I could be wrong, but (what with the references to the client complaining to the OP's manager) it sounds to me as if the OP is not the person who negotiated the contract but the engineer implementing the requirements. Perhaps s/he is in a position to affect company policy regarding such client interactions and contractual agreements, but it sounds like that may not be the case.
Do you have any advice for someone in this situation? Mine would be to start with a nice long sit-down with the manager about setting expectations for both the engineer and the client. Of course, if your manager doesn't have your back, you have a whole other constellation of problems, and you may be better off getting the hell out.
At that point, it might be too late. It's hard to reset expectations in the middle of a project that's already gone off the rails, short of pulling the team and replacing them with a client relations person, hence my advice.
If OP is "just" an engineer, I feel like they've still neglected their responsibilities as a consultant, and I think all my advice stands, because it means they didn't talk with their manager about this project, they just went in blind, full of assumptions.
At the consulting company I mentioned, everyone had to go through consulting craft 101, everyone had to learn how to be "client-facing," because at any point someone from the client might want you to add something out-of-scope that should be just five minutes and you might want to do it to be nice and make friends.
I have absolutely had loud, difficult arguments with technical leads and project managers who did not do all the due diligence necessary to inform my scope of work. That's my responsibility to make sure I'm able to execute, I'm set up for success, and the project doesn't fail.
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I could be wrong, but (what with the references to the client complaining to the OP's manager) it sounds to me as if the OP is not the person who negotiated the contract but the engineer implementing the requirements. Perhaps s/he is in a position to affect company policy regarding such client interactions and contractual agreements, but it sounds like that may not be the case.
Do you have any advice for someone in this situation? Mine would be to start with a nice long sit-down with the manager about setting expectations for both the engineer and the client. Of course, if your manager doesn't have your back, you have a whole other constellation of problems, and you may be better off getting the hell out.
At that point, it might be too late. It's hard to reset expectations in the middle of a project that's already gone off the rails, short of pulling the team and replacing them with a client relations person, hence my advice.
If OP is "just" an engineer, I feel like they've still neglected their responsibilities as a consultant, and I think all my advice stands, because it means they didn't talk with their manager about this project, they just went in blind, full of assumptions.
At the consulting company I mentioned, everyone had to go through consulting craft 101, everyone had to learn how to be "client-facing," because at any point someone from the client might want you to add something out-of-scope that should be just five minutes and you might want to do it to be nice and make friends.
I have absolutely had loud, difficult arguments with technical leads and project managers who did not do all the due diligence necessary to inform my scope of work. That's my responsibility to make sure I'm able to execute, I'm set up for success, and the project doesn't fail.