I work with them everyday and I actually help look over their drawings. You daily job consists of the following:
You look over drawings. Lots of them. You look for discrepancies between pages and look for code violations.
Depending on what industry this is on, you could be working on specs so contractors provide the right materials if you deal with public work. This is probably the worst part of the job. It sounds easy, but it's not. You have to make sure that your drawings agree with your specs. It requires knowledge of materials you will likely have a learning curve with this. It's a skill that is best learned on the job and not in school. Once you put everything out to bid (remember, lowest bidder usually wins in public work), you check over submittals. During the submittal phase, you cross check everything that you asked for. This is why you need good specs. If you have good specs, you get what you want. If you do not, you will not get it. At that point, to get what you want, you have to ask them to provide it. The contractor can do one of two things: accept your request, or deny the request unless you pay for the change (ie change order). Change orders are bad unless they are at the request of the client. One you get the through the submittal stage, you get to construction. Nope, the pain has not ended. Remember when I said you needed good specs? Well, you need them here again. Materials is one thing, but implementation is another. You have to essentially go onsite and check on their work and make sure they are done to your drawings and specs. If you missed something, BAM, change order. If something does not agree on the drawing or specs, BAM, change order unless you can make a good case. This goes on until the project ends. Trust me, contractor will find every little thing to make a change order out of.
What if the project is not a public bid? In this case, you can rejoice AND cry at the same time. Private bids are a different beast. Unlike public bids, you can come out and say I want this and only this. There is no spec that the contractor has to follow. Instead, everything is in the drawings. Why is this a bad thing? It means your drawings are more detailed and the onus is on the engineer to make sure everything is right. In public bid, if something is not right, there are ways you can fault the contractor. You can't do it on private bids. If something is wrong, the contractor will not be as much as a dick to pull change orders left and right, but he is not going to cut his funds either. The job is private so you do not want to create controversy. Doing so will make the client thing your both idiots, so in the case of a change order, both ends bit some of the bullet.
Now, that is just the work of the engineer...
The work of the Builder/Construction Manager is two fold. It depends on who you are doing it for. Lots of times places hire a construction firm to over see construction. In this case, you are the client's advocate. You have to make sure everything is done on time and right. When things go wrong, you have to settle it. You are the client's voice. If you are the manager on the Contractor end, it's your job to make sure you understand the drawings and make sure things can be done with in code.
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