A Structural Engineer
Structural Engineering is a specialty within Civil Engineering. Structural Engineers create drawings and specifications, perform calculations, review the work of other engineers, write reports and evaluations, and observe structural sites.

A Professional Engineer's license is required in order to practice Structural Engineering. A license can be obtained only after completing a prescribed amount of education and work experience and taking a 2-day exam. In California and other states, certain structures, such as hospitals and schools, require a Structural Engineer's license, which can be obtained after 3 years of additional experience and taking another exam.

Analyzes & Designs
 "Analyzes and Designs" describes the basic tasks of structural engineering … that is, relating numerical quantities of physical forces to physical configurations of force-resisting elements.

Analysis is the process of determining forces in each element (such as a beam) when the configuration of elements is already defined. Design is the process of configuring elements to resist forces whose values are already known.

Analysis and Design are complementary procedures in the overall process of designing new structures. After performing a preliminary design, the designer estimates the final configuration of elements of the structure, but only until an analysis is performed can the forces in those elements be known. After performing an analysis, the element forces are known, and the elements can be designed (their configuration can be chosen) more precisely. The process iterates between analysis and design until convergence is achieved.

Gravity Support & Lateral Force Resistance
Structures are subjected to vertical, or "Gravity Loads," and horizontal, or "Lateral" forces. Gravity loads include "dead," or permanent, load, which is the weight of the structure, including its walls, floor finishes, and mechanical systems, and "live," or temporary load, which is the weight of the structure's contents and occupants, including the weight of snow.

Lateral forces include those generated by the wind, earthquakes, or explosions. Structural elements must be designed so that, as a system, the structure can resist all loads and forces to which it's subjected.

- from Structural Engineers Association Of Northern California