There are a number of types of protection engineer jobs. These engineers help protect people and property from fire, electrical hazards, and contamination from hazardous materials. They may be employed by a variety of different companies and often specialize in fire or electrical protection engineering, though there are other fields, such as aerospace science, that may have protection engineer jobs specific to their needs. Protection engineers may design new systems or evaluate existing ones to determine how safe they are and to make suggestions about how to improve safety.
The most common types of protection engineer jobs are those the field of fire protection. These engineers are responsible for making sure that the risk of fire within a plant, factory, or other building is kept to a minimum and that people inside of the building are able to safely escape if a fire does break out. Fire protection engineers may work in factories or with architects and construction engineers in order to make new buildings safer. They may also examine existing buildings to determine how significant the risk of fire is and what changes need to be made in order to improve the safety of the building.
Some protection engineer jobs combine skills and expertise from more than one field. Many protection engineers work in both fire and plumbing safety. Plumbing safety can include the design of water systems used in case of a fire or other emergency as well as systems that keep water clean and free from contaminants.
Another of the common types of protection engineer jobs is one that decreases the risk of electrical failure. There is some crossover between this position and that of the fire protection engineer, as electrical systems can be responsible for a fire. An electrical protection engineer must also make sure that electrical systems run efficiently and without interruption. These positions can be found within individual factories and power plants, though they may also be brought in as outside consultants.
Though less common than other types of protection engineers, data protection engineer jobs are also available. These specialists work with electronics in order to keep information safe. They may design security systems that protect computers from external threats, such as viruses, or from internal ones, such as hard disk failures that could result in a loss of data. These jobs are normally found at large technology companies that are responsible for designing data protection systems.