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Anyone have an external recruiter or placement service they can recommend in MN/WI/IA area for a 'chemical engineer' background?
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Sep 15, 2015 21:51
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District Selectman posted:This is really weird to hear. What specific RF area are you in? Are you doing hardware? Or systems? There's too many guys with spreadsheets doing satellite systems type poo poo IMO, but there's not enough nuts and bolts hardware guys available. I know Facebook was looking for RF hardware guys for those floaty wireless routers in the sky they're making. I work in RF. Do you hate RF? Everyone I know who left satcom RF for other RF areas basically had their pick of where in the country they wanted to live and are doing well. If you're under 50 and you have any working knowledge of RF, you are in high demand from what I've seen and heard. I very much want to get into hardware. I thought my current job would be more hardware the way they spun it, but it is just systems design. It's interesting, complicated, it's not easy (i work with Ka-spots), and there certainly is depth, but it's has 0 skills that crossover to other jobs. I do not have any opportunities at my current company to transfer to a different department due to the declining state of the company. At best, I could be signed up for a rotational program sometime in the next 5 years if I'm lucky (they only allow something like 10 employees at a time in rotation, for a company with nearly 3000 employees) and spend maybe 3 months working on hands on and then 9 months doing stuff that is useless. I need to get out, and I want to get out. I've proven myself here but it doesn't matter, because I do not have the experience to switch over to hardware, and entry level jobs (which I'm more than willing to take in order to change my focus), simply don't exist. There are three types of jobs I can find by looking: 1) internships for grad students, 2) jobs for highly experienced people in specific areas, 3) principle engineering positions. I was recently told by someone at SpaceX that my only option is to "read a text book at least every 3 months and learn everything" - because between my family, my 40-50 hour work week, 2 hour daily commute, my personal life, and an upcoming 2 month + TVAC (6 day shifts), I'm really going to have time to do that. This in particular is leaning me towards leaving engineering all together for something different. My company does nothing to help me further my career and I know its not going to be much different elsewhere, which means it's up to me to learn new skills (without any way to use them), while also being pressed to produce for the bottom line. Working is cool and the american way or whatever, but I am not willing to sacrifice my one lifetime in it's entirety for corporate America. edit: all that said, I am not giving up yet. I am going to focus whatever time I can on trying to pick up some more knowledge that will maybe help me to land another job. I'm probably a year out from abandoning engineering unless something changes. mitztronic fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Sep 17, 2015 |
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Sep 17, 2015 17:33
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I spoke with a recruiter from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard today and he seemed to be pushing me to consider a job as a nuclear test engineer. Having talked with him and done some googling I'm not sure that's the sort of thing that I'd like to be doing, but I'm hoping someone here can give me an idea of what the job is like. I should be graduating in May or thereabouts with my masters in Nuclear Engineering, depending on how long my thesis takes to complete. What sort of mess would I be getting into with this if I said yes?
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Sep 17, 2015 23:27
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I believe your official title will be "Shift Test Engineer" If I am incorrect, ignore this post. I did a decade in the Navy nuclear program with most of that being in shipyards. I worked with a ton of STEs. It is a rough lifestyle but tends to pay well. You work on rotating shiftwork in the nuclear reactor control room of a nuclear carrier or submarine. Your job is to push the military personnel forward in test procedures. You are liable for any mistakes they make. You provide backup to the officer in charge from the perspective of the shipyard. Let's say that some pipe has to be replaced because of reasons. You will help the Navy team by ensuring they correctly isolate that leg of piping and assist them in processing the paperwork associated with opening the work package. You'll then monitor them and provide backup as they unisolate the piping and perform a hydrostatic test. You'll be "on watch" with them for typically 4, 6, or 8 hours in a formal setting. Expect frequent audits from regulator commission personnel. It is as far from an office job as you could imagine. If you google what life is like as a Navy nuke officer, that's pretty much what you're doing except without being the one actually giving orders or touching things. If you imagine a torn apart control room with a few techs operating panels covered in lockout/tagouts as some 50 page test procedure is being performed, that's pretty much what you're doing. Making sure that the correct valves and switches are being turned and that none of the meters go above their setpoints for the test. Think of it as being a test supervisor mixed with a maintenance supervisor.
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Sep 18, 2015 03:57
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Hed posted:Put the applications on, and just put patent pending on it. Do I put like a bullet point under it to describe it or anything? I'm honestly not sure what I can/can't say about patent applications cause I've never dealt with one before and this was pretty much just someone higher than me telling me to sign here and there as a co-inventor.
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Sep 19, 2015 15:31
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Bring up anything you'd enjoy talking about during the interview. If anything it's a point that someone on the other side of the table will bring up and it's your chance to show that you are good in your field/have outside interests or whatever. It's not like you signed an NDA from the way you described it. Yeah just put the first sentence of your application under Patents or w/e: *A novel method to create dickbutts using a modified coring process (Pending)
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Sep 19, 2015 23:09
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KetTarma posted:I believe your official title will be "Shift Test Engineer" That's the job, for sure. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm about to get married and I want to start a family and this seems like the sort of job that would make that a little rough. I'm also not sure I like how rote the job seems to be, right now I kinda-work for a national lab (hooray contracting) and I'm doing something newish. It's not novel, but it's an open question that needs answered and will inform millions of dollars worth of upgrades in the future. I feel like STE probably doesn't really have the same impact or unanswered questions. I do like the idea of not being in an office, though. Would you recommend the job to someone looking to also have a family life and a few hobbies here and there?
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Sep 20, 2015 00:57
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I would not describe a shipyard STE position as being the best engineering type position for a family. I'd say a regular 9-5 dayshift office job would probably be best for that. With the shipyard, your life revolves around the ship. If something breaks, there will be overtime and extra shifts to get it back on schedule. If there is a major test coming up, life revolves around the test. There is one particular test that saw us all training for 16 hours a day for 2 weeks to execute a 2 day long test procedure. The STE is the cheerleader that keeps the military team focused, on track, and safe during those procedures. Rotating shiftwork and lockshift are a grind that wears away your soul. The pay is good though. In terms of rote... hmm... Every submarine will have similar repairs and overhauls necessary. Every new ship is built along the same general themes but each tends to have their own design changes. I'd say there's enough variation that it is not like a typical manufacturing job. However, you'll still come in to give a morning brief to the military techs and then spend the next 8 hours sitting in a control room doing whatever coaching is necessary to get the Navy guys to do what you want. Oh! If you're a nuclear engineer, you're probably familiar with the concept of the Site Technical Advisor (STE) or Senior Reactor Operator (SRO) from commercial nuclear ops. It's kind of like that except for maintenance outages and you're the one advising the guy making decisions.
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Sep 20, 2015 01:46
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So, anyone have any advice what to do if you're a lovely engineer? I'm a 28 year old mechanical engineering "student" in the Netherlands with a 3 year bachelor. Currently I'm about 1/3 through a 2 year masters degree. But the second year consists of a 3 month internship and a 9 month graduation assignment. Neither of which generally pays enough to live on. My "work experience" is 2 years of working nightshift student job monitoring/troubleshooting production process for a supplier to the semiconductor industry. Which in reality was 75% being paid to watch series/play games/do homework. I tried to do the 3 month internship with one of the few companies here that pays nearly enough for living (750 euros, or 80% of the social minimum, 50% of minimum wage). But I failed to get poo poo done as I blanked out and had increasing suicidal ideations,I also hated the office environment. Ultimately I quit (ran away basicly) 2 weeks for the planned end even though my supervisor in the company was supportive and offered to extend the duration to allow me to finish the internship. I went back to my night shift job for a year, which really is the only thing in my life I enjoyed during that period. Then last summer I got a job as a engineer for a engineering deployment agency. But after getting my first 2 real paychecks twiddling my thumbs they still had no assignment for me and let me go at the end of my probationary period. At this point I'm not sure what to do, I'm slowly finishing my last few master courses but I have no way to finance my internship/graduation. So I need to find a job, but the problem I'm running into is that I still don't know what I want to do or even if I did I don't feel qualified at all. It doesn't help no-one here goes to work with just a uni bachelors degree, everyone either has a 4 years [level below a research university] bachelor degree that includes internships or a 3 year uni bachelor (no internship) + a 2 year uni masters (including internship) Anyone here honestly feel like they arent a great engineer but still manage to find a fulfilling job to not suck at? AlexanderCA fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 17:54
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Do you like school? You could always just keep researching and go into academia. Work sucks man.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:26
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There have been plenty of bad engineers at places I've worked at that seemed reasonably happy.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:36
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dxt posted:There have been plenty of bad engineers at places I've worked at that seemed reasonably happy. Yeah you aren't gonna get rich half-assing it, but you can be comfortable.
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Sep 22, 2015 19:37
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Yeah you aren't gonna get rich half-assing it, but you can be comfortable. As a half-assing it engineer, I can confirm this. I'm not rich, but I live very comfortably.
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Sep 22, 2015 20:00
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notZaar posted:Do you like school? You could always just keep researching and go into academia. Work sucks man. I have to admit this sounds like a tempting lifestyle. I love my classes, but everything I read about engineers with just a bachelor's degree makes it sound like documentation and meeting hell where you sit around pressing numbers into Excel all day without doing any real math. I just want to take classes and keep doing problem sets, it's like a game except more meaningful.
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Sep 22, 2015 20:43
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It really depends on the job. Some MEs go into product design and end up drawing circles and squares in Solid Works, bluntly speaking. You can do building surveying, simulation, machine design, there's tons of things in the private sector. In academia you have to do research. If you like science, and I mean actual rigorous scientific research and writing then you may enjoy it. If the academic lifestyle is very good to you you can always go for a PhD. You still have the option of going into the private sector with a PhD, provided your research wasn't something completely useless.
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Sep 22, 2015 21:02
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I am doing an associates program for what they are calling "Engineering Technology" to sort of get a start as an electronics engineer. I was wondering if it would be worth it to start trying to learn a CAD program and if so which one? Also any general recommendations to not be a gently caress up and learn good?
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Sep 22, 2015 21:21
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Brotein_Shake posted:I am doing an associates program for what they are calling "Engineering Technology" to sort of get a start as an electronics engineer. Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 21:25
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Shipon posted:I love my classes, but everything I read about engineers with just a bachelor's degree makes it sound like documentation and meeting hell where you sit around pressing numbers into Excel all day without doing any real math. drat that's almost too real 
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Sep 22, 2015 21:25
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:Having friends who have gone through this degree program and working at a major (80,000+ employees) computer component manufacturer, you may have a tough time getting an engineer title with that degree. That's usually a technician degree. I'm not saying that you can't, but you'll need to be a very strong candidate and I want to make sure your expectations are realistic. You're definitely off to a good start by trying to learn stuff outside of the scope of the program. Really what got me into it was because of where I work now, I was the only person brave enough to crack into broken lighting and electronic equipment and jiggle poo poo around until something different happened. I have an alarmingly high success rate for bringing poo poo back to life and really enjoy loving with the stuff so I figured I should actually learn I am really doing or should be doing. I fully admit I have no idea what I am doing and have no expectations, only interests in electronics and stuff and want to be better at this kind of thing.
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Sep 22, 2015 23:02
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Brotein_Shake posted:I am doing an associates program for what they are calling "Engineering Technology" to sort of get a start as an electronics engineer. I was wondering if it would be worth it to start trying to learn a CAD program and if so which one? Also any general recommendations to not be a gently caress up and learn good? Not to be a debbie downer but many large companies will not allow you to work as an engineer with an engineering technology degree. It's training to be a technician. My college also doesn't offer any transfer credit for engineering technology classes. They're completely separate programs with no overlap. I don't know how representative that for other colleges. Short version: Tech classes are all algebra based, engineering classes are all calculus based. You might want to do research into what you're wanting to end up doing once you graduate. If you want to use your hands, stay the course. If you want to design things, you might consider immediately switching to a different program. As far as CAD... we use mostly CATIA, some Solidworks, and a little PSpice.
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Sep 22, 2015 23:17
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Brotein_Shake posted:I am doing an associates program for what they are calling "Engineering Technology" to sort of get a start as an electronics engineer. I was wondering if it would be worth it to start trying to learn a CAD program and if so which one? Also any general recommendations to not be a gently caress up and learn good? AutoCAD is generally useful (and the skills you learn in it are largely transferrable to other CAD/CAE programs). You should be able to get a free student license of it from Autodesk Student Community since you're in school. KetTarma posted:Not to be a debbie downer but many large companies will not allow you to work as an engineer with an engineering technology degree. It's training to be a technician. Also this is true -- if you're intending to transfer to a 4-year school to complete an engineering degree, make sure that the schools you're interested have a reciprocation agreement for the programs you want to transfer into. The Chairman fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 23:18
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Brotein_Shake posted:I am doing an associates program for what they are calling "Engineering Technology" to sort of get a start as an electronics engineer. I was wondering if it would be worth it to start trying to learn a CAD program and if so which one? Also any general recommendations to not be a gently caress up and learn good? As someone working poo poo jobs while I get an engineering associate's degree (I transfer to a real engineering program for my bachelor's next fall), I run into a lot of coworkers who have your degree and aren't using it at all. They got jobs in fast-paced electronics assembly for about $15/hr (Kansas City area), hated it, and regret wasting money on the program. As others have said, e-tech and engineering are almost completely different beasts. Was the e-tech program your own idea or a college advising department's? If the latter, be aware that (with rare exceptions) general college advisors exist to gently caress you over. Department-specific advisors are better. Hello Sailor fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 23:40
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Literally picked the program because the school is close by, is pretty cheap, and to better understand how to fix electronic crap for work so I don't have to deal with or find lovely work arounds for poorly maintained equipment. The school is a community college that doesn't offer much else in way of any kind of engineering or technical programs, no school advisers have been involved beyond accepting my transcripts from a couple of previous degree programs I went through. I am pretty just doing whatever to make ends meet and suck less at stuff while trying to pick up on extra stuff along the way.
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Sep 23, 2015 01:59
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Brotein_Shake posted:Literally picked the program because the school is close by, is pretty cheap, and to better understand how to fix electronic crap for work so I don't have to deal with or find lovely work arounds for poorly maintained equipment. The school is a community college that doesn't offer much else in way of any kind of engineering or technical programs, no school advisers have been involved beyond accepting my transcripts from a couple of previous degree programs I went through. Then it sounds like engineering tech may be for you! Something to look into: CNC machine mechanic. Not super dirty. Would highly value your tech degree. Cost to hire one is $100-200/hr so figure that means prob $25-50hr/pay working for someone else. You'll need to get some experience but your community college or a local tech school is pretty likely to have a machine shop. Source: I am a Mech E with a background in CNC programming who has fixed a few machines when my cheap former boss said "we aren't paying them $200/hr to come out"
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Sep 23, 2015 02:13
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Does anyone know how to find out about engineering internships domestically and internationally? I'm a 33yo systems engineering student looking ideally for an international ( outside Australia) internship/work experience which is a requirement for my degree (the experience itself, doesn't have to be international). I've done a fair amount of google searching but the results are typically 3rd party websites that don't really help at all (subscribe to a newsletter type stuff). Another issue is that being 33, I'm too old for most exchange programs. The reason I'm looking internationally is that I hope to network for overseas work once I graduate. I've looked at a few large companies (Boeing, SAAB, Thales, BAE) but I'm curious if there are other companies out there that aren't immediately known that I can look into?
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Sep 23, 2015 03:01
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This is an American's opinion so YMMV but I dont think too many companies will have international internships. AT my current company in aerospace/defense every intern I've met is from the US. I know Apple has/had some from Canada but thats not really the same as Australia. I assume getting you clearance to work here in the USA greatly outweighs the benefits of having an intern. Whether European countries are better, I cannot say.
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Sep 23, 2015 03:17
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Mordialloc posted:Does anyone know how to find out about engineering internships domestically and internationally? All reports from my MechE friends seem to indicate that SpaceX needs people, bad. I don't know if there are issues with US vs AUS citizenship, you'll have to check, but if you want to work like crazy they will work you like crazy. Like, no time to call you folks or your girlfriend back home crazy. On the other hand that guy is learning something like eight different types of non-destructive testing and works in a building where they assemble rocket engines according to his parents (who have talked to him twice, I am told). Anyway, you should check it out. Any of the US defense contractors might have an issue with foreign nationals, but I imagine they have plenty of work that can be done that isn't of a sensitive nature.
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Sep 23, 2015 04:11
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CarForumPoster posted:This is an American's opinion so YMMV but I dont think too many companies will have international internships. AT my current company in aerospace/defense every intern I've met is from the US. I know Apple has/had some from Canada but thats not really the same as Australia. I assume getting you clearance to work here in the USA greatly outweighs the benefits of having an intern. Whether European countries are better, I cannot say. That's because you work in defense. I'm also American and maybe 10% of our interns are from the US. Right now we have a guy from Russia and one from Korea.
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Sep 23, 2015 13:50
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mitztronic posted:I very much want to get into hardware. I thought my current job would be more hardware the way they spun it, but it is just systems design. It's interesting, complicated, it's not easy (i work with Ka-spots), and there certainly is depth, but it's has 0 skills that crossover to other jobs. I do not have any opportunities at my current company to transfer to a different department due to the declining state of the company. At best, I could be signed up for a rotational program sometime in the next 5 years if I'm lucky (they only allow something like 10 employees at a time in rotation, for a company with nearly 3000 employees) and spend maybe 3 months working on hands on and then 9 months doing stuff that is useless. Are you really sure you don't want to work even partially on defense applications? You're kind of painting yourself into a corner by saying you want RF hardware design and then refusing defense as an option. Regardless I would apply for those 'experienced people in specific areas' jobs and let them tell you no. Often those are a wishlist and they will take someone lesser qualified that actually exists rather than wait 2-3 years for someone to fall into their lap. We put out open wishlist type positions all the time trying to get a specific skill that we see a strategic need for but we do read even the marginally qualified resumes that come in under those positions to see if we can use them elsewhere. Also, if the position says ' the ideal candidate will have X years experience in ..." and X is in the 5 to 7 range then this is really a fairly junior position regardless of the required skills listed and just hitting one or two of the bullets is probably adequate to get a callback.
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Sep 23, 2015 14:36
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For Boeing have you looked for internships within Australia? Seems like it'd be a lot easier to get hired there then transfer later. I have seen a few interns from foreign countries but it's always from some specific deal Boeing made with a particular school and I haven't seen many hired full time afterwards due to the added expense.
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Sep 23, 2015 19:28
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Thanks for the tip about SpaceX, I'm looking into it. Careers at Boeing Australia sends me to the American website so maybe it is part of the one program? Uncle Jam, are you able to share the company/industry you work for?
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Sep 24, 2015 02:46
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Brotein_Shake posted:Literally picked the program because the school is close by, is pretty cheap, and to better understand how to fix electronic crap for work so I don't have to deal with or find lovely work arounds for poorly maintained equipment. The school is a community college that doesn't offer much else in way of any kind of engineering or technical programs, no school advisers have been involved beyond accepting my transcripts from a couple of previous degree programs I went through. Move to a place that has lots of manufacturing or refining. Get a job as a process operator. Make more money that most of the engineers you work with 
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Sep 24, 2015 13:35
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oxsnard posted:Move to a place that has lots of manufacturing or refining. Get a job as a process operator. Make more money that most of the engineers you work with I am the thread-resident salary curmudgeon I feel like...but I recall from graduating just 2 years ago that most people did not have reasonable expectations of salary when graduating. I lived the life youre describing as a CNC programmer in Florida and found that the salary cap as a guy with <5 years experience and an associates was $20/hr. The guys with lots of experience working as "manufacturing engineers" with a 2 years associates were making sub $50k. You can check my old posts for how Florida 50K is other places 70k but suffice it to say you shouldn't expect to be making "degreed engineer" salary with a tech degree, especially an associates. This was both my personal experience and the conclusion of a lot of research with the BLS, payscale, glassdoor, etc.
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Sep 25, 2015 02:14
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CarForumPoster posted:I am the thread-resident salary curmudgeon I feel like...but I recall from graduating just 2 years ago that most people did not have reasonable expectations of salary when graduating. I lived the life youre describing as a CNC programmer in Florida and found that the salary cap as a guy with <5 years experience and an associates was $20/hr. The guys with lots of experience working as "manufacturing engineers" with a 2 years associates were making sub $50k. You can check my old posts for how Florida 50K is other places 70k but suffice it to say you shouldn't expect to be making "degreed engineer" salary with a tech degree, especially an associates. All the engineers from my school, ETs and MEs, expect to make 6 figures on graduating. ET's are just hands on engineers, if you really want to move design get a master's and take the EIT or something. Pay wise, it all depends on what you are looking for. I like CA which is good because the pay is up there as well. It's just one more thing to consider when taking a job. There are a lot of benefits being near a large metro area. It's always easy to move to a high CoL area when you are young but near impossible to do so when you are close to retirement.
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Sep 25, 2015 08:39
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Holy poo poo where do you live where they pay MEs 6 figure incomes right out of school? I need to get in on that.
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Sep 25, 2015 13:44
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Most don't bother with design as it starts low and doesn't top out too much further. Plus they would have to spend time working on the low end for their PE. They either stick in more of a tech spot or jump to management. Top of the list. Average is brought down by non engineers. http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/article35262486.html
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Sep 25, 2015 14:08
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notZaar posted:Holy poo poo where do you live where they pay MEs 6 figure incomes right out of school? I need to get in on that. Yeah, crazy. I am 7 years out now but the highest I saw of any of my friends and people I knew was $80k for a chemical. Granted it was the Midwest and most stuck around that area but typically 50-60 was the norm. I know I am a lowly civil but I felt good about $53 out of school. Took 5 years and moving to Denver to break $100k. No one likes (to pay) civil engineers though.
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Sep 25, 2015 14:34
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lightpole posted:Most don't bother with design as it starts low and doesn't top out too much further. Plus they would have to spend time working on the low end for their PE. They either stick in more of a tech spot or jump to management. That's 5-6 years after graduation (assuming a 4 or 5 year track) not at graduation.
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Sep 25, 2015 14:38
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notZaar posted:Holy poo poo where do you live where they pay MEs 6 figure incomes right out of school? I need to get in on that. No you dont. The bay area in cali. Thats it. Weve had a bunch of discussions about this in this thread. Do not be drawn in. I was that person making 6 figureds in the SF area. 72K in Florida is higher pay. This is accurate: http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-calculator.aspx
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Sep 25, 2015 14:40
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I don't have right at graduation statistics for engineers in my back pocket for you so that will have to do. There are plenty of jobs that let you travel and live wherever you want. My mail goes to Nevada for tax reasons.
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Sep 25, 2015 14:40
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