What Does It Take To Be A Draftsman

If you've ever wanted to design buildings for a living, you've likely encountered the myriad of paths you could travel to make that dream a reality. You could become an architect, a civil engineer, or a construction manager, and all of these professionals interact with buildings in different ways while all being responsible for its overall design in one way or another. During that research process, however, you may have stumbled upon the role of the draftsman, which can seem a little confusing at first if you're not already sure of what job they actually perform. Fortunately, as the leading draftsmen in our area, that is a question that our team would only be too happy to answer.

The Overview
On a broad level, the job of a draftsman is to create blueprints and designs for residential buildings utilising the principals of architectural design, typically using computer-assisting drafting (CAD) software. These professionals are the people responsible for creating the final, practical vision as laid out by the architects and engineers employed on the project, making use of their demands and advice to ensure the blueprints are compliant with all legal and practical requirements while also maintaining the architect's creative vision. While this might require some travel to the worksite, generally speaking, most of the work a draftsman will be done iseated in front of their computer.

Experience Optional
In most cases, beyond a basic certificate, you won't need much experience to get a job in this field. So long as you can demonstrate competency with the industry-standard set of software and have the basic qualifications to back you, you should be able to find employment as a draftsman. However, that does mean you need to excel in the few required fields to help distinguish yourself from your competition (which is fierce in this industry), so while your certificate course will help teach you the basics of CAD software, it would not hurt your chances to perform further study in your own time. Remember, you'll probably be using a computer every day for your job, so doing what you can to make sure you excel at utilising this critical tool will only be favoured by employers.

Moving Up
Once you've gotten your first job, it's already time to start setting your eyes on your next promotion. A draftsman has plenty of room for advancement, which can be even easier if you also have qualifications in adjacent fields such as architecture and engineering. If you don't, though, simply show up to work every day, put in your best effort, and make yourself an invaluable asset to your company, and soon enough, your individual path upward should become obvious to you. Here at Go Design Solutions, all of our residential drafting experts have gone through some variation of this journey to make sure they have all of the skills necessary to design your dream home, no matter the circumstances. To see how we can help you with all drafting in Penshurst, you can check out our portfolio, or call us on (02) 8091 0588.