re: Career change in mid-thirties

Way more petrochemical than true refinery jobs and all of those are plant jobs.

All of the plants I've done work in are incredibly difficult to get into, even for contract engineering and controls, unless you have a connection already inside, and usually only after the company already there screws up somehow. The guys there also say that it is even more difficult to hire on directly with the plant unless you have someone already there championing your hire. And those times there are open hiring calls the number of qualified applicants may be 10 times higher than the number of openings.

That was all I was getting at, the jobs themselves are typically great in both pay and time home, that's why the demand is so high.