Adrienne Green: How did you get started as an architectural designer?

Julie Engstrom: When I was a little girl, probably in fourth or fifth grade, my art teacher said, "Oh, you're doing nice work and you get good grades too. You should be an architect." Being an obedient little girl at the time, I thought that made sense and ever since then, I've pursued that. My high school offered a studio-art major, so I was able to take four years of art.

When it came time to choose a college, I went with University of Cincinnati, which has a co-op program, and it was really appealing to to be able get right into this field where there are jobs and on-the-job training. It's very much a part of my identity. I've always pursued architecture, so to speak, whether I knew it or not.

Green: What exactly do you do as an architectural designer?

Engstrom: Architecture's a very time-consuming field; it's a lot of apprenticeship. Registered architects go through a testing process, which I’m actually going to go through soon. I am considered a designer, or a drafter, or depending on who you ask, an intern architect, even though I've been in the field for many years.

My current job is a project architectural lead—so from conception to completion of construction, I'm leading a team of engineers, acoustical designers, lighting designers, audio/visual [technicians], IT consultants, and so on. It actually takes a huge group of people to make every space come together, which requires a lot of project management and coordination.

Green: What is an average day like for you?

Engstrom: I can work anywhere from 40 to 60 hours a week, depending on the flow of milestones for the project. Work-life balance is always a question within our building, and within the industry at large. In a lot of ways, [architecture] really favors the young and childless. I'm recently married, and I don't have any kids yet. It’s really interesting to see people who eat, sleep, and breathe their work, but who then have kids (or something else about their life changes), and they have to draw back a little bit. It's great to see more and more people successfully balancing their personal lives and their careers.

I happen to work for a great company that practices what they preach in terms of flexibility. It was founded by a woman, and she had young kids at the time, and she really believed that if clients are happy and people got their work done—how, when, and where they need to—that ultimately, she’d be happy.

Green: Do you think that most people understand what architects and designers do?

Engstrom: People always assume that I must be good at math, but there's just a huge range of roles possible in the field. When I sit down at a table with my coworkers, there’s an interior designer, who is talented at picking out colors and finishes, another interior designer that cares about the technical aspects of the lighting. There is a lot of flow between architecture and interior design. I think most people are surprised that an architect doesn’t always go out with a hard hat into the field and point at skyscrapers. Most architecture projects are about places and residences that are not a skyscraper in Manhattan.