Congress is typically held in the first week or January, spanning a full week of leadership development sessions, informational presentations, guest speakers from industry, a career fair and culminating in plenary, the decision making body of the CFES.

In 2012, ProMag was discontinued due to a shifted interest in providing an online journal that is more easily accessible.

In the 2019-2020 Operating Year, the CFES decided to revive Project Magazine as an in-house online journal, celebrating the different regions of the federation through articles and stories submitted to a Task Force.

In 2019, the CFES obtained a partnership agreement with Abacus[2] which re-instated a more nationally available event for members to participate in.

The first year that the CFES Conference on Sustainability in Engineering was offered is 2019, at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, BC.

The member societies are divided into four geographic regions for the purposes of representation on the Federation's board of directors: As a non-profit organization, the Federation has a board of directors that is responsible for managing the business and property of the organization.

Aside from the Chair, the board consists of 3 individuals elected at the annual meeting (the President, and the two National Councillors) and four regional ambassadors, selected using regionally-determined methods.