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CFox posted:Maybe someone can dig up some statistics but I'd wager as far as job placement rate (within your field) + salary goes that the Tech path is waaaaay better than science/engineering/math. Unless engineering somehow contains software engineers for some weird reason. There's actually a lot of people who engage in what could properly be called software engineering. But most people who are given a job title of "software engineer" aren't doing that. As such there can be and are degrees in legit software engineering at some schools even though most programs "should" be in the normal sciences division rather than an engineering division. But of course it's been a fuzzy line between what is an engineering and what is a science thing for a long time.
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Jan 24, 2018 22:10
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I think the standard engineering fields like electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil all still pay pretty well. I think I'd heard aerospace was suffering somewhat, which feels strange to me when it seems like air travel keeps getting more and more popular, and more and more companies send poo poo into space. Those fields don't really have the 150k+ offers some CS grads but, but those are really a small minority, and almost entirely located in very high CoL areas.
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Jan 24, 2018 22:39
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True software engineering is closer to systems or industrial engineering that's focused around producing software rather than programming itself. Even though a lot of developers have the "Software Engineer" title, it's mostly because some devs whined about their titles a decade or two ago and now people throw a fit whenever people suggest changing the titles to something more accurate.Cicero posted:I think the standard engineering fields like electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil all still pay pretty well. I think I'd heard aerospace was suffering somewhat, which feels strange to me when it seems like air travel keeps getting more and more popular, and more and more companies send poo poo into space. Part of why aerospace engineering suffers as a degree field is because it's really a branch of mechanical engineering. A fairly specialized branch but still a branch. So it's pretty easy for a company to hire a mechanical engineer for less than an ae since most of the principals are the same and the usual MechE jobs tend to be pretty saturated.
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Jan 24, 2018 23:27
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hobbesmaster posted:There are no jobs in biotech. At least not compared to the number of grads. Can confirm this holy poo poo what a waste of a career.
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Jan 24, 2018 23:45
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The only jobs readily available are the ones focused on automating every other job out of existence.
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Jan 25, 2018 00:06
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China had the balls to clone a monkey. Not really iThread, but the potential is huge.
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Jan 25, 2018 01:59
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Cicero posted:I think the standard engineering fields like electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil all still pay pretty well. I think I'd heard aerospace was suffering somewhat, which feels strange to me when it seems like air travel keeps getting more and more popular, and more and more companies send poo poo into space. They pay ok but Civil and Mechanical are not keeping up with the graduate rates. Civil especially relies on infrastructure projects actually being built. I don't know how chemical has been doing since the price of oil crashed. Rhesus Pieces posted:The only jobs readily available are the ones focused on automating every other job out of existence. And that requires computing skills plus something else. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more mechatronics programs pop up.
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Jan 25, 2018 02:10
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hobbesmaster posted:I don't know how chemical has been doing since the price of oil crashed. I'm a ChemE who works as a developer, but I keep in touch with a few people from my school who actually went to work in the field and my impression from them is that things are basically fine. Still, I'm willing to bet that recruiters aren't falling over themselves to offer $70-80k/year positions to new grads like they were when I graduated.
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Jan 25, 2018 04:36
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I've heard the same thing about biochem but it makes no sense to me. Isn't this part of the Pharma industry that's eating the American economy? Why is it not doing great?
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Jan 25, 2018 06:41
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Arglebargle III posted:I've heard the same thing about biochem but it makes no sense to me. Isn't this part of the Pharma industry that's eating the American economy? Why is it not doing great? A high gpa undergrad degree qualifies you to be a graduate student. A mediocre gpa qualifies you to do nothing. To do real work in the area you need a doctorate of some sort. PhD, PharmD, MD
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Jan 25, 2018 06:44
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Arglebargle III posted:I've heard the same thing about biochem but it makes no sense to me. Isn't this part of the Pharma industry that's eating the American economy? Why is it not doing great? The industry as a whole is doing great. However, we've figured out how to do great with less staffing, just like every other industry. We "hire" about 33-75% of our employees (depending on the company) through scientific staffing agencies now as 1-3 year term contractors subject to renewal, we get a lot of our basic research through joint ventures with academia (how much depends on the company, but this happens a lot), and a good half of our actual scale-up and commercial manufacturing operations are either outsourced to CMOs or licensed to larger companies. Larger pharma companies often use smaller biotechs as incubators for potential drugs and buy up or license promising molecules from them, rather than take on the early-stage research time and cost risks themselves. Basically, look at the attitudes the execs at Pfizer and Allergan have about in-house R&D and then apply it across the industry to varying degrees. It's a very small very big industry these days. Also, don't underestimate the sheer loving quantity of bio, biochem, synthetic chem, blah blah people that universities are graduating every year. It's like the lawyer thing--the "started out barrister, ended up barista" thread title on the SA law school thread was only slightly tongue-in-cheek. Sundae fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 07:15
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hobbesmaster posted:A high gpa undergrad degree qualifies you to be a graduate student. A mediocre gpa qualifies you to do nothing. This is true in every "STEM" field except programming, where they put you through algorithm-exam hazing. The cool kids were right: an average rear end-busting STEM bachelors degree, without 2-6 years more education, is way more work for an equivalent/worse/pathetic outcome as compared to studying something interesting and human-relatable.
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Jan 25, 2018 07:38
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feedmegin posted:STEM has always been politician code for programming to be honest. ...and even that includes a glut of IT gruntwork that is not ever programming.
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Jan 25, 2018 08:59
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hobbesmaster posted:There are no jobs in biotech. At least not compared to the number of grads. Looks at own position, eh, there is. But yeah, the number of grads are doesn't correspond to the number of jobs. We had like 50+ applicants to a research engineer position in protein chemistry, from all over the world and most with at least a PhD and where we were asking for basically a master. In comparison, friends within the electronic/computer field have like 3-4 applicants for a similar position. Sundae posted:The industry as a whole is doing great. However, we've figured out how to do great with less staffing, just like every other industry. As someone working within a CRO, this checks out. We get a lot of business from smaller biotech companies and some from Big Pharma. It is kinda a good thing since a lot of pharma does "me too" drugs, which means you end up selling pretty much the same project to multiple companies.
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Jan 25, 2018 09:03
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Whats a good job for someone with a BS in biology to position themselves towards? I have experience and am good at QA (process control, inspection) and will probably get a lab technologist/technician certification because it seems useful, maybe an A+ IT one too. I'm teaching myself assorted programming skills and have been able to learn everything I've set myself on learning (though algorithms are a slow slow grind, sometimes the book I'm using feels like this). I have a good job right now but if I'm in a pickle in the future I'd like to have the widest range of possible jobs I could apply for, if you all with knowledge know something I should know.
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Jan 25, 2018 11:23
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- hi
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Since you mentioned QA and programming have you looked into QA Automation on the software development side of things? Lot of neat stuff there if you enjoy QA work and the pay, at least in my area, is comparable to a regular developer.
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Jan 25, 2018 14:30
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mycomancy posted:Can confirm this holy poo poo what a waste of a career.  'Sup, buddy. Different area of biology, same story.Ocean Book posted:Whats a good job for someone with a BS in biology to position themselves towards? I have experience and am good at QA (process control, inspection) and will probably get a lab technologist/technician certification because it seems useful, maybe an A+ IT one too. I'm teaching myself assorted programming skills and have been able to learn everything I've set myself on learning (though algorithms are a slow slow grind, sometimes the book I'm using feels like this).
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Jan 25, 2018 14:36
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CFox posted:Since you mentioned QA and programming have you looked into QA Automation on the software development side of things? Lot of neat stuff there if you enjoy QA work and the pay, at least in my area, is comparable to a regular developer. Wrong kind of QA. He’s talking about lab paperwork, certifications and that sort of thing. Ocean, I was in your position years ago. I did three years in a cGMP/ISO 17025 lab calibrating equipment , dealing with regulatory paperwork and so on. Once you have that sort of QA experience, it’s really easy to transfer to just about any other highly regulated industry that uses formalized QMS type systems. In my case I went into aerospace and do data analysis/stats/etc type stuff. There’s a lab discussion thread in the Business forum if you want to talk further or feel free to PM me. Solkanar512 fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 14:57
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Paradoxish posted:I'm a ChemE who works as a developer, but I keep in touch with a few people from my school who actually went to work in the field and my impression from them is that things are basically fine. Still, I'm willing to bet that recruiters aren't falling over themselves to offer $70-80k/year positions to new grads like they were when I graduated. You'd be surprised. I graduated from a mediocre state school (guess which one) a few years back and everyone I know in the engineering field with a 3.0 or above had no problem getting a salary in that range, and that's in the comparatively low cost Texas area. That's not even counting all of the chemical or petroleum engineering who easily break 6 figures out of college.
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Jan 25, 2018 15:41
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Solkanar512 posted:Wrong kind of QA. He’s talking about lab paperwork, certifications and that sort of thing. While that's true they're both very detail oriented. Same overall skills just applied a different way.
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Jan 25, 2018 16:11
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I'm a biostatistician. I work in a combined hospital + academic environment doing research on solid organ transplant. If you get a MS+ in stats or biostats there's a lot of good opportunities out there.
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Jan 25, 2018 16:34
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Well sure there's always plenty of organs flying around when you work at Darkplace.
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Jan 25, 2018 16:46
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CFox posted:Since you mentioned QA and programming have you looked into QA Automation on the software development side of things? Lot of neat stuff there if you enjoy QA work and the pay, at least in my area, is comparable to a regular developer. This is true. I do some C# programming to write automated tests, but the bulk of my work is manual testing the upcoming release. I still get paid right about what my developers are paid. I'm a key member of the team; I give input on designing new features and making sure they are specced realistically. I also provide support for analyzing user-reported flaws (sometimes bugs I should have caught, sometimes misunderstandings of the spec, sometimes user-error, sometimes requests for changes to the app). But my point is that finding a good software tester who can automate is very hard. We're down to 4 testers in my department (working on 3-4 applications). We should be hiring some more, especially on the performance side of things. But the pay is great, you don't work that hard, and you get to tease developers all day long. I mean, man, it's good to poke holes in someone's code...and all you have to say is "the customer..."
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Jan 25, 2018 19:39
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CFox posted:Since you mentioned QA and programming have you looked into QA Automation on the software development side of things? Lot of neat stuff there if you enjoy QA work and the pay, at least in my area, is comparable to a regular developer. I know a biologist who got a QA job by having some minor programming experience and a whole lot of lab experience. Her pitch was “I know how to run a controlled experiment,” it worked, and she was good.
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Jan 25, 2018 19:46
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My favorite thing is looking at new features a BA/PM has specced out and just destroying it with a single question. It's so fun to ask "How are you going to handle this scenario?" and just watch in real time as they realize that all their carefully crafted criteria comes tumbling down. I'm with you that the work is easy but I'll say it's only going to be easy if you're THE product expert on the team. Good QA should know more about the application, how it works, and the process flows than any other person on the team. If you can do that and plan out good testing strategies then the career is a breeze.
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Jan 25, 2018 19:54
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CFox posted:My favorite thing is looking at new features a BA/PM has specced out and just destroying it with a single question. It's so fun to ask "How are you going to handle this scenario?" and just watch in real time as they realize that all their carefully crafted criteria comes tumbling down. You very quickly become the SME on your team. Especially if you outlast several rounds of developers as I have. The two guys on my team now started about 4 months ago, whereas I've been here since 2 months after inception. There isn't a relationship in the DB that I'm not intimately familiar with. There isn't a button on the application GUI that I don't know every detail of. When someone wants to know how to dig data out of the tables, they ask me. When a new feature is created, they ask me how it will interact with other aspects of the site. I mean, I'm THE GUY.
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Jan 25, 2018 20:16
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Dog-piling on that good QA people are worth their weight in gold. I wish they were more common, but the are incredibly valuable to businesses right now.
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Jan 25, 2018 23:14
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Ynglaur posted:Dog-piling on that good QA people are worth their weight in gold. I wish they were more common, but the are incredibly valuable to businesses right now. That goes double for physical QA. Actual engineers are a rare breed. It's one thing to do what I do, debugging software as it's written, but deconstructing a physical item in all the ways it can be in the real world takes serious skill. Look at the Takata airbag poo poo as a prime example...
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Jan 26, 2018 02:40
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anonumos posted:That goes double for physical QA. Actual engineers are a rare breed. It's one thing to do what I do, debugging software as it's written, but deconstructing a physical item in all the ways it can be in the real world takes serious skill. Look at the Takata airbag poo poo as a prime example... Actually something else is going on there. Airbag propellants are explosives. Explosives are hard to ship, one needs permits and surveyors (yo) and knowledgeable warehouses. Takata was using an alternative propellant to avoid shipping 1.3c haz around internationally in thier supply chain. The final product regardless of propellant is a class 9. The alternative propellant had draw backs they were willing to ignore because money. Furthermore they knew better, there was not an engineering failure. My understanding is that it is documented in company communations they knew the risks and chose to ignore them. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 02:55
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Analytic Engine posted:This is true in every "STEM" field except programming, where they put you through algorithm-exam hazing. This is true for science and math, but not engineering. A BS in mechanical engineering is entry-level for an industry career.
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Jan 26, 2018 04:50
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Foxfire_ posted:This is true for science and math, but not engineering. A BS in mechanical engineering is entry-level for an industry career. cool, and is that including the EIT professional exam? or can you start out and get it later like Actuaries 100% of my undergrad classmates in Physics and Applied Math are programmers. some grad school friends are data scientists and only those finished a PhD are happily employed Materials Scientists
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Jan 26, 2018 05:32
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Analytic Engine posted:cool, and is that including the EIT professional exam? or can you start out and get it later like Actuaries You can take the FE before you graduate. The PE is truly only required by one person in a firm and only if you’re working with buildings or other infrastructure.
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Jan 26, 2018 05:37
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Actually, buildings and other infrastructure are the main kind of engineering. The rest is trinkets for people's amusement.
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Jan 26, 2018 05:53
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withak posted:Actually, buildings and other infrastructure are the main kind of engineering. The rest is trinkets for people's amusement. Nah dawg I’m gonna change the world with my... *rolls dice*... internet pillow juicer
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Jan 26, 2018 05:58
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hobbesmaster posted:A high gpa undergrad degree qualifies you to be a graduate student. A mediocre gpa qualifies you to do nothing. Oh I just assumed in science that a new grad had a graduate degree.
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Jan 26, 2018 06:37
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hobbesmaster posted:You can take the FE before you graduate. The PE is truly only required by one person in a firm and only if you’re working with buildings or other infrastructure. And you want to, but not everybody especially if they are getting other professional credentials will. One doesn't need it to get a job, but it's certainly is a BFD. I'm glad I did, too bad my employer didn't have a PE, which has screwed me for ever getting that.
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Jan 26, 2018 07:06
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What's it like when you guys (non-software-monkeys) do a cold interview at another company? Do they heavily weight exams and licensing? Or is it mostly up to on-the-day-hoop-jumping performance
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Jan 26, 2018 07:52
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withak posted:Actually, buildings and other infrastructure are the main kind of engineering. The rest is trinkets for people's amusement. The REAL engineers are the guys who work with engines. It’s in the name, ENGINEer. Don’t be talking to me about those civil poseurs.
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Jan 26, 2018 09:18
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Tehdas posted:The REAL engineers are the guys who work with engines. It’s in the name, ENGINEer. Is this man touching a computer? Hmm... Wonder why he doesn't give AF about computer touching... Surely he must be terrified of failing his next algorithm interview, and must be obsessed with tearing down the legitimacy and professionalism of his brother laborers. ... What's that? He just cares about trains and light rail? TRAINS? And, the gently caress is light rail? What kind of an Engineer doesn't go batshit over computers and nerd fights? 
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Jan 26, 2018 09:31
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Tehdas posted:The REAL engineers are the guys who work with engines. It’s in the name, ENGINEer. Technically the engineer engineered the engineer's engine.
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Jan 26, 2018 16:18
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