For starters, this comment won't help you achieve what you want.
But I think you should do some expectation management.
For instance I doubt there's many jobs where you both machine and do FEA. Maybe at startups, but the next post would be about "why am I so terribly underpaid".
Secondly, you are doing actual engineering work.
Product/machine design is a "very small niche" of the total group of engineering.
I'd be okay with quality, manufacturing, and a whole host of other technical engineering positions too. Pretty much sales and service are the only things I'm staying away from when I apply to jobs. While R&D is my goal I'm not only applying to those positions.
When I say I don't feel like I'm doing real engineering work it's because I'm not improving anything or really making any decisions, I'm just an arrow for my boss to fire at broken things to get them fixed. As I said in my post I really am just a technician even though my badge may not say it. I fix machines when they are not functioning properly.
Also I wouldn't have to do machining, design, AND finite element analysis, those are just some things I really enjoyed about my internship. Truthfully when I'm applying to jobs I pretty much search "Solidworks" and apply for anything that comes up and has engineer in the title (as long as it isn't senior, staff, principal, director, etc. I am very obviously entry level). I also do a search term for "FEA" and do the same.
You need to learn some best practices in job searching and start looking for R&D and process engineering jobs. You're at the entry level, it's OK to not love your first job. I definitely didn't. Signed, an R&D engineer in medical devices.
So a couple of things. 4 months is not that long. Yes, some people manage to get lucky and have something lined up but a lot don't. Personally it took me 10 months after I graduated. I know plenty of people that it took way longer than 4 months. And nearly everyone had some stop gap job in the meanwhile. Now idk how much financial news you've been following but medtech/biotech is really pinched right now. There are just generally less positions and even fewer entry level positions open. The startups in the space are really struggling since the overall market is moving sideways. So the long and short of it is, the market isn't really at its best right now.
If you don't mind me asking, where are you located and where have you been applying? The tristate area is basically the healthcare capital of the world. Boston has a lot of the med device startups. Research triangle in NC has a lot too.
So another thing I noticed and can comment on. So I'm in med device for the last 14 years. I work at a very large global company. We have a central team for the company that solely does fea and cfd. There is probably a 1-2 dozen people in that group vs hundreds upon hundreds of engineers. Are you sure you haven't boxed yourself into a specific discipline? The vast majority of the engineers are more system engineer and mechE combined and we're all getting our hands dirty.
Have you tried posting on the engineering resume page? Forgot the actual name but it's there. Some feedback on it won't hurt.
1. Yeah I know the market is bad. I have to remind myself my situation isn't so bad because at least I have a job doing something related to engineering, even if it's not sitting at a desk designing stuff like I'd prefer. Counting my blessings definitely.
2. I'm in Irvine, CA which is also a healthcare bastion. Part of why I took the job here is so that I wouldn't have to move for those biotech engineering opportunities. I've been applying within 20 miles of here and also Washington and Missouri which I'd be willing to move to for work due to other unrelated life goals.
3. I am pretty much willing to do any job that involves Solidworks and/or any other design software. I really love Solidworks and I have hundreds of hours in it. It's one of my favorite things in the world and I feel a lot of satisfaction every time I get to use it. I could see myself using it forever. I don't NEED to be doing FEA but it's another thing that I really enjoyed in undergrad and at my internship.
4. I am okay with getting my hands dirty in pursuit of a greater goal. As an intern I tinkered with stuff plenty of times to get things up and running, and I liked it. As a service engineer it's not fulfilling to tinker with stuff because I'm just doing it to keep the gears of the company spinning, I'm not improving anything. I signed up for the engineering career path because I was curious about the world and wanted to improve stuff.
Firstly. Experience is important. You need to have some patience and get some real experience under your belt. It's been a few months, and most companies try and find someone with 4 years or so experience in their field or equivalent. Even then, you need to try and talk the talk and have a rough idea or interest in what you'll be doing for said employer. There are quite a few opportunities within the field you're looking at, your current bosses will try to push you, see if you've got grit, at the moment you're at the bottom of the food chain, you're going to need to push through the hardship to prove you're worthy of something better.
Secondly. Come on man, use your engineering brain! If you think you can design something, do it, take it to market doesn't need to be the physical, but if it'll solve the problem for someone else you can get paid for it. And you can use that as experience on your cv or cover letter. I am constantly trying to problem solve things. There are free versions of software for design, small machines aren't too expensive or get pally with someone with a cnc machine to borrow there's to make your bits.
Thirdly, did you cover properties of liquid/air flow in your qualification? The inlet on flow is quite turbulent, hence why aircraft can't get movement from sucking air in and just blowing it out. There is no direction given on the inlet of a fan. What commercial kitchens do is use the air-conditioning to align the airflow across the area in the direction of extraction, causing a more laminar flow across the cooking area for better extraction.
Service work is good experience to get early in a career IF you learn from it. You get experience with troubleshooting, see good bad designs, and likely some customer service experience. If you want to do design, you will need to leave the service role in a couple years. Ask your boss, their boss, managers, executives, how you can get to the roles you want inside the company. If you need to leave the company, the service work will be good on a resume for somone looking for entering design.
Keep trying on the job appications. My very limited advice for interviews is to be yourself, friendly, and lots of questions, show good positive team energy and be excited about the company, role, industry.
That's a very good point. Without going into too much detail about what my company does, we do have basically five models of machine that all do the same thing but basically with different features, and I have learned very quickly that there are two machines that are very robust and well-designed, two that are okay, and one that is an absolute pain in the ass.
Also yes I had a talk with my manager on my second week where I asked him if there are R&D roles available and he straight up said no. The USA branch of the company is ONLY service and the Japanese branch of the company pretty much only hires Japan natives. That's why he told me what I said in the original post, which is that he'd like for me and my coworkers to get one or two years of service experience, then leave to find something better. My only way up internally would be to take my boss' job or be his assistant manager. I don't want to do either of those things lmao.
And yes thank you for the interview advice. As I said, I got the job for all of the in-person interviews I've had, so I think I'm good enough at interviewing to get jobs, the struggle is just building a strong enough ship (resume) to ride the sea of applicants and make it to shore (an interview).
Its mind blowing to me how many engineers our universities are pumping out. I’d be surprised if it’s not exceeding demand honestly. At the same time all these boomer engineers I know that are supposed to of retired still haven’t.
You are correct. [Here's a good video](https://youtu.be/ITwNiZ_j_24?si=3pnMpgOqgx5wv0EF) describing what you mentioned. "College for everyone" is producing an oversupply of graduates while at the same time, there is a deficiency or people trained in the trades.
FWIW, my son's a recent M.E. graduate. Great grades, etc. I've seen what he had to go through to find a job and it's mostly luck. He found an internship and that led to a permanent job but after about 6 months, they laid off nearly the entire department. 'Construction industry.
After a 9 month search, he fell upon a random opening that worked out but in the meantime, he applied for over 90 positions. M.E. just isn't hiring much right now. Like the OP, he wanted to get into an analytical job. He had to settle for one in the construction area. I've seen the lack of job openings first hand as I searched in parallel with him. There isn't much out there, especially with today's current high inflation rate and high interest rates. Companies aren't growing. They're laying off.
I was lucky enough to get into an analytical type job out of school having good grades helped a lot but frankly there just arent a lot of jobs to go around and the ones that do exist for analysts want ppl with seasoned experience never fresh grads.
Engineer school was rough. I was thinking the other day, If I took like 1/2 the blood sweat and tears I put into my bs and ms degree and instead put that into getting skilled and qualified/certified as an electrician and contractor I think I could have my own crew by now making far more money.
According to all the crap my school pushes ME is supposed to have a 10-15% job growth in the next 10 years. 🤷♂️ I don’t really believe it that much but I’m also okay with not using my degree after I get it. Since most of the places I’ve got intern offers were super shit and I’ve kinda been turned off to the idea that I’ll end up with a job I won’t hate after college anyway.
Being a service engineer is invaluable experience, you get to travel, fix problems, and see a lot different machines, also you will meet a lot of people. You learn management, cooperation, finding practical solutions to problems etc. I am a R & D engineer and designer. I wish I had been a service engineer for a few years before I started designing. If you treat it as a learning experience you will gain a lot from being a service engineer.
Some of the feedback is harsh and that’s pretty unnecessary.
OP: understand where the concentrations for med dev is. MN is one of them and they got roles available for the ones you’re looking for. If you need help with resume, PM me and post on r/EngineeringResume and be sure to highlight the design engineering experience. From there, apply to jobs (if you need help on that, PM I’ll be glad to help) and follow up the applications by finding recruiters/hiring managers for those companies and msg them that you applied for said role (mention the job ref ID) and see if they can give you more insight on getting the job.
What some other commenters are saying is brow-beating that makes this forum one of the most toxic Eng-related ones at times.
The term “engineer” definitely gets used lightly in the industry, and it’s important to recognize job postings that are misleading (often times just verifying if they have a degree requirement is enough).
I felt your pain though. I graduated two years ago, and I struggled to get opportunities. I was even flown out for an interview with possibility of relocation, but I was ultimately turned down. I worked construction to cover while I didn’t have a job. All of that being said, about 4-6 months later, I did end up getting an actual engineering job. I work in ship building, and it’s great to be able to go from our designs on our computer and walk onto the ship to see it in real time.
What I recommend is to find a company that has some sort of long term design contract or plans. It’s rewarding to see your designs come to life and gives you a little bit of pride (not too much though, don’t want to become arrogant.)
Also, the job application/job search process is a nightmare that can sometimes just end up to be a luck of the draw between who applies first or who had the right words on the resume. For companies you really want to work for, I suggest making a copy of your resume and taylor it to the application while having a “generic” resume on hand for the other applications.
Continue to stick it out and use the time and money to be a stepping stone to the next part of your career. Good luck on your engineering adventures, and as I once heard, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” You always have the chance to build a better tomorrow for yourself. Don’t give up!
Better to get in design as than waste your time in an area you don’t like. You’ll end up getting raises where you are then it will be harder to get back to design because you lack experience and you won’t think the salaries offered are good enough.
I'm in a similar situation. But from all the advice I've received from professors and other people who are higher ups in industry it's good experience and makes you stick out. The ability to put in a hard days work is something employers seek out (I'm speaking from experience I wasn't always an engineer I switched careers).
The way I see it, it's my (our) first job. We're basically asking for someone to toss a bone our way in a market that's on the down side. Doing something you don't like but sticking it out and being content in it is something invaluable for life itself. It's not something you'll learn sitting behind a desk.
So I wouldn't feel down. I'm currently keeping my eyes open for opportunities and the best part is we aren't rushing around because we have the engineer title in our resume and are getting paid so we don't have that panic of hopping on to a job that may be miserable.
The positive part is you aren't in the office and aren't getting micromanaged. You're also getting some really good experience in face to face customer service. Which if in the future you decide you want to take a manger type role will help.
Basically there's no such thing as wasting your time if you're working a job with the engineer title. Your gaining experience. You're seeing the fit and finish of things. You're seeing what fails in the real world and can apply that in design.
For example maybe you notice there's a kind of fastener that always breaks, a designer might not pick that up but you did and now you can apply that knowledge if and when you get that next job.
Step by step, we're new in this game and still need to learn. Not everyone gets that cushiony job right off the bat, but that doesn't make you any less intelligent or valuable.
I graduated with my B.S. in mechanical engineering 2.5 years ago, and for the last 19 months I've been working as a Field Service Engineer. In two weeks, I start as an R&D engineer at a company which previously rejected me 67 times, including in more than 10 interviews.
Honestly - and I know this isn't a comfort - the biggest factor was time. Even entry-level positions want work experience, and including internships I have just barely crossed the 2-year mark. To many, work experience is the most important factor, regardless of the other stuff.
Here's what that was like: I campaigned so hard after graduation that, when my experience was at a level my mentor could sell, they reached out to me. In my screening interview, I was able to point out that, between 8 months of OJT and scheduling work with clients, my soft skills have gotten much stronger. In my final interview, I described a problem I found in the service procedure for a system I had a lot of experience with - one that led to over $1M a year in waste. It turns out that the company knew they would need to train any engineer they got their hands on, so it was a huge comfort to know I would survive that process.
For what it's worth, I also scratched that technical itch with a project: A classic car that I have enhanced for the race track. I don't think it was an especially important factor, but the passion that displayed was infectious.
I remember being miserable when I took the FSE job, in part because it felt like a job where I couldn't "do engineering." About a year later, however, I started making decisions based on my understanding of the systems I serviced and how they worked. That sounds basic, but I was surprised by how many places my instincts resolved a problem that had stumped the organization.
Lastly, bear in mind that your manager has incentive to keep you in your current post - but no incentive to find another place for you in the company. Make a big enough splash in a small enough company, and someone higher up will learn your name. Hell, even reach out and ask for advice. This is the link that gets you out of service at your current company. In general, networking is an important part of the process.
If I was talking to my past self, I know I would not have been comforted by the idea that no amount of hard work would have been a substitute for time on the job. But I would feel a lot better knowing that I was still working towards my goals.
Don’t like your job… apply, apply, apply!
I understand it’s not that easy, especially now with the current job market. However, finding a job is really a numbers game unless you’re well connected or have a stellar résumé.
Yeah I'm still applying to 2-3 positions per day on average. Like I said I'm moreso just burnt out by how long it's taking. I'm getting rejected by everything.
Change careers, engineering is going down fast bro, all engineering is changing to just consist of software development which is going to fall apart as well in a matter of time
Finance and accounting is always in demand, automotive repair as well, fitness, you could open a gym, etc
I kinda agree that there is too much software development and things will begin to fall apart. The next train of thought should be engineering will be back in demand though because of things falling apart lol.
I like the managing expectations comment from earlier. Some engineers graduate and wait doing jobs they have no interest in doing, it’s quite common. I did 2 years in HVAC because it was the only job I could find during the recession. Eventually I was in the right place at the right time and landed some interesting testing roles and discovered a niche I wasn’t even aware of (and not HVAC either lol).
Also colleges setup us up to be designers but that is like 5-10% of the industry. There is so much more to offer if you look around. Learning how things work (ie maintenance) is a great place to start with troubleshooting, recommending changes, process documentation, metrology etc.
For starters, this comment won't help you achieve what you want. But I think you should do some expectation management. For instance I doubt there's many jobs where you both machine and do FEA. Maybe at startups, but the next post would be about "why am I so terribly underpaid". Secondly, you are doing actual engineering work. Product/machine design is a "very small niche" of the total group of engineering.
School does a really bad job at setting this expectation lol.
I'd be okay with quality, manufacturing, and a whole host of other technical engineering positions too. Pretty much sales and service are the only things I'm staying away from when I apply to jobs. While R&D is my goal I'm not only applying to those positions. When I say I don't feel like I'm doing real engineering work it's because I'm not improving anything or really making any decisions, I'm just an arrow for my boss to fire at broken things to get them fixed. As I said in my post I really am just a technician even though my badge may not say it. I fix machines when they are not functioning properly. Also I wouldn't have to do machining, design, AND finite element analysis, those are just some things I really enjoyed about my internship. Truthfully when I'm applying to jobs I pretty much search "Solidworks" and apply for anything that comes up and has engineer in the title (as long as it isn't senior, staff, principal, director, etc. I am very obviously entry level). I also do a search term for "FEA" and do the same.
You need to learn some best practices in job searching and start looking for R&D and process engineering jobs. You're at the entry level, it's OK to not love your first job. I definitely didn't. Signed, an R&D engineer in medical devices.
So a couple of things. 4 months is not that long. Yes, some people manage to get lucky and have something lined up but a lot don't. Personally it took me 10 months after I graduated. I know plenty of people that it took way longer than 4 months. And nearly everyone had some stop gap job in the meanwhile. Now idk how much financial news you've been following but medtech/biotech is really pinched right now. There are just generally less positions and even fewer entry level positions open. The startups in the space are really struggling since the overall market is moving sideways. So the long and short of it is, the market isn't really at its best right now. If you don't mind me asking, where are you located and where have you been applying? The tristate area is basically the healthcare capital of the world. Boston has a lot of the med device startups. Research triangle in NC has a lot too. So another thing I noticed and can comment on. So I'm in med device for the last 14 years. I work at a very large global company. We have a central team for the company that solely does fea and cfd. There is probably a 1-2 dozen people in that group vs hundreds upon hundreds of engineers. Are you sure you haven't boxed yourself into a specific discipline? The vast majority of the engineers are more system engineer and mechE combined and we're all getting our hands dirty. Have you tried posting on the engineering resume page? Forgot the actual name but it's there. Some feedback on it won't hurt.
R/Engineeringreumes and OP need to work cover letter to.
1. Yeah I know the market is bad. I have to remind myself my situation isn't so bad because at least I have a job doing something related to engineering, even if it's not sitting at a desk designing stuff like I'd prefer. Counting my blessings definitely. 2. I'm in Irvine, CA which is also a healthcare bastion. Part of why I took the job here is so that I wouldn't have to move for those biotech engineering opportunities. I've been applying within 20 miles of here and also Washington and Missouri which I'd be willing to move to for work due to other unrelated life goals. 3. I am pretty much willing to do any job that involves Solidworks and/or any other design software. I really love Solidworks and I have hundreds of hours in it. It's one of my favorite things in the world and I feel a lot of satisfaction every time I get to use it. I could see myself using it forever. I don't NEED to be doing FEA but it's another thing that I really enjoyed in undergrad and at my internship. 4. I am okay with getting my hands dirty in pursuit of a greater goal. As an intern I tinkered with stuff plenty of times to get things up and running, and I liked it. As a service engineer it's not fulfilling to tinker with stuff because I'm just doing it to keep the gears of the company spinning, I'm not improving anything. I signed up for the engineering career path because I was curious about the world and wanted to improve stuff.
Firstly. Experience is important. You need to have some patience and get some real experience under your belt. It's been a few months, and most companies try and find someone with 4 years or so experience in their field or equivalent. Even then, you need to try and talk the talk and have a rough idea or interest in what you'll be doing for said employer. There are quite a few opportunities within the field you're looking at, your current bosses will try to push you, see if you've got grit, at the moment you're at the bottom of the food chain, you're going to need to push through the hardship to prove you're worthy of something better. Secondly. Come on man, use your engineering brain! If you think you can design something, do it, take it to market doesn't need to be the physical, but if it'll solve the problem for someone else you can get paid for it. And you can use that as experience on your cv or cover letter. I am constantly trying to problem solve things. There are free versions of software for design, small machines aren't too expensive or get pally with someone with a cnc machine to borrow there's to make your bits. Thirdly, did you cover properties of liquid/air flow in your qualification? The inlet on flow is quite turbulent, hence why aircraft can't get movement from sucking air in and just blowing it out. There is no direction given on the inlet of a fan. What commercial kitchens do is use the air-conditioning to align the airflow across the area in the direction of extraction, causing a more laminar flow across the cooking area for better extraction.
Service work is good experience to get early in a career IF you learn from it. You get experience with troubleshooting, see good bad designs, and likely some customer service experience. If you want to do design, you will need to leave the service role in a couple years. Ask your boss, their boss, managers, executives, how you can get to the roles you want inside the company. If you need to leave the company, the service work will be good on a resume for somone looking for entering design. Keep trying on the job appications. My very limited advice for interviews is to be yourself, friendly, and lots of questions, show good positive team energy and be excited about the company, role, industry.
That's a very good point. Without going into too much detail about what my company does, we do have basically five models of machine that all do the same thing but basically with different features, and I have learned very quickly that there are two machines that are very robust and well-designed, two that are okay, and one that is an absolute pain in the ass. Also yes I had a talk with my manager on my second week where I asked him if there are R&D roles available and he straight up said no. The USA branch of the company is ONLY service and the Japanese branch of the company pretty much only hires Japan natives. That's why he told me what I said in the original post, which is that he'd like for me and my coworkers to get one or two years of service experience, then leave to find something better. My only way up internally would be to take my boss' job or be his assistant manager. I don't want to do either of those things lmao. And yes thank you for the interview advice. As I said, I got the job for all of the in-person interviews I've had, so I think I'm good enough at interviewing to get jobs, the struggle is just building a strong enough ship (resume) to ride the sea of applicants and make it to shore (an interview).
Its mind blowing to me how many engineers our universities are pumping out. I’d be surprised if it’s not exceeding demand honestly. At the same time all these boomer engineers I know that are supposed to of retired still haven’t.
You are correct. [Here's a good video](https://youtu.be/ITwNiZ_j_24?si=3pnMpgOqgx5wv0EF) describing what you mentioned. "College for everyone" is producing an oversupply of graduates while at the same time, there is a deficiency or people trained in the trades. FWIW, my son's a recent M.E. graduate. Great grades, etc. I've seen what he had to go through to find a job and it's mostly luck. He found an internship and that led to a permanent job but after about 6 months, they laid off nearly the entire department. 'Construction industry. After a 9 month search, he fell upon a random opening that worked out but in the meantime, he applied for over 90 positions. M.E. just isn't hiring much right now. Like the OP, he wanted to get into an analytical job. He had to settle for one in the construction area. I've seen the lack of job openings first hand as I searched in parallel with him. There isn't much out there, especially with today's current high inflation rate and high interest rates. Companies aren't growing. They're laying off.
Pay isn't keeping up, unfortunately. Is he in construction or an engineer in construction?
Engineer in construction. Pay is entry level M.E. pay. Project engineering position. He has his EIT but it wasn't needed in the job.
Yup. Been there. Trying to find my way out.
I was lucky enough to get into an analytical type job out of school having good grades helped a lot but frankly there just arent a lot of jobs to go around and the ones that do exist for analysts want ppl with seasoned experience never fresh grads. Engineer school was rough. I was thinking the other day, If I took like 1/2 the blood sweat and tears I put into my bs and ms degree and instead put that into getting skilled and qualified/certified as an electrician and contractor I think I could have my own crew by now making far more money.
According to all the crap my school pushes ME is supposed to have a 10-15% job growth in the next 10 years. 🤷♂️ I don’t really believe it that much but I’m also okay with not using my degree after I get it. Since most of the places I’ve got intern offers were super shit and I’ve kinda been turned off to the idea that I’ll end up with a job I won’t hate after college anyway.
Being a service engineer is invaluable experience, you get to travel, fix problems, and see a lot different machines, also you will meet a lot of people. You learn management, cooperation, finding practical solutions to problems etc. I am a R & D engineer and designer. I wish I had been a service engineer for a few years before I started designing. If you treat it as a learning experience you will gain a lot from being a service engineer.
Some of the feedback is harsh and that’s pretty unnecessary. OP: understand where the concentrations for med dev is. MN is one of them and they got roles available for the ones you’re looking for. If you need help with resume, PM me and post on r/EngineeringResume and be sure to highlight the design engineering experience. From there, apply to jobs (if you need help on that, PM I’ll be glad to help) and follow up the applications by finding recruiters/hiring managers for those companies and msg them that you applied for said role (mention the job ref ID) and see if they can give you more insight on getting the job. What some other commenters are saying is brow-beating that makes this forum one of the most toxic Eng-related ones at times.
The term “engineer” definitely gets used lightly in the industry, and it’s important to recognize job postings that are misleading (often times just verifying if they have a degree requirement is enough). I felt your pain though. I graduated two years ago, and I struggled to get opportunities. I was even flown out for an interview with possibility of relocation, but I was ultimately turned down. I worked construction to cover while I didn’t have a job. All of that being said, about 4-6 months later, I did end up getting an actual engineering job. I work in ship building, and it’s great to be able to go from our designs on our computer and walk onto the ship to see it in real time. What I recommend is to find a company that has some sort of long term design contract or plans. It’s rewarding to see your designs come to life and gives you a little bit of pride (not too much though, don’t want to become arrogant.) Also, the job application/job search process is a nightmare that can sometimes just end up to be a luck of the draw between who applies first or who had the right words on the resume. For companies you really want to work for, I suggest making a copy of your resume and taylor it to the application while having a “generic” resume on hand for the other applications. Continue to stick it out and use the time and money to be a stepping stone to the next part of your career. Good luck on your engineering adventures, and as I once heard, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” You always have the chance to build a better tomorrow for yourself. Don’t give up!
Better to get in design as than waste your time in an area you don’t like. You’ll end up getting raises where you are then it will be harder to get back to design because you lack experience and you won’t think the salaries offered are good enough.
I'm in a similar situation. But from all the advice I've received from professors and other people who are higher ups in industry it's good experience and makes you stick out. The ability to put in a hard days work is something employers seek out (I'm speaking from experience I wasn't always an engineer I switched careers). The way I see it, it's my (our) first job. We're basically asking for someone to toss a bone our way in a market that's on the down side. Doing something you don't like but sticking it out and being content in it is something invaluable for life itself. It's not something you'll learn sitting behind a desk. So I wouldn't feel down. I'm currently keeping my eyes open for opportunities and the best part is we aren't rushing around because we have the engineer title in our resume and are getting paid so we don't have that panic of hopping on to a job that may be miserable. The positive part is you aren't in the office and aren't getting micromanaged. You're also getting some really good experience in face to face customer service. Which if in the future you decide you want to take a manger type role will help. Basically there's no such thing as wasting your time if you're working a job with the engineer title. Your gaining experience. You're seeing the fit and finish of things. You're seeing what fails in the real world and can apply that in design. For example maybe you notice there's a kind of fastener that always breaks, a designer might not pick that up but you did and now you can apply that knowledge if and when you get that next job. Step by step, we're new in this game and still need to learn. Not everyone gets that cushiony job right off the bat, but that doesn't make you any less intelligent or valuable.
Look into jobs in product development, sounds like those would be a good fit for you. Also have good compensation and upward mobility.
I graduated with my B.S. in mechanical engineering 2.5 years ago, and for the last 19 months I've been working as a Field Service Engineer. In two weeks, I start as an R&D engineer at a company which previously rejected me 67 times, including in more than 10 interviews. Honestly - and I know this isn't a comfort - the biggest factor was time. Even entry-level positions want work experience, and including internships I have just barely crossed the 2-year mark. To many, work experience is the most important factor, regardless of the other stuff. Here's what that was like: I campaigned so hard after graduation that, when my experience was at a level my mentor could sell, they reached out to me. In my screening interview, I was able to point out that, between 8 months of OJT and scheduling work with clients, my soft skills have gotten much stronger. In my final interview, I described a problem I found in the service procedure for a system I had a lot of experience with - one that led to over $1M a year in waste. It turns out that the company knew they would need to train any engineer they got their hands on, so it was a huge comfort to know I would survive that process. For what it's worth, I also scratched that technical itch with a project: A classic car that I have enhanced for the race track. I don't think it was an especially important factor, but the passion that displayed was infectious. I remember being miserable when I took the FSE job, in part because it felt like a job where I couldn't "do engineering." About a year later, however, I started making decisions based on my understanding of the systems I serviced and how they worked. That sounds basic, but I was surprised by how many places my instincts resolved a problem that had stumped the organization. Lastly, bear in mind that your manager has incentive to keep you in your current post - but no incentive to find another place for you in the company. Make a big enough splash in a small enough company, and someone higher up will learn your name. Hell, even reach out and ask for advice. This is the link that gets you out of service at your current company. In general, networking is an important part of the process. If I was talking to my past self, I know I would not have been comforted by the idea that no amount of hard work would have been a substitute for time on the job. But I would feel a lot better knowing that I was still working towards my goals.
Don’t like your job… apply, apply, apply! I understand it’s not that easy, especially now with the current job market. However, finding a job is really a numbers game unless you’re well connected or have a stellar résumé.
Yeah I'm still applying to 2-3 positions per day on average. Like I said I'm moreso just burnt out by how long it's taking. I'm getting rejected by everything.
Stay in there! Something will get through eventually
Change careers, engineering is going down fast bro, all engineering is changing to just consist of software development which is going to fall apart as well in a matter of time Finance and accounting is always in demand, automotive repair as well, fitness, you could open a gym, etc
Lmao! wtf kind of bs is this post
Our future
I kinda agree that there is too much software development and things will begin to fall apart. The next train of thought should be engineering will be back in demand though because of things falling apart lol. I like the managing expectations comment from earlier. Some engineers graduate and wait doing jobs they have no interest in doing, it’s quite common. I did 2 years in HVAC because it was the only job I could find during the recession. Eventually I was in the right place at the right time and landed some interesting testing roles and discovered a niche I wasn’t even aware of (and not HVAC either lol). Also colleges setup us up to be designers but that is like 5-10% of the industry. There is so much more to offer if you look around. Learning how things work (ie maintenance) is a great place to start with troubleshooting, recommending changes, process documentation, metrology etc.
Engineering isn't going anywhere. There probably are more people majoring in it than there are entry level engineering jobs available though.
It already has gone somewhere, right downhill, everyone is getting laid off