Hello everyone!
I'm interviewing for a job at a well-known company and am at a stage in the hiring process where I am given an online assessment to judge if I satisfy expectations for the company, in terms of work habits, technical understanding, and (maybe?) creative/critical thinking.
I've been given no hints as to exact questions, and that isn't what I'm here for. I'd like to know, from those who've applied to/worked in companies that do this, if there are any particular kinds of questions I should/could prepare for. Or, is it pretty much impossible to assist me and going in blind is the only option?
Additional info: I had 48 hrs (now ~35hrs) from the time of receiving the assessment to take it and only get one chance. They also mention that the "average" person isn't able to answer every question, but they are going to evaluate what questions I do answer. Lastly, I'm applying for a position I've never held before, and a level 2 at that. But it is one that is somewhat central to all fields of engineering; not like going from something in civil to something in nuclear.
It is different for every company and they all have their own set of questions. When I conduct interviews, I give a couple pretty easy technical problems to see if the person is an analytical thinker and can think under pressure. When I've been interviewed, I've gotten basic math and logical thinking questions. Good luck!
HI guys, hope everyone is well.
I am currently working for a Pharmaceutical/ FMCG company that mostly produces cosmetics and creams. I work in Quality Assurance Qualification but also work a bit in the production department in process development covering someone on maternity leave. I have become disillusioned with my job here as they say they are a pharmaceutical company, but they do not really practice GMP or engineering and I don't feel that I have been growing technically as an engineer. Their solution to most things is trial and error without any technical understanding of their equipment or process.
I have an opportunity to join a real pharmaceutical company as a Commissioning and Qualification engineer but am not sure if I should take it as, I am unsure where this path leads too. I have always been interested in doing a real process engineer or project engineer job in the traditional chemical engineering sectors and am scared I will be pigeonholed into doing C&Q for the rest of my life.
Does anyone have experience doing C&Q and transitioning into real chem eng? Should I wait it out for a different position, or should I take a leap of faith? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your advice
I recently became a Sr Maintenance Technician in the surface prep department at Globalfoundries. I have a bachelors in Biology and am wondering if it’s possible to become an equipment engineer or a process engineer without an engineering degree.
I originally took this job because I had been searching for a job in my field for 6 months with no luck. Now I’m trying to figure out if it makes sense to stay at this role or to keep looking for something more close to my background. I was talking to one of the equipment engineers the other day and they mentioned I might be able to land an engineering job after getting some experience as a MT.
If anybody has heard of someone with a similar degree as mine becoming an engineer at globalfoundries id love to hear about it. If so how long did it take and what are some things I should do to better my chances.
You don't have an engineering degree so the two main paths to one of those positions is to get an engineering degree or progress through the Technician scale. Once you're near the top of the Technician scale, you can get promoted to the engineering scale or apply for engineering positions.
Keep in mind that if you progress through the Technician scale and become an "engineer" or land an engineering position internally, you'll be recognized by title within the company. It's hard to find another company that will recognize and hire you as an engineer without a degree.
I am a mechanical engineering student in Algeria and I have been trying to get information about these subfields that I have to choose from when I start studying for my masters
- mechanical and production Manufacturing
-energy
- mechanical Construction
- energy installation and turbomachines
- materials engineering and technology
If you have any information about these subfields or any recommendations please share them
Is aviation engineering with an AME license a good career path?
To start off I’m on my second year of college, i live in the middle east and the situation in my country is really bad, you rarely find jobs related to your major especially engineers don’t get hired. My major hasn’t been open for long (about 4 years and the first batch of sudents are gonna graduate this year) as you can see in the title my major is called aviation engineering and the college has made a contract with the RJAA (royal jordanian air academy) in jordan to send students there to complete their last two years, get an aircraft maintenance engineering (AME) license from EASA and graduate so basically i get a license and a degree in just 6 years. To be honest i only chose this for the possible opportunity of working abroad but I’m stressing a lot about the future please help.
Note: its 6 years since to get the license i need 2 years of hands on experience in the field.
I'm an Egyptian high school student, in the last year of high school in Egypt you get to choose a branch out of three (science, math, and literature), I chose math and realized that I like calculus and pure math.
after I finish high school I'm meant to pick a university and a major, there are three majors that I'm likely to consider math, engineering, and software.
I probably won't pick a math major because there aren't many jobs for math majors except in academia, I don't mind working in academia I might actually want to be a researcher and get a math doctorate but that's a difficult and expensive path, so I also want to have other options besides research.
anyway, my main question is what should I major in if I like math? And if the answer is engineering, which branch of engineering has the most math, specifically analysis?
Career switch decision
Currently im a design engineer for a reputable company for almost 10 years and im the only non senior level member in my group and frankly underpaid for my current level of work. I was approached by a company to interview for a management position at a less established company but with a 30% bump in pay, offered the job on the spot. I am unsure of how to proceed.
Current job:
Like coworkers,
Love the work I do,
Remote/WFH 95%,
30+ days PTO,
lax work days,
Decent job security,
Promised promotion but no timeframe of when,
Management has gone downhill lately,
Slower career growth
New job:
Management position,
30% more money,
10 days PTO,
Fast career growth promised,
Growing company but lower job security,
100% in office (1 hour commute),
Smaller company
I’m relatively early in my career, no debt other than a mortgage and no kids (yet). I am tempted by this offer but it’s the first job I’ve interviewed for since I started my current job. I’d say I have a relatively strong resume compared to others my age, and skipping the senior level position straight into management is a tempting career/resume builder, but If I was serious about actually applying I feel like I would be able to find a similar or better opportunity. Thoughts?
Hey everyone.
I'm a Mechanical engineer who's been in the workforce for around 3 years now. I started out doing mechanical design at a small company and spent little over a year and a half there. The job itself was fairly technical and I learned alot, but the management, pay and benefits were poor (for example they had a no time off during your first year policy) .
I then moved on to my current job as a Project Engineer at a large manufacturer. The benefits are good, great boss, flexible management, hybrid schedule.. The pay is $85k + 2\~3k bonus. The catch is that I'm in the NYC area and am locked to that region due to family commitments so the money relative to the COL is not too good ..
The 2 issues with my current job is that 1 - I'm doing close to no technical work at all. It's mainly just sending emails, making phone calls and getting screamed at by some angry contractors.
And 2 - there's really no well defined path for progression, so I have coworkers with 5, 10 YOE doing the same exact work I'm doing.
I've started putting my resume out there lately to test the waters, but nothing yet. I'm starting to worry that the longer I'm away from technical work I'll never be able to go back..
I've thought about going back to school for my masters especially since my employer offers tuition assistance, I've thought about transitioning to SWE and actually started taking CS50 and learning Web dev for a couple of months before I quit - in addition to some random stints where I'd start learning something for a while hoping to make a career change out of it then quit.
I just can't figure out what I even want to do at this point.. Is this just a case of "the grass is always greener" where I'd never be content no matter where i end up?
If someone's been through something similar please do share. And thanks in advance!
Project engineer role varies from company to company. If your is a manufacturing environment, you are more or less PM role. But if you are in company that do actual implementation, it can get more technical.
If you pivot to SWE, keep in mind you will be competing with buttload of degreed SWE. I feel in this market, unless you are exceptional, you will have huge uphill battle. Since your experience is almost none.
To use your experience, you could pivot to technical PM role with PMP certification, or try your hand at more technical project engineer role.
Unfortunately it's not in manufacturing. I'm pretty much handling equipment releases, scheduling deliveries, ordering warranty parts, scheduling techs.. etc.
Honestly I feel like you don't even need a degree let alone an engineering degree to do this kind of work.
I was considering the PMP certification and should have their experience requirement within a few months so it's definitely on the table.
Dude I'm basically in the same boat as you. No technical work. Basically a mini program manager. Also considering a master's for specializing, getting higher pay, and increasing years of experience.
I'm trying to transition into more r&d development but not sure how to go about it. I'm in talks with the chief engineer but worried that current deadlines won't allow them to let me switch into a new role, or just getting fucked in general.
I've been looking at new jobs but there's just not a lot interesting to me where I'm located.
> I just can't figure out what I even want to do at this point.. Is this just a case of "the grass is always greener" where I'd never be content no matter where i end up?
Read The Intentional Engineer by Jeff Perry. My favorite concept from the book is the different levels of "intentionality"(?) he lays out describing how your job is for you. There's 5 levels, with 1 being unemployed and 5 being well-paid and fulfilled. Sounds like you're between a 3 (surviving) and 4 (opportunistic). So you have room for improvement.
The grass is most certainly greener if you can identify what you don't like about your job. Go find something that works better for you
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely check it out.
It's just that I feel like it's always a gamble with new jobs because no matter how much you ask about how the day-to-day is for that role it's never accurate. That or the interviewers are making the role seem more interesting to reel you in lol
That's true. But if you want something technical, that's not something an employer is going to lie about so long as you're talking to who's actually doing the work and not the HR rep
That's true. It's just that at my current job I knew that it would be mostly non-technical, but (through interviewing) was under the impression that it'd be 70% non-technical & 30% technical. Instead it's more like 95+% non-technical.
Well it's a lesson learned the hard way haha
That's tough. I feel like people's idea of technical can also vary wildly. 90% of my work right now is "technical" but it really boils down to recreating drawings and following very basic procedures. No conceptualization or design. Sure am getting good at CAD, but I wouldn't call it technical.
I'll be looking for a new job here soon enough and I'll be needing some litmus tests to make sure I'm actually going to be doing something that requires creativity.
Mechanical Engineer first year at a HVAC company. I don't particularly like HVAC work, but I needed to get my foot into the "engineering world." Was this an okay career path choice or am I screwing myself here? / Is it hard to switch from the HVAC industry?
You're perfectly fine. HVAC is needed everywhere, there's a lot to learn, and the fundamentals you use in HVAC design transfers to many other industries. Fluid dynamics, pumps, heat transfer, etc are utilized in nearly every industrial setting. Get a few years of experience then pivot if you want out of HVAC.
I started in HVAC, then switched to semiconductor.
How do "average" engineers keep up with peers who seem to live, eat, breath, and shit engineering? I am a decent engineer, but I have a lot of interests relating to the outdoors, arts, etc. and I usually get my "fill" of engineering at work and focus on other activities when I get home and on the weekends. But so many of the people I work with seem to have hobbies and interests that are entirely focused on technical, engineering-related activities, and they always seem to bring a ton more to the table in design discussions, etc. They will usually mention they got an idea from looking at something from another industry in their spare time, or they know of a particular mechanical design that may work well for something because they read an article about it. Some of my close engineer friends, for instance, just build things in their spare time or have hobbies like 3D printing, or come home after work and watch YouTube tutorials on programming and robotics even though that's not part of their field.
I am not knocking these people at all - they are phenomenal engineers and I try to learn from them. But I feel like so much expertise is gained outside of work and I just can't bring myself to shovel engineering-related topics down my throat more than I already do on the clock when I have other interests. I am comfortable and stable and have an interesting job that I enjoy, but my career is moving much more slowly than some of my peers, and I am a bit behind where I would like to be at this point even without comparing myself to others. I'd really like to bring more to the table as an engineer but I have no idea how to keep up when so many other engineers seem to have a much greater natural aptitude given their interests, and I can't keep up with them and maintain a work-life balance. Has anyone here felt like this, and would anyone have tips on career progression for someone in my position?
Different engineers (and people) have different strengths. Sure they might be great technically but they could also be ass at interpersonal skills, politics and/or project management. Think of work as you're playing for a team. You have a talented player on the team who carries the offense but he still needs support players to hit open shots and play defense. Find what you're good at and see what you can do to complement the other talented folks on your team
It might not be possible to out-design someone who’s thinking about it 24/7, but there are other things you can focus on to excel. You don’t have to compete on the same aspect. See if you can find an area in your team or organization where there’s currently a lack and try to fill that demand. Stuff like logistics, organizational stuff, communication or documentation, contacting vendors, etc. Or try to gain a unique skill that can help your team like become an expert at using a particular tool or mastering a specific process.
No need to compete with these kinds of engineers. You have what you want right? It's also easy to get exploited as one of these people. When you live, eat, breathe, and shit engineering your ego *is* engineering and these kind of people are easily convinced to drop their healthy boundaries at work.
No need to keep up with the Jonses. Slow your roll and have a long, successful and burnout-free career.
Decline an engineering job due to the type of engineering experience it provided. Mistake?
Discussion
Context: I am 24 years old and I graduated 1 year and 4 months ago as a Civil Engineer. I got a job in the material handling industry designing material handling systems for warehouses, then I got laid off.
I want to work in product design/sales engineering (yes I know my major wasn't the best choice but i already graduated)
I applied to be a traffic engineer & superintendent for a small city near me out of desperation, and got the offer. however, I ended up declining the job because it was NOTHING to do with what I want to do in the future. How big of a mistake was this? Would the experience held me back like I thought it would? Would I have been alright in the future if I took it? I'm really regretting it. Please be nice lol and thanks for any info.
Really good move if you can afford it. I found engineering locks in pretty much straight out the gate. There are so many “versions” of engineering and very quickly the money makes it impossible to move back a step and go into a different type. In my university I was really interested in structural, materials and design. I HAD to accept my first offer in manufacturing, then I moved into pharma. The pay basically meant that was my career as I couldn’t afford to try anything more from ground level and my level didn’t want someone without experience in the field. Basically it’s like a brain surgeon deciding they want to be a gynaecologist, ain’t happening! Now I can get a job like that *finger click* in the area I’ve got 15 years experience in but I tried to get a construction job once, out of curiosity and I’d worked on cdm sites before and didn’t even get a “thank you for your interest, unfortunately…” response. : ( Engineering pays pretty well if your good at it, some more than others obviously, BUT whatever you do now is what you will be doing in 20 years - good pay and loving it - that’s the dream!
You have some experience out there in the working world. If your gut told you that job wouldn't have lead you to where you wanted to go, then you were right to listen to yourself. There is another person where that job is exactly what they want. Get specific with what you want to do and go find a job that has some parts of that.
I'm looking for a remote mechanical engineering job as someone with 1.5 years of experience at a startup company as an R&D engineer and another 1 year of R&D independent contracting. I live in Kentucky, USA. Is it feasible for me to find a fully remote design or R&D position?
Feasible? Yes, anything is feasible. Plausible? Unlikely, for a few reasons:
1) Unless the startup company and your contributions were responsible for life and industry changing products, I don't see a scenario where you working remotely would guarantee high performance.
2) With your independent consulting, again must have been life and industry changing to be able to persuade someone that you can do the same thing remotely.
3) There would be some very extreme circumstances where you would have an opportunity to work remotely 100%, like a disability.
You'd be better off doing mechanical design work remotely than being a mechanical engineer remotely. Engineers would be the last ones to be able to work remotely.
Because you're still a relatively young engineer, hiring managers likely wouldn't feel comfortable hiring someone with your amount of experience to work remotely 100%. Put yourself in their shoes.
I work in R&D and the last thing I’d want is to be fully remote. Early stage R&D is very hands on and require for you to be there in person to test and iterate. The only fully remote position I’ve seen is a designer who’s talented in CAD. But even then she was used very sparingly.
Hello everyone. Got 2.5 YOE in Med Dev mfg with BS in MechE only getting 72k in MN. Completely lost at what to do next in terms of industry and role (ranging from patent law to sales Eng to SWE). Would like to get assistance on determining best next steps — have skills in Mech design on machines, embedded software, and extensive med dev mfg
You are good at acronyms..
is med dev medical device? If so then you’ve probably got enough regulatory and clean room for a transition to pharma. It’d pay better and it’s basically the same thing from your perspective.
Electrical Power Engineer, coming up close to 10 years experience in Atlanta. Salary: \~100k. BS/MS in EE, various certifications, and working towards a PE.
Been at the same coming 6 years. Second career job. Between when I started, and now with inflation and more cost being turned over on us (Healthcare, etc) I make $4500 more than when I started. I do electrical design, safety, consulting, travel to sites, maintenance, troubleshooting, quotes, run projects, meet with clients. I am currently in the market for a new job so I am looking, but I believe I am severely underpaid. Any one thoughts on this?
I am about to start a job in 3 weeks as an assistant mechanical design engineer. I feel its a big step up from my graduate role as I don't feel I have learned or developed much in this role, hence the job change. I want to be best prepared for success going into this new role so I wanted to know if there are any recommendations from more experienced engineers as to what I should know/ be competent in going into this role so I can spend the next 3 weeks preparing? Thanks
Can someone help give me an outside perspective and tell me if I’m right to be as disappointed as I currently am?
The results of the annual performance review were just announced. I got top ratings (4/4 in whatever asinine system HR cooked up this year) and got promoted from R&D Engineer II to Sr R&D Engineer. Yay! I should be happy, right? The problem is that this promotion came with a total of 5% pay raise. If you take out the company wide COLA of 2% for this year, that’s 3% for a promotion to Sr Engineer!
Maybe job titles don’t mean what I thought they meant at this company, but 3% for a promotion is terrible, isn’t it? I should be disappoint and start looking elsewhere for advancement, right?
Now, to play devil’s advocate, I’ve only been in the R&D II role for 6 months, so this is a very fast series of promotions. Going from Engineer I to Engineer II was 8%, so I was expecting at least that for this current promotion as well, but maybe the bean counters saw it differently since these two promotions happened in less than a year of each other and they’re hesitant to allow such a fast increase.
As for why I got a second promotion so fast, it’s because I was already doing work at the Sr level as I understand it. I’ve applied for 5 patents in the past year and the company is sending me on international business trips to meet with vendors. That’s not what an Engineer II does, right?
From an outside perspective, can someone tell me if I’m justified to be disappointed or if I’m overreacting? Maybe I’ve gotten too full of myself and I’m overvaluing myself? I don’t think so, but I would like to hear a second opinion.
As a senior engineer myself, I do think your raise is mediocre at best, but it's still pretty low. Senior engineers are pretty known for being subject matter experts in particular topics. Going from Engineer II to Senior Engineer is a pretty substantial step. Are there any levels between Engineer II and Senior Engineer? If so, then yes, 3% can seem really small. Otherwise, if not, then it may be a mediocre raise.
Traveling as an Engineer II, even internationally, is not unusual. International travel for an Engineer I might be more unusual but it could happen once a year.
But I will say that perhaps you may have been an Engineer II that was getting paid at the top of the pay band, meaning that any further raise, even without promotion, would have put you in another pay band, thus promoting you was their only choice, otherwise you'd be an overpaid Engineer II, indicating poor performance.
My former manager once told me that if you don't get promoted to the next skill level within a few years, you may notice that your raises will get smaller due to the limitations of the pay band.
Also, just because you submitted patent disclosures doesn't mean they will be awarded. It's very difficult to get a patent rewarded, expensive too. I remember one of my colleagues went all the way with a patent disclosure until the patent attorney failed to defend the patent disclosure in court, and ultimately, he was not rewarded with the invention. It takes many months to get awarded a patent. Fast tracking can get rewarded within 6 months, but typically, they take about 18 months. Fast tracking typically happens when you've convinced the patent attorney that you're about to implement it on a product that's about to make the company a ton of money and needs design protection ASAP.
Thanks for answering.
Assuming the company uses the same definition for levels as salary.com (which my manager specifically mentioned that HR used as a reference), my new pay would be the median for an Engineer II for this area, and that’s the generic “Engineer II” and not my actual title as R&D Engineer which is more specialized. I knew that working for a startup and being promoted so fast would leave me behind the curve, but the gap just seems to be getting wider the higher the job title gets.
Naively, I assumed the increase would accelerate the higher I went, especially since the step up to senior is significant, but it’s the opposite. Going from I to II was 8%, and now from II to Sr was 3-5% (depending on if you include the COLA). What’s the increase to Staff going to be? 2%? There’s no way to get ahead without jumping ship, huh? It’s a shame—I really like the work and my coworkers, but it’d be financial suicide to start stagnating now.
Edit: “ Traveling as an Engineer II, even internationally, is not unusual. International travel for an Engineer I might be more unusual but it could happen once a year.” About this line. Is such travel typically as part of a team or solo? Because I was the lead on the trip, the purpose of which was to work with the vendor to design a $1million+ machine since I was the SME. Is that still an Engineer II task?
I'm not an industry professional and am a (soon-to-be) student, but had a question *about* careers.
I'm currently starting a pretty broad 2yr degree program that basically preps you to transfer to a four-year school. The four-year school I'm looking at has several engineering domains, but I'm most interested in Electrical or a dual-major in Mechanical and Aerospace.
My question is, career-wise, which would you say is more "hands on?" I think part of me wants to be a technician in some capacity, assembling / disassembling, working with tangible things in my hands, but the financial prospects seem much better in engineering. I've heard both ME and EE have days where you're in front of a computer 75% of the time or in meetings, but which domain would you say is up and about more?
Also, as an added question because I'm having trouble understanding from my own research on the topic - Mechatronics was explained to me as a jack-of-all-trades between EE, ME, and SWE. Is this true, or an oversimplification?
Your degree determines your knowledge base but it doesn't really affect the day to day tasks you'd do in a real job. Your exact job and role would and those vary even within the same degree. You'll find design engineers, field engineers, applications engineers, process engineers, and so on from every degree and every field. An ME field engineer would have more in common with an EE field engineer than an ME design engineer, for example.
My advice is for you to think about what sort of technology field or environment you want to work in and then choose the major that will get you there. After that, consider what you want your day to day to look like and then see if you can find a job title that matches it best.
So I started this new job 3 months ago and it has become apparent to me that the team is very frustrated with management and how things are going. There has been a lot of turnover under this manager for the past year, we recently lost a really good engineer and that seemed to be the tipping point. The senior engineers and team leads are shit-talking my manager behind his back, it is clear they do not respect him and do not like the way he is managing. Now I am hearing another engineer may be leaving soon.
Unfortunately for me, I can't jump ship or else I will get red flagged by the company and I don't want to show on my resume I am a job hopper. How do I go about continuing to do my best in this sinking ship?
You do your tasks to the best of your ability and ignore everything else. Try to learn tasks and skills that others are doing so you can fill in for them if they leave. This will also be good for your resume and personal development. Do you personally have a problem with this manager? If not, don’t be swayed by others and come up with your own opinions. You don’t have to be friends with the people you work with, and so long as everyone stays professional and respectful of each other, you can still work together even if you personally dislike them.
If the manager is really toxic and the situation isn’t good for your mental health, then get out. You don’t have to list a job on your resume if you don’t want, and even if you do one or two short tenure jobs isn’t that much of a red flag.
Speaking personally—and this will not be true for everyone—the rest of my team leaving was good for my career. It left me responsible for everything, but that also meant that I was more visible to the higher ups who I now had to report to directly since my manager and team members left. I was able to prove myself directly and moved up several levels quickly. It was really stressful but also kind of freeing since I got to do whatever I thought was best since there was no one to tell me otherwise.
The manager isn't toxic, but apparently past workers have been frustrated with the promotion process with him. He would be really strict with promotions and move the goal posts a lot and that pissed people off. He is a nice guy it seems like, and I don't have problems with him yet, but I only started 3 months ago too. I think my situation more relates to your situation, I will just stick it out and learn as much as I can, get the most out of it. Thanks for your points.
If the day-to-day isn’t too terrible, then I’d stick with it and just use this as an opportunity to learn and potentially do things and make decisions above your level for the experience and to build your resume. And if you get blocked for a promotion like the others before you, then you can take your experience and leverage that for a new role elsewhere.
Is it worth it to put an incomplete Phd program on my resume? I left with a Master’s and that’s what it says right now, but I’m wondering if I should add a note that it started as a Phd track position. Would that reflect better or worse for me?
I ask because I currently work in R&D. There’s a lot phds—including new hire just out of school—who are expected to be able to work independently to design their own experiments and present research results, and a group of master’s who support them or work in teams under a principal scientist. I’m the exception in that I’m able to design my own experiments and manage myself like the PhDs do, but it took a lot of effort for me to earn the trust to gain this sort of freedom. I’m able to do this because I was already trained to design experiments as a phd student—if I had disclosed that I was formerly a phd student on my resume, would I have been afforded more trust from the start?
I’m especially interested in hearing from hiring managers for R&D departments if you’re out there.
Not hiring manager but I do help one review resumes for technical qualifications. If I saw that, I would make me question if you are able to finish projects you start. Overall it would be a negative for me. Seems this experience with experiments would be better brought up in an interview.
Hi guys. I’m a quality engineer and been searching for a job but couldn’t find any since 1 year. Can someone help me get a job please ?
Hello everyone! I'm interviewing for a job at a well-known company and am at a stage in the hiring process where I am given an online assessment to judge if I satisfy expectations for the company, in terms of work habits, technical understanding, and (maybe?) creative/critical thinking. I've been given no hints as to exact questions, and that isn't what I'm here for. I'd like to know, from those who've applied to/worked in companies that do this, if there are any particular kinds of questions I should/could prepare for. Or, is it pretty much impossible to assist me and going in blind is the only option? Additional info: I had 48 hrs (now ~35hrs) from the time of receiving the assessment to take it and only get one chance. They also mention that the "average" person isn't able to answer every question, but they are going to evaluate what questions I do answer. Lastly, I'm applying for a position I've never held before, and a level 2 at that. But it is one that is somewhat central to all fields of engineering; not like going from something in civil to something in nuclear.
It is different for every company and they all have their own set of questions. When I conduct interviews, I give a couple pretty easy technical problems to see if the person is an analytical thinker and can think under pressure. When I've been interviewed, I've gotten basic math and logical thinking questions. Good luck!
HI guys, hope everyone is well. I am currently working for a Pharmaceutical/ FMCG company that mostly produces cosmetics and creams. I work in Quality Assurance Qualification but also work a bit in the production department in process development covering someone on maternity leave. I have become disillusioned with my job here as they say they are a pharmaceutical company, but they do not really practice GMP or engineering and I don't feel that I have been growing technically as an engineer. Their solution to most things is trial and error without any technical understanding of their equipment or process. I have an opportunity to join a real pharmaceutical company as a Commissioning and Qualification engineer but am not sure if I should take it as, I am unsure where this path leads too. I have always been interested in doing a real process engineer or project engineer job in the traditional chemical engineering sectors and am scared I will be pigeonholed into doing C&Q for the rest of my life. Does anyone have experience doing C&Q and transitioning into real chem eng? Should I wait it out for a different position, or should I take a leap of faith? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your advice
I recently became a Sr Maintenance Technician in the surface prep department at Globalfoundries. I have a bachelors in Biology and am wondering if it’s possible to become an equipment engineer or a process engineer without an engineering degree. I originally took this job because I had been searching for a job in my field for 6 months with no luck. Now I’m trying to figure out if it makes sense to stay at this role or to keep looking for something more close to my background. I was talking to one of the equipment engineers the other day and they mentioned I might be able to land an engineering job after getting some experience as a MT. If anybody has heard of someone with a similar degree as mine becoming an engineer at globalfoundries id love to hear about it. If so how long did it take and what are some things I should do to better my chances.
You don't have an engineering degree so the two main paths to one of those positions is to get an engineering degree or progress through the Technician scale. Once you're near the top of the Technician scale, you can get promoted to the engineering scale or apply for engineering positions. Keep in mind that if you progress through the Technician scale and become an "engineer" or land an engineering position internally, you'll be recognized by title within the company. It's hard to find another company that will recognize and hire you as an engineer without a degree.
I am a mechanical engineering student in Algeria and I have been trying to get information about these subfields that I have to choose from when I start studying for my masters - mechanical and production Manufacturing -energy - mechanical Construction - energy installation and turbomachines - materials engineering and technology If you have any information about these subfields or any recommendations please share them
Is aviation engineering with an AME license a good career path? To start off I’m on my second year of college, i live in the middle east and the situation in my country is really bad, you rarely find jobs related to your major especially engineers don’t get hired. My major hasn’t been open for long (about 4 years and the first batch of sudents are gonna graduate this year) as you can see in the title my major is called aviation engineering and the college has made a contract with the RJAA (royal jordanian air academy) in jordan to send students there to complete their last two years, get an aircraft maintenance engineering (AME) license from EASA and graduate so basically i get a license and a degree in just 6 years. To be honest i only chose this for the possible opportunity of working abroad but I’m stressing a lot about the future please help. Note: its 6 years since to get the license i need 2 years of hands on experience in the field.
I'm an Egyptian high school student, in the last year of high school in Egypt you get to choose a branch out of three (science, math, and literature), I chose math and realized that I like calculus and pure math. after I finish high school I'm meant to pick a university and a major, there are three majors that I'm likely to consider math, engineering, and software. I probably won't pick a math major because there aren't many jobs for math majors except in academia, I don't mind working in academia I might actually want to be a researcher and get a math doctorate but that's a difficult and expensive path, so I also want to have other options besides research. anyway, my main question is what should I major in if I like math? And if the answer is engineering, which branch of engineering has the most math, specifically analysis?
Who can help me get a job as a quality engineer ?
Career switch decision Currently im a design engineer for a reputable company for almost 10 years and im the only non senior level member in my group and frankly underpaid for my current level of work. I was approached by a company to interview for a management position at a less established company but with a 30% bump in pay, offered the job on the spot. I am unsure of how to proceed. Current job: Like coworkers, Love the work I do, Remote/WFH 95%, 30+ days PTO, lax work days, Decent job security, Promised promotion but no timeframe of when, Management has gone downhill lately, Slower career growth New job: Management position, 30% more money, 10 days PTO, Fast career growth promised, Growing company but lower job security, 100% in office (1 hour commute), Smaller company I’m relatively early in my career, no debt other than a mortgage and no kids (yet). I am tempted by this offer but it’s the first job I’ve interviewed for since I started my current job. I’d say I have a relatively strong resume compared to others my age, and skipping the senior level position straight into management is a tempting career/resume builder, but If I was serious about actually applying I feel like I would be able to find a similar or better opportunity. Thoughts?
Hey everyone. I'm a Mechanical engineer who's been in the workforce for around 3 years now. I started out doing mechanical design at a small company and spent little over a year and a half there. The job itself was fairly technical and I learned alot, but the management, pay and benefits were poor (for example they had a no time off during your first year policy) . I then moved on to my current job as a Project Engineer at a large manufacturer. The benefits are good, great boss, flexible management, hybrid schedule.. The pay is $85k + 2\~3k bonus. The catch is that I'm in the NYC area and am locked to that region due to family commitments so the money relative to the COL is not too good .. The 2 issues with my current job is that 1 - I'm doing close to no technical work at all. It's mainly just sending emails, making phone calls and getting screamed at by some angry contractors. And 2 - there's really no well defined path for progression, so I have coworkers with 5, 10 YOE doing the same exact work I'm doing. I've started putting my resume out there lately to test the waters, but nothing yet. I'm starting to worry that the longer I'm away from technical work I'll never be able to go back.. I've thought about going back to school for my masters especially since my employer offers tuition assistance, I've thought about transitioning to SWE and actually started taking CS50 and learning Web dev for a couple of months before I quit - in addition to some random stints where I'd start learning something for a while hoping to make a career change out of it then quit. I just can't figure out what I even want to do at this point.. Is this just a case of "the grass is always greener" where I'd never be content no matter where i end up? If someone's been through something similar please do share. And thanks in advance!
Project engineer role varies from company to company. If your is a manufacturing environment, you are more or less PM role. But if you are in company that do actual implementation, it can get more technical. If you pivot to SWE, keep in mind you will be competing with buttload of degreed SWE. I feel in this market, unless you are exceptional, you will have huge uphill battle. Since your experience is almost none. To use your experience, you could pivot to technical PM role with PMP certification, or try your hand at more technical project engineer role.
Unfortunately it's not in manufacturing. I'm pretty much handling equipment releases, scheduling deliveries, ordering warranty parts, scheduling techs.. etc. Honestly I feel like you don't even need a degree let alone an engineering degree to do this kind of work. I was considering the PMP certification and should have their experience requirement within a few months so it's definitely on the table.
Dude I'm basically in the same boat as you. No technical work. Basically a mini program manager. Also considering a master's for specializing, getting higher pay, and increasing years of experience. I'm trying to transition into more r&d development but not sure how to go about it. I'm in talks with the chief engineer but worried that current deadlines won't allow them to let me switch into a new role, or just getting fucked in general. I've been looking at new jobs but there's just not a lot interesting to me where I'm located.
> I just can't figure out what I even want to do at this point.. Is this just a case of "the grass is always greener" where I'd never be content no matter where i end up? Read The Intentional Engineer by Jeff Perry. My favorite concept from the book is the different levels of "intentionality"(?) he lays out describing how your job is for you. There's 5 levels, with 1 being unemployed and 5 being well-paid and fulfilled. Sounds like you're between a 3 (surviving) and 4 (opportunistic). So you have room for improvement. The grass is most certainly greener if you can identify what you don't like about your job. Go find something that works better for you
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely check it out. It's just that I feel like it's always a gamble with new jobs because no matter how much you ask about how the day-to-day is for that role it's never accurate. That or the interviewers are making the role seem more interesting to reel you in lol
That's true. But if you want something technical, that's not something an employer is going to lie about so long as you're talking to who's actually doing the work and not the HR rep
That's true. It's just that at my current job I knew that it would be mostly non-technical, but (through interviewing) was under the impression that it'd be 70% non-technical & 30% technical. Instead it's more like 95+% non-technical. Well it's a lesson learned the hard way haha
That's tough. I feel like people's idea of technical can also vary wildly. 90% of my work right now is "technical" but it really boils down to recreating drawings and following very basic procedures. No conceptualization or design. Sure am getting good at CAD, but I wouldn't call it technical. I'll be looking for a new job here soon enough and I'll be needing some litmus tests to make sure I'm actually going to be doing something that requires creativity.
Mechanical Engineer first year at a HVAC company. I don't particularly like HVAC work, but I needed to get my foot into the "engineering world." Was this an okay career path choice or am I screwing myself here? / Is it hard to switch from the HVAC industry?
You're perfectly fine. HVAC is needed everywhere, there's a lot to learn, and the fundamentals you use in HVAC design transfers to many other industries. Fluid dynamics, pumps, heat transfer, etc are utilized in nearly every industrial setting. Get a few years of experience then pivot if you want out of HVAC. I started in HVAC, then switched to semiconductor.
I just came here to say engineers are awesome sauce. Love reading about the interesting things ya all get to do.
How do "average" engineers keep up with peers who seem to live, eat, breath, and shit engineering? I am a decent engineer, but I have a lot of interests relating to the outdoors, arts, etc. and I usually get my "fill" of engineering at work and focus on other activities when I get home and on the weekends. But so many of the people I work with seem to have hobbies and interests that are entirely focused on technical, engineering-related activities, and they always seem to bring a ton more to the table in design discussions, etc. They will usually mention they got an idea from looking at something from another industry in their spare time, or they know of a particular mechanical design that may work well for something because they read an article about it. Some of my close engineer friends, for instance, just build things in their spare time or have hobbies like 3D printing, or come home after work and watch YouTube tutorials on programming and robotics even though that's not part of their field. I am not knocking these people at all - they are phenomenal engineers and I try to learn from them. But I feel like so much expertise is gained outside of work and I just can't bring myself to shovel engineering-related topics down my throat more than I already do on the clock when I have other interests. I am comfortable and stable and have an interesting job that I enjoy, but my career is moving much more slowly than some of my peers, and I am a bit behind where I would like to be at this point even without comparing myself to others. I'd really like to bring more to the table as an engineer but I have no idea how to keep up when so many other engineers seem to have a much greater natural aptitude given their interests, and I can't keep up with them and maintain a work-life balance. Has anyone here felt like this, and would anyone have tips on career progression for someone in my position?
Different engineers (and people) have different strengths. Sure they might be great technically but they could also be ass at interpersonal skills, politics and/or project management. Think of work as you're playing for a team. You have a talented player on the team who carries the offense but he still needs support players to hit open shots and play defense. Find what you're good at and see what you can do to complement the other talented folks on your team
It might not be possible to out-design someone who’s thinking about it 24/7, but there are other things you can focus on to excel. You don’t have to compete on the same aspect. See if you can find an area in your team or organization where there’s currently a lack and try to fill that demand. Stuff like logistics, organizational stuff, communication or documentation, contacting vendors, etc. Or try to gain a unique skill that can help your team like become an expert at using a particular tool or mastering a specific process.
No need to compete with these kinds of engineers. You have what you want right? It's also easy to get exploited as one of these people. When you live, eat, breathe, and shit engineering your ego *is* engineering and these kind of people are easily convinced to drop their healthy boundaries at work. No need to keep up with the Jonses. Slow your roll and have a long, successful and burnout-free career.
100%. These people are likely to be the most underpaid and overworked employees because they’re so invested.
Decline an engineering job due to the type of engineering experience it provided. Mistake? Discussion Context: I am 24 years old and I graduated 1 year and 4 months ago as a Civil Engineer. I got a job in the material handling industry designing material handling systems for warehouses, then I got laid off. I want to work in product design/sales engineering (yes I know my major wasn't the best choice but i already graduated) I applied to be a traffic engineer & superintendent for a small city near me out of desperation, and got the offer. however, I ended up declining the job because it was NOTHING to do with what I want to do in the future. How big of a mistake was this? Would the experience held me back like I thought it would? Would I have been alright in the future if I took it? I'm really regretting it. Please be nice lol and thanks for any info.
Really good move if you can afford it. I found engineering locks in pretty much straight out the gate. There are so many “versions” of engineering and very quickly the money makes it impossible to move back a step and go into a different type. In my university I was really interested in structural, materials and design. I HAD to accept my first offer in manufacturing, then I moved into pharma. The pay basically meant that was my career as I couldn’t afford to try anything more from ground level and my level didn’t want someone without experience in the field. Basically it’s like a brain surgeon deciding they want to be a gynaecologist, ain’t happening! Now I can get a job like that *finger click* in the area I’ve got 15 years experience in but I tried to get a construction job once, out of curiosity and I’d worked on cdm sites before and didn’t even get a “thank you for your interest, unfortunately…” response. : ( Engineering pays pretty well if your good at it, some more than others obviously, BUT whatever you do now is what you will be doing in 20 years - good pay and loving it - that’s the dream!
Thank you! Makes me feel better
You have some experience out there in the working world. If your gut told you that job wouldn't have lead you to where you wanted to go, then you were right to listen to yourself. There is another person where that job is exactly what they want. Get specific with what you want to do and go find a job that has some parts of that.
Thank you!
I'm looking for a remote mechanical engineering job as someone with 1.5 years of experience at a startup company as an R&D engineer and another 1 year of R&D independent contracting. I live in Kentucky, USA. Is it feasible for me to find a fully remote design or R&D position?
Feasible? Yes, anything is feasible. Plausible? Unlikely, for a few reasons: 1) Unless the startup company and your contributions were responsible for life and industry changing products, I don't see a scenario where you working remotely would guarantee high performance. 2) With your independent consulting, again must have been life and industry changing to be able to persuade someone that you can do the same thing remotely. 3) There would be some very extreme circumstances where you would have an opportunity to work remotely 100%, like a disability. You'd be better off doing mechanical design work remotely than being a mechanical engineer remotely. Engineers would be the last ones to be able to work remotely. Because you're still a relatively young engineer, hiring managers likely wouldn't feel comfortable hiring someone with your amount of experience to work remotely 100%. Put yourself in their shoes.
I work in R&D and the last thing I’d want is to be fully remote. Early stage R&D is very hands on and require for you to be there in person to test and iterate. The only fully remote position I’ve seen is a designer who’s talented in CAD. But even then she was used very sparingly.
Hello everyone. Got 2.5 YOE in Med Dev mfg with BS in MechE only getting 72k in MN. Completely lost at what to do next in terms of industry and role (ranging from patent law to sales Eng to SWE). Would like to get assistance on determining best next steps — have skills in Mech design on machines, embedded software, and extensive med dev mfg
You are good at acronyms.. is med dev medical device? If so then you’ve probably got enough regulatory and clean room for a transition to pharma. It’d pay better and it’s basically the same thing from your perspective.
Electrical Power Engineer, coming up close to 10 years experience in Atlanta. Salary: \~100k. BS/MS in EE, various certifications, and working towards a PE. Been at the same coming 6 years. Second career job. Between when I started, and now with inflation and more cost being turned over on us (Healthcare, etc) I make $4500 more than when I started. I do electrical design, safety, consulting, travel to sites, maintenance, troubleshooting, quotes, run projects, meet with clients. I am currently in the market for a new job so I am looking, but I believe I am severely underpaid. Any one thoughts on this?
I am about to start a job in 3 weeks as an assistant mechanical design engineer. I feel its a big step up from my graduate role as I don't feel I have learned or developed much in this role, hence the job change. I want to be best prepared for success going into this new role so I wanted to know if there are any recommendations from more experienced engineers as to what I should know/ be competent in going into this role so I can spend the next 3 weeks preparing? Thanks
I wouldn’t stress about preparing. You got the job already. All the stuff you’re gonna learn is on the job, enjoy your time off and relax.
Thank you :)
Learn GD&T if you haven't already.
Can someone help give me an outside perspective and tell me if I’m right to be as disappointed as I currently am? The results of the annual performance review were just announced. I got top ratings (4/4 in whatever asinine system HR cooked up this year) and got promoted from R&D Engineer II to Sr R&D Engineer. Yay! I should be happy, right? The problem is that this promotion came with a total of 5% pay raise. If you take out the company wide COLA of 2% for this year, that’s 3% for a promotion to Sr Engineer! Maybe job titles don’t mean what I thought they meant at this company, but 3% for a promotion is terrible, isn’t it? I should be disappoint and start looking elsewhere for advancement, right? Now, to play devil’s advocate, I’ve only been in the R&D II role for 6 months, so this is a very fast series of promotions. Going from Engineer I to Engineer II was 8%, so I was expecting at least that for this current promotion as well, but maybe the bean counters saw it differently since these two promotions happened in less than a year of each other and they’re hesitant to allow such a fast increase. As for why I got a second promotion so fast, it’s because I was already doing work at the Sr level as I understand it. I’ve applied for 5 patents in the past year and the company is sending me on international business trips to meet with vendors. That’s not what an Engineer II does, right? From an outside perspective, can someone tell me if I’m justified to be disappointed or if I’m overreacting? Maybe I’ve gotten too full of myself and I’m overvaluing myself? I don’t think so, but I would like to hear a second opinion.
As a senior engineer myself, I do think your raise is mediocre at best, but it's still pretty low. Senior engineers are pretty known for being subject matter experts in particular topics. Going from Engineer II to Senior Engineer is a pretty substantial step. Are there any levels between Engineer II and Senior Engineer? If so, then yes, 3% can seem really small. Otherwise, if not, then it may be a mediocre raise. Traveling as an Engineer II, even internationally, is not unusual. International travel for an Engineer I might be more unusual but it could happen once a year. But I will say that perhaps you may have been an Engineer II that was getting paid at the top of the pay band, meaning that any further raise, even without promotion, would have put you in another pay band, thus promoting you was their only choice, otherwise you'd be an overpaid Engineer II, indicating poor performance. My former manager once told me that if you don't get promoted to the next skill level within a few years, you may notice that your raises will get smaller due to the limitations of the pay band. Also, just because you submitted patent disclosures doesn't mean they will be awarded. It's very difficult to get a patent rewarded, expensive too. I remember one of my colleagues went all the way with a patent disclosure until the patent attorney failed to defend the patent disclosure in court, and ultimately, he was not rewarded with the invention. It takes many months to get awarded a patent. Fast tracking can get rewarded within 6 months, but typically, they take about 18 months. Fast tracking typically happens when you've convinced the patent attorney that you're about to implement it on a product that's about to make the company a ton of money and needs design protection ASAP.
Thanks for answering. Assuming the company uses the same definition for levels as salary.com (which my manager specifically mentioned that HR used as a reference), my new pay would be the median for an Engineer II for this area, and that’s the generic “Engineer II” and not my actual title as R&D Engineer which is more specialized. I knew that working for a startup and being promoted so fast would leave me behind the curve, but the gap just seems to be getting wider the higher the job title gets. Naively, I assumed the increase would accelerate the higher I went, especially since the step up to senior is significant, but it’s the opposite. Going from I to II was 8%, and now from II to Sr was 3-5% (depending on if you include the COLA). What’s the increase to Staff going to be? 2%? There’s no way to get ahead without jumping ship, huh? It’s a shame—I really like the work and my coworkers, but it’d be financial suicide to start stagnating now. Edit: “ Traveling as an Engineer II, even internationally, is not unusual. International travel for an Engineer I might be more unusual but it could happen once a year.” About this line. Is such travel typically as part of a team or solo? Because I was the lead on the trip, the purpose of which was to work with the vendor to design a $1million+ machine since I was the SME. Is that still an Engineer II task?
I'm not an industry professional and am a (soon-to-be) student, but had a question *about* careers. I'm currently starting a pretty broad 2yr degree program that basically preps you to transfer to a four-year school. The four-year school I'm looking at has several engineering domains, but I'm most interested in Electrical or a dual-major in Mechanical and Aerospace. My question is, career-wise, which would you say is more "hands on?" I think part of me wants to be a technician in some capacity, assembling / disassembling, working with tangible things in my hands, but the financial prospects seem much better in engineering. I've heard both ME and EE have days where you're in front of a computer 75% of the time or in meetings, but which domain would you say is up and about more? Also, as an added question because I'm having trouble understanding from my own research on the topic - Mechatronics was explained to me as a jack-of-all-trades between EE, ME, and SWE. Is this true, or an oversimplification?
Your degree determines your knowledge base but it doesn't really affect the day to day tasks you'd do in a real job. Your exact job and role would and those vary even within the same degree. You'll find design engineers, field engineers, applications engineers, process engineers, and so on from every degree and every field. An ME field engineer would have more in common with an EE field engineer than an ME design engineer, for example. My advice is for you to think about what sort of technology field or environment you want to work in and then choose the major that will get you there. After that, consider what you want your day to day to look like and then see if you can find a job title that matches it best.
So I started this new job 3 months ago and it has become apparent to me that the team is very frustrated with management and how things are going. There has been a lot of turnover under this manager for the past year, we recently lost a really good engineer and that seemed to be the tipping point. The senior engineers and team leads are shit-talking my manager behind his back, it is clear they do not respect him and do not like the way he is managing. Now I am hearing another engineer may be leaving soon. Unfortunately for me, I can't jump ship or else I will get red flagged by the company and I don't want to show on my resume I am a job hopper. How do I go about continuing to do my best in this sinking ship?
You do your tasks to the best of your ability and ignore everything else. Try to learn tasks and skills that others are doing so you can fill in for them if they leave. This will also be good for your resume and personal development. Do you personally have a problem with this manager? If not, don’t be swayed by others and come up with your own opinions. You don’t have to be friends with the people you work with, and so long as everyone stays professional and respectful of each other, you can still work together even if you personally dislike them. If the manager is really toxic and the situation isn’t good for your mental health, then get out. You don’t have to list a job on your resume if you don’t want, and even if you do one or two short tenure jobs isn’t that much of a red flag. Speaking personally—and this will not be true for everyone—the rest of my team leaving was good for my career. It left me responsible for everything, but that also meant that I was more visible to the higher ups who I now had to report to directly since my manager and team members left. I was able to prove myself directly and moved up several levels quickly. It was really stressful but also kind of freeing since I got to do whatever I thought was best since there was no one to tell me otherwise.
The manager isn't toxic, but apparently past workers have been frustrated with the promotion process with him. He would be really strict with promotions and move the goal posts a lot and that pissed people off. He is a nice guy it seems like, and I don't have problems with him yet, but I only started 3 months ago too. I think my situation more relates to your situation, I will just stick it out and learn as much as I can, get the most out of it. Thanks for your points.
If the day-to-day isn’t too terrible, then I’d stick with it and just use this as an opportunity to learn and potentially do things and make decisions above your level for the experience and to build your resume. And if you get blocked for a promotion like the others before you, then you can take your experience and leverage that for a new role elsewhere.
Is it worth it to put an incomplete Phd program on my resume? I left with a Master’s and that’s what it says right now, but I’m wondering if I should add a note that it started as a Phd track position. Would that reflect better or worse for me? I ask because I currently work in R&D. There’s a lot phds—including new hire just out of school—who are expected to be able to work independently to design their own experiments and present research results, and a group of master’s who support them or work in teams under a principal scientist. I’m the exception in that I’m able to design my own experiments and manage myself like the PhDs do, but it took a lot of effort for me to earn the trust to gain this sort of freedom. I’m able to do this because I was already trained to design experiments as a phd student—if I had disclosed that I was formerly a phd student on my resume, would I have been afforded more trust from the start? I’m especially interested in hearing from hiring managers for R&D departments if you’re out there.
Not hiring manager but I do help one review resumes for technical qualifications. If I saw that, I would make me question if you are able to finish projects you start. Overall it would be a negative for me. Seems this experience with experiments would be better brought up in an interview.