Top 12 Drilling Engineer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of drilling engineering, showcasing a sharp, relevant skill set on your resume can push you ahead of the pack. Below, you’ll find the 12 core tools and capabilities that hiring managers expect to see, paired with crisp guidance to deepen your fluency and show clear impact.

Drilling Engineer Skills

1. AutoCAD
2. MATLAB
3. Petrel
4. WellPlan
5. Drillbench
6. Landmark (Halliburton)
7. Python
8. SolidWorks
9. ANSYS
10. Compass (Landmark)
11. HYSYS
12. PIPESIM

1. AutoCAD

AutoCAD is CAD software for precise 2D and 3D drawings. Drilling engineers lean on it to plan well pads, rig layouts, piping routes, and equipment interfaces with clean accuracy.

Why It's Important

It sharpens planning, clarifies constraints before steel hits the ground, and helps you visualize well paths and equipment placement so operations run safer and leaner.

How to Improve AutoCAD Skills

Grow precision and speed. Fold in domain data. Cut repetition.

1. Customize tool palettes: Build drilling symbols, casing libraries, and standard details for rapid reuse.

2. Automate with AutoLISP or scripts: Batch plotting, title-block updates, borehole annotations—let code do the drudge work.

3. Tighten data control: Use structured file naming and versioning so drawings and models don’t drift.

4. Push to 3D where it matters: Visualize interferences, access, and clearances around BOPs, mud systems, and pipe handling.

5. Blend GIS layers: Bring in survey control, topography, leases, and exclusion zones for grounded site planning.

6. Add industry plugins: Explore AutoCAD App Store tools tailored to oil and gas workflows.

Small upgrades compound—your drawings get faster to produce and tougher to misread.

How to Display AutoCAD Skills on Your Resume

2. MATLAB

MATLAB is a high-level environment for numerical computing, data analysis, and modeling. Perfect for drilling dynamics, hydraulics, vibration analysis, and optimization experiments without reinventing the math.

Why It's Important

It handles noisy field data, simulates what-if scenarios, and finds optimal parameters fast—so you cut guesswork and converge on better operating windows.

How to Improve MATLAB Skills

1. Master the core: Vectorization, plotting, and tidy function structure—clean code, clean results.

2. Use the right toolboxes: Statistics, Optimization, Signal Processing—essentials for drilling analytics and model tuning.

3. Stream data: Set up real-time feeds from rigs or test stands for live dashboards and alarms.

4. Automate routine workflows: Scripts for ETL, QC checks, and batch reports save hours every week.

5. Share and standardize: Package reusable functions; maintain a common library for your team.

6. Keep pace: New releases bring faster solvers and better visualization—learn them, use them.

Sharper MATLAB chops mean faster insight when the well gets temperamental.

How to Display MATLAB Skills on Your Resume

3. Petrel

Petrel, from SLB, is a subsurface modeling platform. It merges geology, geophysics, and reservoir data so drilling engineers can plan wells that thread the target and dodge hazards.

Why It's Important

Integrated views reduce surprises. You place wells with better context, optimize trajectories, and cut risk in zones that bite back.

How to Improve Petrel Skills

1. Nail fundamentals: Data loading, QC, grid handling, and wellpath creation—make it second nature.

2. Use drilling modules: Petrel Well Design and related tools for anti-collision, torque and drag inputs, and risk registers.

3. Build repeatable workflows: Custom processes for importing, validating, and updating interpretations—less chaos, more consistency.

4. Integrate widely: Logs, seismic attributes, production history—bring it together to firm up your prognosis.

5. Train and certify: Formal courses accelerate the leap from plotting to decision-making.

6. Tap user communities: Tips, pitfalls, and templates from peers shorten the path to mastery.

7. Lean on documentation and support: When workflows get quirky, official guidance saves time.

Use Petrel to design wells that respect the rock, not just the plan.

How to Display Petrel Skills on Your Resume

4. WellPlan

WellPlan (Halliburton Landmark) supports hydraulics, torque and drag, and related drilling engineering calculations. It helps shape trajectories, select strings, and anticipate operational envelopes.

Why It's Important

Better inputs, cleaner models, fewer nasty surprises—so tripping, circulating, and drilling stay inside safe limits and budgets.

How to Improve WellPlan Skills

1. Unify your data: Tie in surveys, BHA details, fluid properties, and formation pressures; garbage in, garbage out.

2. Monitor and adjust: Compare modeled vs. actual in real time and update parameters as the well evolves.

3. Practice with scenarios: Losses, kicks, stuck pipe, extended reach—simulate the rough edges before they happen.

4. Stay current: Keep the software updated and your company standards aligned with new features.

5. Collaborate tightly: Use shared workspaces and change logs so subsurface, drilling, and operations speak the same language.

6. Close the loop: Capture lessons learned and feed them back into templates for the next well.

A disciplined WellPlan workflow pays you back in rig time saved.

How to Display WellPlan Skills on Your Resume

5. Drillbench

Drillbench (SLB) models hydraulics, transient well control, and pore pressure/fracture pressure behavior. It’s built for the tough moments when conditions shift fast.

Why It's Important

It lets you simulate, stress-test, and optimize before the well tests you. Safety margins get clearer. Decisions come quicker.

How to Improve Drillbench Skills

1. Run the latest build: Performance gains and new physics models are worth it.

2. Template wisely: Standardize inputs for basin-specific behavior—fluids, mud systems, temperature, rheology.

3. Integrate data: Pull in logs, pressure tests, and offset well information to ground your scenarios.

4. Train on advanced cases: Gas influx modeling, ECD management, and transient events under pressure.

5. Learn from peers: User groups and internal forums surface tricks that documentation doesn’t.

6. Provide feedback: Feature requests and bug reports shape the tools you depend on.

With sharper models, operational discipline gets easier.

How to Display Drillbench Skills on Your Resume

6. Landmark (Halliburton)

Landmark is Halliburton’s E&P software suite spanning planning, drilling engineering, and data management. It’s the backbone for many operators’ well delivery workflows.

Why It's Important

Stronger decisions, tighter integration, fewer handoff errors. You plan with context and execute with confidence.

How to Improve Landmark (Halliburton) Skills

1. Take official training: Purpose-built courses shorten the learning curve across the suite.

2. Use curated online content: Tutorials and structured learning paths help fill gaps fast.

3. Join professional communities: Industry groups and technical forums reveal real-world workflows.

4. Practice on real data: Simulated projects are good; messy field data is better.

5. Track updates: New releases can streamline planning, QC, and reporting.

6. Network: Swap templates and macros with peers—time-savers hide in plain sight.

Proficiency across Landmark tools makes you the hinge between plan and execution.

How to Display Landmark (Halliburton) Skills on Your Resume

7. Python

Python is the workhorse for automation, analytics, and rapid tooling. From cleaning MWD/LWD feeds to building dashboards, it cuts through toil.

Why It's Important

Less manual crunching, more insight. You automate the repetitive, test hypotheses quickly, and move decisions closer to the data.

How to Improve Python Skills

1. Solid core: Data types, control flow, functions, testing—foundation first.

2. Data stack fluency: NumPy and pandas for arrays and tables; fast, reliable wrangling.

3. Visuals that speak: Matplotlib and Seaborn to spot trends and anomalies in seconds.

4. Engineering math: SciPy for optimization, signal processing, and statistics relevant to drilling.

5. Basic ML: Scikit-learn for predictive maintenance, rate-of-penetration models, and risk scoring.

6. Petroleum packages: lasio, welly, and similar tools for log parsing and well data handling.

7. Deliberate practice: Problems on LeetCode or HackerRank keep your edge sharp.

8. Project work: Build internal tools, share code in a repository, review with peers.

9. Keep learning: Short courses and reading sprints maintain momentum.

Python turns backlogs into buttons. Press, run, done.

How to Display Python Skills on Your Resume

8. SolidWorks

SolidWorks is 3D CAD for modeling drilling equipment, assemblies, and test fixtures. You design, you simulate, you find interferences before fabrication.

Why It's Important

Tighter designs, fewer reworks, better fit-up on site. That’s money saved and downtime avoided.

How to Improve SolidWorks Skills

1. Customize your environment: Shortcuts, toolbars, and templates aligned with your part libraries and standards.

2. Use Simulation: Evaluate loads, vibration, and thermal effects on BHA components and handling gear.

3. Adopt PDM: Control versions, approvals, and BOMs so teams don’t collide.

4. Bridge CAD-to-drilling: Export models into analysis tools; keep metadata synced for repeatable handoffs.

5. Learn from the community: Forum tips and macros can slice hours off repetitive tasks.

6. Train with purpose: Focus on assemblies, configurations, and drawings that mirror your real workload.

Good CAD pays off in the yard, not just on the screen.

How to Display SolidWorks Skills on Your Resume

9. ANSYS

ANSYS is a multiphysics simulation suite. Model drillstring dynamics, bit–rock interaction assumptions, thermal effects, fluid–structure coupling—the gnarly stuff.

Why It's Important

Simulation slashes trial-and-error. You test designs and procedures virtually, then show up on location with fewer unknowns.

How to Improve ANSYS Skills

1. Stay current: New solvers and meshing tools can materially change runtime and accuracy.

2. Define materials realistically: Drillpipe, elastomers, composites, drilling fluids, rock proxies—get properties right.

3. Mesh where it counts: Finer elements at stress risers, transitions, and contact zones; coarser where physics is gentle.

4. Pull in field data: Temperatures, pressures, vibration spectra, and flow rates ground the model in reality.

5. Use HPC: Bigger parametric sweeps lead to stronger design choices.

6. Go multiphysics: Structural + CFD + thermal captures coupled effects you feel on the rig.

7. Train with targeted modules: Focus on contact, nonlinearities, and transient analyses common in drilling.

Accurate models, calmer operations. Cause and effect, made visible.

How to Display ANSYS Skills on Your Resume

10. Compass (Landmark)

Compass is Landmark’s directional well planning software. It plans trajectories, checks anti-collision, and helps you hit targets without crossing the wrong lines.

Why It's Important

Accurate placement drives production and avoids hazards. With Compass, you steer within constraints, maximize reach, and protect offset wells.

How to Improve Compass (Landmark) Skills

1. Keep it updated: Latest collision rules, survey methods, and QA features matter.

2. Tune workflows: Templates for survey programs, KOP selection, and target prioritization speed planning.

3. Integrate subsurface data: Use geological targets, faults, and pressure regimes to shape realistic paths.

4. Get certified: Formal training turns clicks into consistent outcomes.

5. Use support channels: When coordinate systems or anti-collision settings get tricky, ask early.

The right trajectory is planned, not hoped for.

How to Display Compass (Landmark) Skills on Your Resume

11. HYSYS

HYSYS is process simulation software for surface facilities and production systems. For drilling engineers, it’s handy at the interface: well testing, choke modeling, fluids behavior through separators, and thermal/pressure interplay topside.

Why It's Important

Understanding how wellbore fluids behave once they leave the hole informs safe testing plans and smooth handoffs to production.

How to Improve HYSYS Skills

1. Revisit fundamentals: Thermodynamics, flash calculations, and EOS selection for your fluid systems.

2. Target drilling-relevant cases: Test spreads, choke sizing, transient start-ups, and hydrate risk conditions.

3. Practice with real data: PVT reports, test results, and measured rates strengthen model fidelity.

4. Explore extensions: Heat integration, dynamic simulation, and columns where relevant to your scope.

5. Learn in community: Discuss edge cases with process and production engineers; cross-pollination pays off.

6. Document assumptions: Keep auditable records so results are trusted in multidisciplinary reviews.

Bridging drilling and facilities reduces friction when it’s time to flow.

How to Display HYSYS Skills on Your Resume

12. PIPESIM

PIPESIM (SLB) simulates multiphase flow from wellbore to surface network. Drilling engineers tap it for wellbore hydraulics checks, cleanup modeling, and early production planning.

Why It's Important

It predicts pressures, temperatures, holdup, and rates—key variables for safe operations and efficient handover to production.

How to Improve PIPESIM Skills

1. Update routinely: Model stability and new correlations can shift outcomes.

2. Train with intent: Take focused courses—multiphase behavior, well performance, and network modeling.

3. Script and customize: Build repeatable runs, sweeps, and reports for pre-spud and well cleanup stages.

4. Join user groups: Learn practical setups, validation tricks, and correlation selections that match your fields.

5. Call in specialists when needed: Complex networks or hydrate windows benefit from expert eyes.

6. Lean on documentation: Validate assumptions, correlations, and convergence settings before you trust the curve.

7. Practice often: Use offset wells to benchmark your models against what actually happened.

Good PIPESIM habits translate to fewer surprises when fluids start moving.

How to Display PIPESIM Skills on Your Resume