Questions for the engineers!

[Conspicuous Cultist]

Curious about the profession. I've been re-learning math and was thinking of going to college for aerospace engineering or petroleum in particular (I have more interest in aerospace but the later brings in loads more dosh.) after being burned trying to find some low-end jobs at my town around a 50 mile radius for a year straight.

Now for the earth-shattering questions. (Disclaimer: I dunno if this forums swarming with engineers but one or two would still be helpful!)

1. What type of engineer are you?

2. What's it like for your typical workday?

3. How was job prospects out of college? Did you manage to grab a job from the get go and if you happen to quit your current one, would people be fumbling to get you?

4. How secure is the job? Do lay-offs happen a lot or do you end up moving around a lot?

4a. (Optional) What's your current pay like? Do you reckon it'll continue to rise in the years to come?

Plus any anecdote you'd like to share.

[Captain N]

You said Engineer and I qualify so....

1. Locomotive Engineer (closing in on six years experience)

2. I go forward and I go backwards - Sometimes I have a good Conductor...Sometimes I want to throw him/her off the train.

3. College is a moot point - Not relevant to my job field.

4. Incredibly secure - There's always a need for more. So every year or so a bid goes out to Conductors wanting to join Engine Service.

4a. ~$120,000 last year

I suggest railroad work to anyone who cannot afford college or does not want to be burdened by Student Loan debt. It's not glamorous and you won't get ridiculously wealthy - but if you can deal with working in all weather types and suffering through being on-call 24/7 for a few months it's very easy to make $60,000+ in your first year.

[Casagrande]

1. M.S. in Ocean Engineering, which can mean a lot of things but in my case it was mostly underwater robotics and acoustics.

2. Sit in a basement lab and build robots for oceanographic research. Mostly electrical work, but a good mix of mechanical and more programming than I'd like. Sometimes we actually get to use said robots, which involves research cruises anywhere from a few days to a month or more, in locations ranging from the bay (a 2 minute walk) to Antarctica.

3. Plenty of options, I chose to stay around the university I got my degrees from and do contract work on various projects. I have more work than I can do right now, but I don't think I would have too much trouble if I wanted to look for something else.

4. Subcontracting on grants is a bit risky; just takes a few unlucky proposals to be out of work. Diversifying as much as reasonably possible is important, I have 4 different projects I'm dealing with right now which is a bit much, but fortunately two of them have pretty flexible timelines so I can prioritize the others.

4a. Decent, not amazing. Research never pays very well compared to industry (eg. oil). Whatever my next job is will probably pay significantly more.

[Darkrulerxxx]

1. Computer/Electronics Engineer

2. Student in my final year of undergrad work. Still plenty of stuff to do: Internship at NASA, Grant project with the ARI (Agricultural Research Institute; building a robot that will survey experimental GMO strands of Iceberg Lettuce)

3. Jobs are plentiful for engineers, I personally consider Civil engineer to be on the lowest point of the totem pole and as such, jobs are fewer and pay lesser (but dont get me wrong in the engineering field there are plenty).

4. Jobs are definitely stable, but you can't stay at one point in your education, you must continue to evolve with the system as itself changes.

My personal advice, Aerospace and Petroleum are THE hardest engineering majors to go into. If you are going to it for sure, be prepared for endless nights of studying studying studying with no life.

I already have that with my major but i already know how tough it is for those two.

[Conspicuous Cultist]

My personal advice, Aerospace and Petroleum are THE hardest engineering majors to go into. If you are going to it for sure, be prepared for endless nights of studying studying studying with no life.

I already have that with my major but i already know how tough it is for those two.

I'm already no-lifing it up (No money = no fun) shoving out applications with no calls back so studying for a sure goal at the end sounds way more preferable.

You said Engineer and I qualify so....

1. Locomotive Engineer (closing in on six years experience)

2. I go forward and I go backwards - Sometimes I have a good Conductor...Sometimes I want to throw him/her off the train.

lol

I heard getting in the railroad business is a sweet gig to be in, for sure. Hat's off to you, sir.

@ Cas, I didn't even know ocean engineering is a thing. That actually sounds pretty cool.

[Doseki]

1. Industrial Engineer
2. Look at production schedules, cost analysis of our processes, handling of freight (ocean and 18 wheeler), lots of random stuff that comes up
3. Graduated in 09 when most companies weren't hiring, but found a job 6 months after graduation. Had 2 other offers on the table: one was in purchasing at a car manufacture and the other was for government defense. It would be easier for me to get a job now than before because of the connections I've made.
4. More secure than most
4a. By 28, I had bought my own 3/2 home and a Lexus

IMO, go with the petro, chemical, mechanical, or electrical eng. I feel that those are the most practical eng fields. If you can handle the school work, then stick it out.

[Kellhound]

1: Quality Engineer
2: Its a small company so I do a lot of odd things. My main job is to track and analyze production and suppliers to ensure proper quality standards are met for our customers. I also do a lot of hands on testing for R&D.
3: I did the 20 years as a technician get into the job on skill and intelligence route. I don't recommend that route, it is VERY time consuming...
4: Generally good, but limited because I lack a degree but I am working on my Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, which will help should I decide to change jobs.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'll start with the anecdote: The ultimate truth about about any job related to engineering and technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

1. Electrical Engineer. (energy, electronics, it, etc.)
2. My current employment is mostly about designing new controllers (microcontroller based, PC based, etc) for industrial machinery. But also measuring equipment, writing software (for microcontrollers and PC) and some IT stuff in general like networking protocolls (thats the new thing atm with everything networking without any good reason). You also get to play around with alot of stuff since it's a smal company (<300) and some of the odd jobs often get thrown at us in R&D. Work hours are usually about 8-9 hours a day, but some bigger and important projects may require working above that.
3. Here in germany fairly good, already started during uni. First as an intern and later a working student / student trainee, so the demand is definetly there, at least here.
4. In smal companies the chances to climb are fairly limited, you usually have only a project lead (usually not even that), a group lead or a leader for the whole technical devision above you. It's probably different in bigger companies, but I'm not that well versed in the structures of giants like Siemens. Currently our jobs are rather secure, but that is because industrial machinery sells like fresh bread over here and probably doesn't mean much to you in the USA. Also since I'm the youngest and single with no kids I'd probably be the first to go if it came to some extreme fails in company management.
5. My pay is well within the boundaries of the typical payment for electrical engineers. You should take a look at the lists in your country to check that.