn’t teach me was how things actually get built.

That education happened later, on the shop floor. Walking through manufacturing spaces. Talking to the people cutting, assembling, and installing. Making mistakes. Asking questions. Seeing what broke.

Over time, you build a mental reference library. You’ve seen similar conditions before. You remember what worked and what didn’t. That experience informs your drawings long before you open CAD.

Without that reference library, engineers are just guessing — even if their drawings look technically correct.

The Remote Work Paradox

This is where things get difficult for modern engineering teams.

More people work remotely. Even in-office engineers rarely spend meaningful time in shops. And in many cases — including ours — the engineering team isn’t physically located where fabrication happens at all.

The only real way to learn millwork engineering is through physical exposure. But physical exposure is increasingly hard to provide.

So companies like ours have had to build something that doesn’t really exist: a replacement for shop-floor learning.

Rebuilding an Education System From Scratch

We put every new engineer through a structured bootcamp. Not because it’s perfect — but because doing nothing isn’t an option.

We teach standards. We teach drafting. We teach how to read construction documents and coordinate markups. We review real projects and give real feedback.

We’re continuing to build more advanced training around materials, hardware, manufacturing methods, machine constraints, and how different shops actually operate.

We bring in physical samples. We take things apart. We try to create tangible reference points wherever we can. We’ve even explored partnerships with fabrication shops so engineers can see real production environments.

It’s not easy. It doesn’t scale cleanly. But it’s necessary.

Teaching the Process, Not Just the Rules

No training program can teach everything. Every shop builds differently. Every project has unique constraints.

What can be taught is the process of understanding how a specific shop works — how to listen, how to ask better questions, how to translate vague feedback into buildable solutions.

This is where most breakdowns happen.

Shops often assume engineers “just know” how things are done. Historically, that was true — because the engineer sat in the same building and could walk around asking questions.

That access no longer exists.

So engineers have to learn how to surface missing information themselves — not just execute instructions, but interpret intent.

What Real Understanding Looks Like

You can tell when someone is starting to “get it.”

Their sections match their plans and elevations without being prompted. They add details that weren’t explicitly requested because they understand what’s missing. They propose solutions instead of waiting for instructions.

That’s the shift from drafting to engineering.

It’s not about fewer questions — it’s about better ones. Questions that show they’ve thought through the construction, the constraints, and the tradeoffs before asking.

The Attitude That Makes Everything Else Possible

None of this works without curiosity. And humility.

Millwork engineering rewards people who are willing to admit what they don’t know, absorb feedback, and learn continuously. That’s not always how formal engineering education works.

School often rewards having the right answer. Millwork rewards asking the right questions.

There’s a balance. Ask enough questions to show you’re thinking critically — but not so many basic ones that you signal a lack of foundational understanding.

I don’t have a perfect framework for teaching that. Honestly, I’m still figuring it out. A lot of it comes from shadowing, repetition, and exposure — watching how experienced people think through problems and slowly internalizing the pattern.

What the Industry Actually Needs

Millwork is becoming more digital, not less. BIM coordination, CNC-driven fabrication, and integrated models are now standard.

But technology alone won’t solve this gap. Neither will memorizing standards or mastering software.

What the industry needs is education that teaches how to think — how to understand what’s being built, how to decode incomplete information, how to visualize physical objects in three dimensions and anticipate problems before they hit the shop floor.

Until that exists at scale, companies will keep building their own internal training systems. We’ll keep creating bootcamps, gathering physical samples, and searching for ways to bring shop-floor learning to engineers who can’t physically be there.

The shop floor is still the best classroom.

The real challenge is figuring out how to bring that classroom to a generation that may never set foot in one.

I’m still working on the answer.

Jacob Edmond

CEO