Hi lriesberg2,
Thank you for reaching out Microsoft Community.
You can simply view the device specification to check if this suits your needs. See this link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-laptop-3/8vfggh1r94tm?activetab=processor for details. If you'll have to download a heavy graphics applications, this might not be a perfect laptop for you and what I can suggest is to check it online as to what's the best laptop for engineering and it will give you a list of devices that have been tested and have common Nivdia GeForce GTX Graphics in which the Surface Laptop 3 has a different one and might not be able to run heavy graphics application smoothly.
If this answers your question, feel free to mark this post as an answer. Otherwise, don't hesitate to respond to this thread if you need further assistance. We're always here to help.
Kind Regards,
Crest_Z