TL;DR

Most engineers working on design today spend their day modeling walls, pipes, and fittings — they became virtual bricklayers without realizing it. I spent years in that trap; when I looked at my calendar, 90% of my time was modeling and only 10% was actual engineering. Here I show how BIM broke the division of labor humanity sorted out 4,000 years ago, why a great engineer makes a poor modeler, and the path I’m taking to escape this Matrix.

The virtual bricklayer paradox

Imagine spending 5 years in engineering school, studying physics, calculus, planning, and management. And then, the moment you grab your diploma, you buy a trowel and go lay blocks on a job site? I don’t even need to argue how unproductive that reality would be — it’s absurd. You think: no one would dedicate years to a profession and throw it in the trash. Well, I have bad news: it’s happening today, and the worst part is that the people on this path don’t even realize what’s going on. Could you be one of them?

And before I get lynched in the street, the answer is no…

I have no problem with the bricklayer profession. Before I graduated in engineering, I was a bricklayer’s helper myself. I was fascinated when my dad taught me how to lay a brick or how to plaster a wall. I loved seeing the final result, the care and pride good bricklayers had in their builds. And in those moments of contemplation, an absurd and often crude line would always show up — the kind you’ll only hear on a job site. “Look at this plumb line, it doesn’t even pass by the cat’s whisker, ha.” Don’t read it wrong — it’s a saying.

Bricklayer at work.

That said, let’s keep going. My problem isn’t with you working as a bricklayer. My problem is with the huge number of engineers who, right now, are doing a bricklayer’s job without realizing it. This shouldn’t be happening — humanity sorted this out centuries ago. We organized so each role has its specialization: engineers planning, managing, and preventing problems, and bricklayers free to develop their construction techniques. You’ll agree it’s at the very least unproductive to analyze reports, understand schemes, and instruct multiple crews — while plastering a façade, suspended on a scaffold 30 meters above the ground.

Now it’s time to clear the doubt: who are these people? And I can confidently say that the overwhelming majority of engineers and architects working in engineering design are right now plastering walls, leveling floors, gluing pipe, running wiring through conduit, and installing booster pumps miles away from a job site, sitting in front of a computer. They are, truly, VIRTUAL BRICKLAYERS.

That’s the topic of today’s conversation. I’ll walk you through every point that brought me to this conclusion:

  • What makes you a virtual bricklayer?
  • How did the evolution of technology drop us into this Matrix?
  • I’m in the same boat, and I’m trying to break free.
  • And finally, why you shouldn’t accept this.

What makes you a virtual bricklayer?

I’ve been asking myself for a while: what changed in the market? What movement is pushing engineers 4,000 years into the past?

It’s common knowledge that division of labor in construction has very old roots and represents an enormous productivity gain. From monumental ancient projects — the Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts — the need for specialization was already clear: stone cutting and transport, sculpting, masonry, architectural planning… All to ensure speed and efficiency.

Division of labor in construction across history.

What I mean is this: 4,000 years ago, humanity understood it’s more efficient to split work into specialties. And that same principle held over centuries, reaching us intact in the modern construction sector.

So multiple areas opened up for engineers: site engineers, designers, quantity surveyors, etc. Let’s focus on the designer. Hold on to this definition:

“A designer is the professional who develops, elaborates, and technically represents projects in fields like engineering, architecture, product design, and others. Their duties may include creating technical drawings, specifying materials, defining processes, and planning the steps needed to turn an initial concept into a viable project.”

In countless references, the central idea repeats: a professional specialized in producing technical drawings, processes, etc. Until about one or two decades ago, that was the essence of our work and what people delivered. Producing projects that translated into schemes, solution representations, and sizing. And that hasn’t changed — at least not in our imagination, and also not in the perception of those who hire us.

And that’s where the irony lives. You might be thinking: “Hold on, you’re telling me the environment turned me into a virtual bricklayer, but the market still understands I’m doing projects the way they’ve always been done?” Exactly. The problem isn’t the understanding that the design engineer should produce projects. That expectation persists, and everyone agrees with it.

What actually changed is the product of our work. Before, the project was technical drawings and schemes; with technological evolution, it became much more. With the BIM hype and 3D modeling, the market standard became running real virtual constructions, including faithful — and often unnecessary — modeling of the products and materials used on site. And in construction, the person responsible for raising walls, leveling floors, or assembling concrete formwork naturally gets the title of bricklayer. If you’re doing exactly that in a virtual environment — modeling masonry, modeling pipes, opening every door void, instancing every column in the development — congratulations, you’ve earned the title of virtual bricklayer.

That’s the answer to the question: we’re building developments in front of a computer, performing all the duties of a bricklayer, without noticing. We spent years going deep technically, understanding the specifics of each material, how to size each system, project best practices, laws, normative recommendations — and all of this, which used to be the essence of our work, today represents only a small fraction of what we do. Most of the time, we’re modeling (building) the development, repeatedly running the command to connect a fitting to a pipe, align a column with a level, bound a floor, or apply white acrylic paint to every façade.

It’s extremely repetitive, simple, and fully delegable work, being done by someone who spent at least five years accumulating knowledge. In many cases, it can be taught to someone who knows nothing about Revit or construction, and after just three months of training, they become faster than you at those tasks. I say this from experience: I teach my modeling process to a complete novice, they pick it up, and in a short time they’re far more productive. I’ll explain my theory on why this happens further down.

How did the evolution of technology drop us into this “Matrix”?

Before you take this the wrong way, I’m not against where the market is going or the innovations emerging. Quite the opposite — I’m extremely optimistic about it. I “blame” technology for creating virtual bricklayers because those accumulated innovations are exactly what enabled virtual constructions. The need to produce more useful projects led us to BIM, the need to better visualize information popularized 3D modeling, and to make those concepts ever more precise and representative, we started building models extremely faithful to construction.

The problem is that those models require monumental, extremely manual work to be produced — and since engineers were (and still are) responsible for the projects, those models emerged as an extension of those projects. So naturally, whoever conceived the project also started “building” digitally. That generates an absurd volume of work and a level of detail at which leaving the engineer to build these models is a huge waste.

I like the “Matrix” analogy because I feel exactly like the characters in the film. I was comfortable, living my life, trying to push my modeling skills, tool mastery, and technical knowledge to the max. In that context, everything seemed perfect: “this is how things are,” “this is how my work should be done: concept, sizing, modeling, and detailing.” But when I started moving up, training people, and dealing directly with clients, I came to understand that modeling and detailing are the part of the work that delivers the least value to the client.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if you used the most realistic material in the world or the part with the brand name 100% faithful to the manufacturer. If your competitor, on the other hand, invested that same time in cost studies and managed to save thousands by optimizing solutions — even drawing in 2D CAD — who do you think will be more valued by the boss, the client, or the investor? Who generated more real value for the project?

Understanding this is almost like Neo waking up in “Matrix.” You ask yourself: “How didn’t I see this before? It’s so obvious.” Reality didn’t change; your job is to design the project, not to model/build piece by piece.

And the worst part is when we put modeler training side by side with engineer training: we train modelers in a few months, but it takes years to shape a good engineer. Beyond mastering your discipline, there are dozens of other skills involved in the act of designing, for example:

  • Construction systems;
  • Material characteristics and behavior;
  • Costs, planning, and coordination;
  • Market best practices;
  • Material availability;
  • Skilled labor availability;
  • Standards, laws, and regional preferences;
  • Integration with other building disciplines.

Whereas a good modeler is more specialized and doesn’t need diffuse knowledge — their core skills are:

  • Reading projects and schemes;
  • Modeling tools;
  • The firm’s premises;
  • The client’s premises;
  • Patience, focus;
  • And the great differentiator of extremely competent modelers: 100 well-spent hours in Minecraft and 100 in The Sims.

Minecraft is a survival game where you can build anything with pixelated cubes — and an 8-year-old will do the work 10x faster.

Now reflect and answer: is it cheaper to train someone to follow a scheme already conceived and sized by an experienced engineer, or to train that engineer for years? And you, in a leadership role, why do you insist on making your engineers act like modelers? And to you, virtual bricklayer, is the greatest value you deliver to a development really drawing pipes and fittings?

These are questions we should rethink urgently — not just for value delivery, but for a simple reason: a great engineer is a terrible modeler.

If the engineer is really good and knows how to design, I can categorically say they’re inefficient as a modeler. There’s a famous saying that explains it: “ignorance is a gift.”

When we, engineers, are modeling, we’re not just modeling; we’re doing several things at once:

  • We think about countless route improvements;
  • We mentally re-check the sizing;
  • We question which solution would be cheaper;
  • We verify that all normative rules are met in each space.

In short, we burn energy on many other aspects during modeling. Meanwhile, someone who doesn’t master all the nuances of, say, a sewage system relies solely on the engineer’s scheme. They simply check diameters, materials, and indicated parts, and model everything fully focused on modeling.

See why we should split the work? The engineer invests their time elaborating solutions, generating a fast, objective scheme, while the modeler dedicates themselves exclusively to translating those solutions into the virtual model.

And that takes us back 10 or 15 years, when there was a clear distinction between who designed and who built.

I’m in the same boat, and I’m trying to break free.

I’m wary that my opinions sound like they come from someone who never made a mistake, or who doesn’t live the problems I describe. Actually, it’s the opposite: almost everything I’ve been writing comes from misguided decisions, sleepless nights, and lots of headaches. And today’s topic is no different. Until just a few days before I started writing this article, I was in this position: I was modeling other engineers’ projects, and most of my work was that of a virtual bricklayer.

And I won’t lie, I hated that situation — I was fully convinced this wasn’t the greatest value I could deliver to my clients or to the market. After all, beyond modeling, I can do a lot more: I consider myself a great designer, I master a good portion of the systems the market demands, I can build automations and tools to optimize project delivery, and I have broad experience implementing processes, BIM, and training. Even so, when I decided to look more carefully at how I was spending my time, I realized 90% of my day was spent being a virtual bricklayer. Only the remaining 10% I was doing incredible things that genuinely excited me.

That’s when I made the decision to step away from modeling work and lean into the parts of the project that, in my view, deliver more value. Since then, everything has made sense again. I started dedicating myself more intensely to the act of designing, working on automations, developing Revit plugins and web applications. In between, I still consult for some colleagues and write articles like this one. I feel I’m gradually finding my way out of the Matrix.

If you’re not “crazy” like me — wanting to program, design, consult, and create content all at once — but you do want to stay focused on higher-value design, here are some pieces of advice:

  1. Be selfish about your career: If the company you’re at doesn’t see your value as a designer and expects you to act as a virtual bricklayer — or worse, pays you as one — update your résumé and tap your network immediately.
  2. Watch who actually does engineering at your company: Who builds the preliminary studies? Who reviews the projects? Who joins the technical meetings with the client to discuss solutions? Identify those activities and offer help. In a short time, you’ll be seen as an engineer and paid as one. Make no mistake: your boss knows who’s doing real engineering and who’s just stacking virtual bricks.
  3. Deepen your engineering skills: Standards, catalogs, articles, best practices — devour all of it.
  4. Analyze colleagues’ projects (or your own) and identify improvement points: Record your doubts or insecurities and seek answers. For example: why use reinforced series in drainage? If your only justification is “because it is, or because it’s the market standard,” write it down and look up a normative or technical foundation that justifies the choice.
  5. Have good modelers on your team: Even though I argue modeling shouldn’t be done by engineers, someone has to do it. So start spreading the idea in your company that it’s more efficient to have professionals focused on modeling and engineers focused on designing. And, for the love of God, don’t turn your interns into virtual bricklayers — that’s not what we want. Instead, look for specialized professionals at SENAC or other technical schools. You’ll find plenty of people more prepared to do that role far more productively.

In summary: be selfish, find inspiration, study, put it into practice, and work with people who complement you. And this goes well beyond projects or the current market — it solves a lot of things in your life.

And finally, why you shouldn’t accept this.

If you read carefully, you already know why it makes no sense to accept being a virtual bricklayer, but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce:

  1. Impact: the impact you generate by making a great design decision is infinitely larger than the impact of a perfect modeling decision.
  2. Use of effort: It makes no sense to study for half a decade and throw most of it away drawing pipes, walls, floors, or structures.
  3. Efficiency: If you’re a great engineer, you’ll be a mediocre modeler. There are many aspects of modeling that will pull you into thinking, reflecting, reviewing, or even testing things from other project stages. In other words, modeling usually demands an operational focus that doesn’t tap your capacity to plan, analyze, and optimize solutions.
  4. Pay: The PIX at the end of the month is much bigger for engineers who actually work as design engineers compared to those doing operational tasks — our dear virtual bricklayers.

A note for modelers

I could end the article with the conclusion, but I feel obliged to leave this note for those who have a true calling for modeling:

“There’s no right or wrong here. Honestly, for me it doesn’t matter which path you follow, because both are important to our market’s development. What truly matters is that you make this decision consciously.

If, after everything we’ve covered, you still feel that modeling is your true calling, go for it — that’s the right choice for you. Don’t change just because it didn’t work for me or for some colleague of yours. The fundamental thing is that the decision was made by you, not by someone else or by market consequences.”

Conclusion

After reflecting on all this, it’s clear to me that being a “virtual bricklayer” doesn’t do justice to my training and the years of my life dedicated to studying engineering. More than modeling walls and pipes on a computer, we were prepared to define solutions, conceive and optimize complex systems, solve problems creatively, and bring the most positive impact to projects. It’s in the capacity to conceive solutions and manage processes that the greatest value an engineer can generate for their clients or for society resides.

So it’s time to take back your seat as an engineer or architect. Reassess your routines and processes to step out of the role of operational executor, and direct your skills to what really makes a difference: strategic planning, deep technical analysis, cost reduction, increased safety and efficiency. Technology should free us from repetitive tasks, not enslave us to them.

If you saw yourself in this picture, think about how you can start, flip the script, and find your way out of the Matrix. Develop your designer skills, question the current scenario, and: DEMAND THE RECOGNITION YOUR KNOWLEDGE DESERVES.

Are you a virtual bricklayer today? How much of your day is design and how much is modeling? Drop a comment in Discord.