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The Royal Scrub posted:What's with these people finding high paying internships as sophomores and poo poo? I feel lucky to have found one going into senior year- it seems like most people in my class won't. How do the schools that require them handle people who can't get a job somewhere?
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Apr 7, 2015 01:31
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Crunchy In Milk posted:Aside from worries about my qualifications, I'm also bearing in mind that I haven't touched any maths more complex than basic algebra in 5 years. I may have the basic units covered but anything I learned back then is pretty much gone. I don't want to be playing catch up with my classmates because they have internalised calculus that I need to look up every other minute. Aside from just redoing those courses is there any sort of refresher course I could do to recover my maths? Terminal professional engineering master's programs often have "bridge course" curricula that you take to cover all the prerequisite material you'd require for the M.Eng. or M.S. You could cover just the math (and engineering mechanics, and thermodynamics, and machine design) requirements without having to do all the general education requirements for a full second bachelor's. You really don't want to be an international student at a community college if you can help it. The administration will generally have no idea what to do with you as far as things like transcript evaluation or visa paperwork go. The Chairman fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 02:21
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I do not know how common this viewpoint is but I know at least one hiring manager that absolutely will not hire an engineer that does not have a BS-engineering degree regardless of any other graduate level education.
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Apr 7, 2015 03:07
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The Royal Scrub posted:What's with these people finding high paying internships as sophomores and poo poo? I feel lucky to have found one going into senior year- it seems like most people in my class won't. I went in knowing that I needed to get one, and I aggressively pursued one. If you leave it up to luck, you're gonna have a tough time. Also, my school has a dedicated career services office for each department (engineering, business, etc) and they are constantly advertise companies that recruiting, career fairs happening, etc. That certainly helped, but you still have to put some effort in. I have a friend who's a top student, great research experiences, but still has found nothing going into his senior year because he's not aggressive enough at finding something. quote:I guess if I were handing out advice on schools, I'd tell people to find one that emphasizes internships/coops. Hearing that some schools even require it blew my mind. Mine has alright job fairs (without anything to compare to), but overall it's a very "you're on your own" atmosphere. Same. If you're in engineering, you're probably doing it to get a job. Go to a school that has a good track record of getting people hired - good alumni networks, good career services etc.
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Apr 7, 2015 13:06
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canyoneer posted:So I'm a finance geek at a semiconductor company. One of the dudes in my MBA program is asking for a recommendation/referral for a job inside my company. It's for a technical role and I'd recommend him without hesitation, although of course I can't speak to any of his skills as an engineer. I want to write him a good recommendation, but don't know what I should emphasize based on what I've observed working with him on a bunch of group projects on MBA coursework. Communication skills. An engineer that can't write (or present/report/etc) is basically useless beyond entry level work.
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Apr 7, 2015 13:33
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Woo! That engineering firm talked to me about the details of the job offer today. Would it be a faux pas to post some of it here to get some feedback and advice?
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Apr 8, 2015 21:43
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2015 23:49
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Salary in the mid sixties, 100% of health care costs covered - no deductible, flexible scheduling, ample paid time off, 401k contributions, profit sharing with performance based metrics. Scheduling is interesting. They don't have any set hours, you can come and go as you please. All time off is paid time off, and there are no hard limits on it. On the other side of things, you have to put in the hours that the projects need and sometimes crunch time requires long hours or weekends when something needs to ship. The example I was given was a few engineers needed to go out of town to the customer and put in some 12 hour days getting the product working, but came back and took three or four days off to relax. From what I saw when I visited their employees seemed very happy with working there and the environment felt very low stress. I spent the entire day there and met almost every employee, so I feel like I would have gotten a bad vibe if something was amiss. Looks like they handle this system well where they trust their employees to get the work done, and the employees trust the managers to not overload them. Some people told me that since I'll be in LA I should be getting salary in the 70-80's range, but from what I saw online mid sixties is appropriate for entry level mechanical. I'm coming fresh out of school into this position. Given the benefits, particularly the health care coverage, it seems like this is a pretty nice offer. I'm really interested in the work I'd be doing, so it seems like a good move to me. Limited experience with this whole job offer thing though.
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Apr 9, 2015 05:43
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 9, 2015 19:12
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No deductible with 100% of your costs covered? What kind of premiums are you looking at? Does "all time off paid" mean no overtime pay? Like Thoguh said, "Unlimited vacation" usually means "don't take vacation and also you should probably put in some weekend work." It sounds like you get pretty good bennies, but be wary of the catches. Mid-60s is probably low for LA, but in a good enough work environment I'd say it's adequate. Don't count on performance bonuses until you have them in hand though, some companies will promise you the moon and stars and leave you with pocket change.
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Apr 9, 2015 19:57
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From what I understand I don't pay a dime for healthcare, they cover all HC related costs (provided it's covered by their plan I assume) No overtime pay, yeah. The whole time off thing would worry me if I hadn't been down there yet. Based on the work environment and the attitudes of the people I met I don't think they screw their employees over on time off. This is where I was getting my salary info from http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Mechanical_Engineer/Salary/ba306d92/Entry-Level-Los-Angeles-CA http://www1.salary.com/CA/Los-Angeles/Mechanical-Engineer-I-salary.html http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Entry-Level-Mechanical-Engineer-l-Los-Angeles,-CA.html
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Apr 9, 2015 21:07
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Wouldn't hurt to try and negotiate something in the 70s. it's almost always good to negotiate up an initial offer, even if you like it, I've always squeezed at least a few extra k out of it.
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Apr 9, 2015 22:21
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dxt posted:Wouldn't hurt to try and negotiate something in the 70s. it's almost always good to negotiate up an initial offer, even if you like it, I've always squeezed at least a few extra k out of it. This has been my experience. If not in salary a few k in sign on bonus or stocks.
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Apr 10, 2015 00:12
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You are right out of school, so you (like everyone, like me) will tend to over value salary and under value the work culture. That place sounds great. I'd trade $10k in salary for low stress and cool coworkers, no hesitation.
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Apr 10, 2015 03:27
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No sane company is going to yank an offer if you make a counter-offer that isn't stupid. The worst they'll do is say no and the best will be the easiest raise you've ever gotten.
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Apr 10, 2015 04:41
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District Selectman posted:You are right out of school, so you (like everyone, like me) will tend to over value salary and under value the work culture. Counterpoint, almost every raise he has while with that company will be somehow based on his starting salary. At least try.
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Apr 10, 2015 05:48
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Uncle Jam posted:Counterpoint, almost every raise he has while with that company will be somehow based on his starting salary. At least try. That's not universally true. At a large corporation when you're promoted the slate is wiped clean essentially and you start on the a new scale. This isn't true of everywhere, sure, but I know for certain it's true in aerospace/astrospace. That said definitely negotiate but don't feel like you're getting boned if you make less than some former classmate who works in an engineering sweat shop for $10k more than you.
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Apr 10, 2015 10:56
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 10, 2015 11:54
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Sounds a bit like a field engineer/install engineer? Health: 100% health coverage is absolutely a 20-30k+ benefit. I had it 8 years ago and it was 25k out of the company's pocket. go ahead and get every test and physical you can stomach while you have the coverage. Do you snore? Tell your GP, get a sleep study. Chronic Allergies? Get tested for allergens until you find the culprit. You're the 1er%, ride it into the ground. PTO: I work at a company with take as much as you want PTO, but in reality you are going to be scheduled for projects as much as possible, so you're not going to be taking more than anyone else normally does. I personally can ask for just about any day off without approval, I just tell the manager I'll be off and make sure the work is done. OT: You'll probably be asked for more 12 hr days than you like, but whatever. Just don't be down with the "oh 55 hours a week is normal" when you specced your salary on a 40hr week basis. If you're going to be working 50-60/week ask for pay in line with hours put in. Did you get a travel estimate? If they said 40% it's going to be 40% or more. 80% is full travel field engineer and I hope you have a favorite hotel chain (hint marriott doesn't have rural locations)
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Apr 10, 2015 12:36
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Even 40% of travel is a lot, I do like 10% and still status on airline car rentals and hotels (i always do the same ones though). Be prepared for travelling half the month.
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Apr 10, 2015 19:06
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Very little travel as I understand it. I'd be working in product development. The thing I like so much about this job is no two projects are alike. They're working on things ranging from electric speedboats to low production supercars to hybrid tractors. They recently had an airline seating project where they partnered with BMW Design. The health care bit is definitely huge! I guess it can't help to ask how raises are calculated.
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Apr 10, 2015 19:15
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Related: Huge corporation. If pay charts for every position, level, performance eval are posted, does it make sense to try to negotiate your salary when switching jobs internally? Example: I want to see what a DogWalker Level 2 with a 1.5 Performance Eval ranking makes at Corporation, I can look it up and it gives me a salary. If I lower the Performance Eval score to 1.0, it gives me another salary.
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Apr 10, 2015 19:57
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KetTarma posted:Related: Yes, there's very little to no downside and it's unlikely that there is no flexibility with salary.
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Apr 10, 2015 22:35
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Party Alarm posted:Very little travel as I understand it. It would be good to have an understanding of how advancement works within their company. At the large corporation I work for, things are broken up into different pay grades which cover salary ranges. After my first promotion, my starting salary at the company no longer mattered as I moved to a higher pay range where the minimum pay for my new position was above my current salary at that time. Had I negotiated an even higher starting salary and had even better pay raises along the way, I would still have not exceeded the minimum salary for the new position. However, at other companies I have friends working for, their starting salary will basically follow them unless they leave their current companies or renegotiate leveraging offers from other companies or what not. I did not see it mentioned, but if you're having to relocate you will want to take into consideration any relocation package as well. Retirement contributions can also play a pretty big factor if they are noteworthy.
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Apr 11, 2015 00:28
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Party Alarm posted:Very little travel as I understand it. Production development can be tied to long hours, try to sniff that out a little bit. Also, be careful about such a new and small company when you are getting no options or anything, I've seen a few senior engineers found a company then abandon ship with their retirement with a venture acquisition and everyone else becomes redundant. That said, this is your first job and there are tons of poo poo show jobs that are way worse than this. It just pays to be paranoid sometimes is all. Uncle Jam fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Apr 11, 2015 |
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Apr 11, 2015 05:41
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So what's the process for landing a job that is way of state? In my case I'm in New York and want to go to Colorado. I have an engineer uncle out there I've passed my resume along to as well as an old classmate who went out to Denver a few times for work and is looking themselves. Is there anything I can do besides looking at job boards until I'm physically out there?
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Apr 17, 2015 14:05
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So I am a graduating senior in an EE program and have not been able to find a job yet. The head of my department asked me about my job search and when I told him that, he offered to try to get me free tuitions for the masters program. Are there any cons for following up with the offer?
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Apr 18, 2015 10:23
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damnfan posted:So I am a graduating senior in an EE program and have not been able to find a job yet. The head of my department asked me about my job search and when I told him that, he offered to try to get me free tuitions for the masters program. No.
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Apr 18, 2015 12:25
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damnfan posted:So I am a graduating senior in an EE program and have not been able to find a job yet. The head of my department asked me about my job search and when I told him that, he offered to try to get me free tuitions for the masters program. Do it.
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Apr 18, 2015 13:44
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damnfan posted:So I am a graduating senior in an EE program and have not been able to find a job yet. The head of my department asked me about my job search and when I told him that, he offered to try to get me free tuitions for the masters program. Depends on if you want to get your masters or start working now. If you're interested in continuing your studies go for it, but don't do it just because you don't have a job already lined up before you graduate.
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Apr 18, 2015 17:00
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damnfan posted:So I am a graduating senior in an EE program and have not been able to find a job yet. The head of my department asked me about my job search and when I told him that, he offered to try to get me free tuitions for the masters program. You will still have to take out loans to pay for housing and all living costs, which depending on where you live can be not a big deal (middle of nowhere) or 15-40k per year (SF bay area, new york, etc)
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Apr 18, 2015 17:53
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2015 20:52
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I forgot to mention that the university is in my home town so housing/food would be negligible. I will continue looking for a job and in the event I can't find one by next fall, I will start on the master's. Thank you for the replies.
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Apr 18, 2015 23:56
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So I'm coming up on my fifth month as a working "engineer". Officially my title is process engineer, but I do near 0% engineering. I support several plants at my company, and most days I just feel like a yes man. I'm here just to prove things that are already known and obvious. Engineering here has 0 say over anything. The plants decide what they'd like to implement, and they just poo poo on anything we say which they don't like. A bunch of git'er done bullshit. The most I can do is make a recommendation, nobody in engineering has the power to change anything really. The layers of politics is beyond anything imaginable. The most interesting thing I'm a part of is implementing SPC. But it's unlikely the plants will keep it up once we leave. This place is nightmare. My boss, who hired me, is quitting this Friday. This place seems to be getting worse by the minute, and I'm trapped here for two years. How hosed am I goons when I try to go get my second job? I feel all my skills atrophying slowly. I'm so worried about my future. Tl;dr: work place sucks. Just a paper pusher. Worried about ever find a real engineering job.
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Apr 23, 2015 18:32
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If you're the engineer responsible (preparing, reviewing, or approving) for some type of deliverable (calculation, QA, report, white paper) then you are responsible for signing or not signing off on something independent of any other pressures. You can (and are responsible for!) not signing off on something if you're not comfortable with the level of quality. So if you're being pushed around to okay things without verifying it's safe/quality/whatever, you need to get out of there before you end up on the hook for something. Chicago Bridge and Iron had something like that happen not long ago, where a supervisor strong-armed QA into ignoring the fact they dropped a safety-class component and didn't acknowledge that during pre-shipping inspections. In short, that place sounds like it sucks bad, it has a bad culture, you need to get out ASAP. Why are you trapped there for two years? A lot of "engineering skills" tend to deteriorate no matter where you go or what you do, by the by. It's sometimes very refreshing for me to actually do static analyses or pipe stress. Best I can think of is doing what I do, try to find some useful primers outside of work. Study for the PE exam in a field that interests you. Even if you're not going to take it for a while, at least it'll fire some neurons. LOOK FOR OTHER JOBS IF YOU CAN.
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Apr 23, 2015 18:48
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Pander posted:Why are you trapped there for two years? Because even if you can explain it, it is almost always a bad idea to leave a job when you were only there for 5 months. The gold standard today, which depends on your design cycle and industry, is somewhere around 2-3 years. I would say its difficult to even get a recruiter to not throw away your resume after seeing that you were in your current job/role <2 years. There are always exceptions, i.e. getting poached from a rival company, or if you were laid off. mitztronic fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 23, 2015 20:34
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You should still try. I know four people who hopped jobs within the first six months of graduating so it's likely a bit more common than you think. If you feel there is any ethics issues or the company has a terrible reputation, you may be hurt by staying there longer.
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Apr 23, 2015 20:46
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It's nothing as serious as safety. It's just a lot of small stuff. I was relocated by them across the country, and if i leave in the first two years I have to pay that back. It was a considerable amount of money.
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Apr 23, 2015 23:11
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Xeom posted:It's nothing as serious as safety. It's just a lot of small stuff. Let other people heed this warning
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Apr 24, 2015 00:12
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I'm sure there are a lot of articles on the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and Gen Y/Millenials but I'm lazy and want to talk about myself a bit so i'll phrase it as a question to you all. I'm a QA Engineer at a big 4 aerospace and didn't even study engineering (physics degree). Out of school for for years, two at my current joint. I'm applying to schools to get an MBA and am already thinking about making a pivot to a hot industry/sector. I was referred to a former executive at my company now VP at a startup hitting production later this year for some mentoring, and his advice was to essentially slow down and don't overdo it. Think of getting the most out of my assignments, but don't dwell too much on industry or specifics at this point. I feel like my generation hears or sees all of these peers booming in SW firms(or maybe it just seems like all of them) and the FOMO creeps in. Like I have no control and I'm gonna be a lifer at some antiqued shop unless I get out before 30 Do other people in traditional companies feel this way? Is it me or a generational thing?
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Apr 24, 2015 02:45
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