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spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Xeom posted:

I think there are a lot of people in your position right now. I think the days of engineering being a good stable job is probably over for most.

I am curious why you think this is the case? Maybe oil and gas is not the place to be (although I am not sure it ever was, too many ups and downs) but seems like most engineering careers should still be really viable.

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Zachack
Jun 1, 2000




If you work in oil or any other chemical processing then you should be able to pretty easily transition to water/wastewater operations. Design would be trickier as that tends to be civil. But operationally water/wastewater is generally a vastly simplified refinery process and it'll get you into municipal/government jobs which are typically very stable since we all need to drink and eject water. You probably won't make the BIG BIG engineering bucks but you can probably pull MEDIUM MEDIUM engineering bucks depending on where you are.

Xeom
Mar 16, 2007

spwrozek posted:

I am curious why you think this is the case? Maybe oil and gas is not the place to be (although I am not sure it ever was, too many ups and downs) but seems like most engineering careers should still be really viable.

I think it will still pay decently, especially compared to the crumbs everyone else will be getting, but I think any sort of work/life balance will be gone. Hell there is barely any left, but maybe its just my experience and my state, Michigan. I remember when I started out six years ago I had a decent work/life balance. Cut to five years in and I'm doing 40% travel out of state for week long stays with management starting to push for 50%+. Many engineers who I spoke with, most who came from automotive, told me I was lucky that I only had to put in 40-50 hours most weeks. In fact almost every one of my co-workers who hired into my old company seemed to be coming from an even bigger nightmare. 60+ hours a week as the base line with many working 80. No weekends, no life.

Maybe I'm just being sour and need to suck it up. It's just not what I expected in my life. I guess I'm even more sour now that after a year of searching I finally found a job with good work/life balance doing actual interesting work and now I've lost it. They were a small chemicals start up, graphene nano platelets, going from a small R&Dish production facility into full production. Unlikely they will survive considering they weren't yet profitable and living of VC money.

I guess it will still be viable. Surely more viable than most careers going into the future, but I don't think many will call it a good career. Just one that pays and not much else.

Not a Children
Oct 9, 2012

Don't need a holster if you never stop shooting.

Zachack posted:

If you work in oil or any other chemical processing then you should be able to pretty easily transition to water/wastewater operations. Design would be trickier as that tends to be civil. But operationally water/wastewater is generally a vastly simplified refinery process and it'll get you into municipal/government jobs which are typically very stable since we all need to drink and eject water. You probably won't make the BIG BIG engineering bucks but you can probably pull MEDIUM MEDIUM engineering bucks depending on where you are.

As someone who works intimately with water/wastewater design, I'll second that this is an extremely medium bucks field. However, working in something that is inarguably a common good is worth a hell of a lot to me, so I fully endorse this tack, even if a flood of oil engineers into my industry has the potential to drive wages down.

French Canadian
Feb 23, 2004

Fluffy cat sensory experience

Xeom posted:

I think it will still pay decently, especially compared to the crumbs everyone else will be getting, but I think any sort of work/life balance will be gone. Hell there is barely any left, but maybe its just my experience and my state, Michigan. I remember when I started out six years ago I had a decent work/life balance. Cut to five years in and I'm doing 40% travel out of state for week long stays with management starting to push for 50%+. Many engineers who I spoke with, most who came from automotive, told me I was lucky that I only had to put in 40-50 hours most weeks. In fact almost every one of my co-workers who hired into my old company seemed to be coming from an even bigger nightmare. 60+ hours a week as the base line with many working 80. No weekends, no life.

Maybe I'm just being sour and need to suck it up. It's just not what I expected in my life. I guess I'm even more sour now that after a year of searching I finally found a job with good work/life balance doing actual interesting work and now I've lost it. They were a small chemicals start up, graphene nano platelets, going from a small R&Dish production facility into full production. Unlikely they will survive considering they weren't yet profitable and living of VC money.

I guess it will still be viable. Surely more viable than most careers going into the future, but I don't think many will call it a good career. Just one that pays and not much else.

Get a job at a tire company and put graphene in the tires. They love that poo poo.

Xeom
Mar 16, 2007

French Canadian posted:

Get a job at a tire company and put graphene in the tires. They love that poo poo.

Bing bong.

DaveSauce
Feb 15, 2004

Oh, how awkward.

Xeom posted:

I think it will still pay decently, especially compared to the crumbs everyone else will be getting, but I think any sort of work/life balance will be gone. Hell there is barely any left, but maybe its just my experience and my state, Michigan. I remember when I started out six years ago I had a decent work/life balance. Cut to five years in and I'm doing 40% travel out of state for week long stays with management starting to push for 50%+. Many engineers who I spoke with, most who came from automotive, told me I was lucky that I only had to put in 40-50 hours most weeks. In fact almost every one of my co-workers who hired into my old company seemed to be coming from an even bigger nightmare. 60+ hours a week as the base line with many working 80. No weekends, no life.

Automotive is loving brutal. The car manufacturers have a massive amount of power, and poo poo rolls downhill to their vendors all down the line. Supply equipment for final assembly? They will beat you in to submission. Supply equipment for tier 1/2/3? They will beat you in to submission because they are being beat in to submission and they have massive penalties they have to pay if they screw up.

Margins are low, timelines are crunched, and payment terms are strict and tilted against you. Plus they've built up such an ecosystem of vendors that if you aren't willing, there are competitors who are. Feeds right in to the talent pool, naturally. If you aren't willing to work 50+ hour weeks on average, and spend weeks on start-ups, then you'll get drummed out pretty quick.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Xeom posted:

I think it will still pay decently, especially compared to the crumbs everyone else will be getting, but I think any sort of work/life balance will be gone. Hell there is barely any left, but maybe its just my experience and my state, Michigan. I remember when I started out six years ago I had a decent work/life balance. Cut to five years in and I'm doing 40% travel out of state for week long stays with management starting to push for 50%+. Many engineers who I spoke with, most who came from automotive, told me I was lucky that I only had to put in 40-50 hours most weeks. In fact almost every one of my co-workers who hired into my old company seemed to be coming from an even bigger nightmare. 60+ hours a week as the base line with many working 80. No weekends, no life.

Maybe I'm just being sour and need to suck it up. It's just not what I expected in my life. I guess I'm even more sour now that after a year of searching I finally found a job with good work/life balance doing actual interesting work and now I've lost it. They were a small chemicals start up, graphene nano platelets, going from a small R&Dish production facility into full production. Unlikely they will survive considering they weren't yet profitable and living of VC money.

I guess it will still be viable. Surely more viable than most careers going into the future, but I don't think many will call it a good career. Just one that pays and not much else.

Might just be an industry thing but I would generally say this has been the opposite of my experience. Sucks about your job though man, hope you are able to get something else that you like.

TrueChaos
Nov 14, 2006




Not a Children posted:

As someone who works intimately with water/wastewater design, I'll second that this is an extremely medium bucks field. However, working in something that is inarguably a common good is worth a hell of a lot to me, so I fully endorse this tack, even if a flood of oil engineers into my industry has the potential to drive wages down.

Hey another person who makes sure poo poo flows downhill and then is occasionally pumped back up! :hfive:

It's a good industry, and we can't hire anywhere near enough people in my area, so wages are pretty good as a result. My coworker is on parental leave right now though, so my regular 40 hour work week hasn't been that for a while. Back to normal in two weeks...

Philonius
Jun 12, 2005

The job market in the US sounds brutal. I graduated earlier this year, just started as a system engineer here in the Netherlands. 40 hour work weeks, 40 paid vacation days a year. The former is reasonably common, the latter is generous even by our pinko socialist standards.

Mr Newsman
Nov 8, 2006
Did somebody say news?

Philonius posted:

The job market in the US sounds brutal. I graduated earlier this year, just started as a system engineer here in the Netherlands. 40 hour work weeks, 40 paid vacation days a year. The former is reasonably common, the latter is generous even by our pinko socialist standards.

Sounds like you don't even like working!

DaveSauce
Feb 15, 2004

Oh, how awkward.
I've had to negotiate up from 1 week (5 days) of vacation before. In the US, vacation days are loyalty rewards. The longer you stay, the more you get. Up to 5 weeks (25 days) is the most I've seen, and it takes like 15-20 years to get that. Usually you can negotiate more up front pretty easily, but some places are pretty stubborn about it. Most places have between 8-12 paid holidays, though.

My last company changed from "no sick time policy" to a PTO model. The "no sick time policy" was interpreted differently by everyone; some thought you had to burn vacation while others thought it was a "unlimited as long as its reasonable." HR refused to elaborate on this for the longest time. So without negotiating anything, a person previously would have started with 1 week of vacation, but under the new PTO model they were upgraded to an astounding 8 days of PTO.

And maybe it's just my industry, but most jobs I've had expect 40-45 hours/week as bare minimum for engineers, and at some places if you clock less than 45 hours you get a talking to (and God help you if you aren't 95% billable). One place I interviewed paid well and had a massive target bonus (like 15% of salary), but it was a factory job and they expected 9-10 hour days in addition to being on call all the time. I was one of 5 candidates and missed out (later found out I was 2nd choice, so cool?), but I'm glad I missed out because I found a fairly laid back job shortly after.

:911:

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

DaveSauce sums it up pretty well in the ole USA. I am pretty lucky where I am at: 22 PTO, 5 floating holiday, 6 fixed holiday. Plus some other really great benefits and 40 hour work weeks.

Not a Children
Oct 9, 2012

Don't need a holster if you never stop shooting.

I'm lucky to be working for a firm just acquired by one of the Danish superfirms. My PTO is going from 20 days to 29 next year. Only 6 holidays though.

Crazyweasel
Oct 29, 2006
lazy

I don’t have a ton of personal experience outside it, but I feel that Big Defense is somewhat of a holdout.

You can be in pockets that are incredibly non-competitive so the customer and management are built around being slow (and sometimes more thorough) so that 40 hours a week is the norm (if not the exception). Salaries are usually a tad higher than average, but bonuses can be meh. 10 holidays and 20 PTO days is pretty standard

There is definitely a cyclical foundation with a “binary-ness” layered on top (I.e. oops we lost the ‘sure fire’ contract because our capture people weren’t even paying attention to wtf was going on so now we got layoffs).

From a pandemic perspective, the government has the authority to inject massive amounts of funding in case poo poo gets bad and they need to buoy up jobs, and a lot of people like having a military and such, so I imagine it will do well (if not grow) no matter which administration gets in. Only drag is that Aerospace-mixed firms may bite the bullet harder in trying to balance their top line financial performance given slowdown in that area.

Crazyweasel fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Aug 11, 2020

Uthor
Jul 9, 2006

Gummy Bear Heaven ... It's where I go when the world is too mean.
I've always worked hourly, which was great cause OT! My last job, they suddenly switched us to salary, got rid of overtime, and expected us to work an extra 5-10 hours per week with no additional compensation, which pissed everyone off.

The expectation was to not have a big expense if business got busy, but there was no corresponding expectation of getting time off if business got slow (like it usually did at the beginning of the year).

My boss let us "bank" that time and take days off later, but it was very unofficial.

Gods_Butthole
Aug 9, 2020
Probation
Can't post for 8 years!

Uthor posted:

The expectation was to not have a big expense if business got busy, but there was no corresponding expectation of getting time off if business got slow (like it usually did at the beginning of the year).

That's always frustrated me about modern salary jobs. Growing up I thought that's what salary jobs were supposed to be, if things are slow take time off, but being in industry now I realize how naive I was.

Oh well, at least with Covid and WFH I get to live that dream now.

KetTarma
Jul 25, 2003

Suffer not the lobbyist to live.

Oodles posted:

Has the current pandemic and resulting stagnation made anyone else consider their life choices, and future career plans?

Aerospace was a bad idea.

Like, really bad.

Jyrraeth
Aug 1, 2008

I love this dino
SOOOO MUCH

Really wish I could tell my younger self how feast/famine the engineering jobs I've had. Sorta wish I went into utilities, despite how boring I find them.

Current place just has the classic problem of management wanting things and thinking they take no time because they just want them to take no time. (Then my boss runs out there and gets really mad that he can't instantly fix something.)

Aaah. Egos.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Jyrraeth posted:

Sorta wish I went into utilities, despite how boring I find them.

The stability is nice and you make the world work. Maybe not all the glamorous but not a bad place to be.

Senor P.
Mar 27, 2006
I MUST TELL YOU HOW PEOPLE CARE ABOUT STUFF I DONT AND BE A COMPLETE CUNT ABOUT IT

Oodles posted:

Has the current pandemic and resulting stagnation made anyone else consider their life choices, and future career plans?
Recently, I have been doing a lot of reading on permaculture, and I find the integration of agricultural systems to be quite interesting.
(System engineering or operation which is its own big thing for most power plants or industrial facilities and comparing it to the world of agriculture.)

I also feel like it helps... society break free of some of the more negative aspects from modern day consumption capitalism.
(E.G. Capital loans to third world farmers to buy more pesticides, which are not necessary if utilizing plants to help keep pests in check.)

It certainly sounds lot more personally rewarding. Although I am bit hesitant to take the plunge.

The idea of building a cheap, rammed earth house or living in a like minded community, sounds good.

A was suggested earlier, being in the water and waste water treatment is a good field to be in now.
Or even power utilities.

However, as interesting as I find the technical aspects of oil and gas to be. Zero emissions or reducing emissions or producing a product with minimal waste (e.g. aluminum and not plastic) sounds a lot more personally satisfying and is frankly the future.

The problem in the energy transition will be jobs-jobs-jobs. I think there would be many folks who would be happy to give up a high paying job if they could live in a mostly sustainable "green" community.

Then again most new graduates have to slog through student loans and most middle aged people have to slog through mortgages and child care costs. However, I do wonder if there isn't perhaps a better way... and permaculture appears to my eyes to at least allow for some options.

Maybe I'm just way too much into the hippy stuff. However, the idea of boundless and endless "growth" seems silly. What we need to pursue, is stability.

Senor P. fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Aug 23, 2020

shyduck
Oct 3, 2003


So I'm a mechanical engineer and I've been working for a wastewater consulting firm for 2+ years (this is my first post-grad job). I generally like the field. However I think I'm running into some issues that I can't seem shake.

We work off billable time, which means timesheets. I loathe them. Part of the problem is their mere existence in the first place, but I always feel like it's really difficult to encapsulate what I did within 30 minute segments. I always feel like I'm going to be judged because I spun my wheels with something or I needed time to think something out because it's the first time I've ever done a specific task. I know it's in my head because I've never once gotten negative feedback or questioning about time entries. But there's days where I feel like I've gotten nothing accomplished even though I did research and whatnot, and I just never know how to properly account for it. It's not like I made X amount of widgets where I can easily account for that.

On top of that, and this probably compounds the problem, I was diagnosed ADHD as an adult. I do take medication, but it's not bulletproof. Sometimes it's hard for me to put projects down within allotted time, or I'll get keyed in on a project detail and it turns into a time sink. I use a pomodoro technique clock and that helps a little bit.

Also, it's a small company, and we're busy. I mean that's great and I'm thankful for a job, but it's Iike get thrown into a smattering of project tasks and everybody needs them done now, and I feel like it's hard to complete them to a satisfactory level. It's like lately I can only spin so many plates before some start crashing down. I'm constantly interrupted by people. Plus I just don't feel like I'm developing as an engineer with never being able to truly absorb or anything-- just any random kick poo poo out the door when it needs to be out.

I've been doing this for 2+ years and I don't know what I particularly excel at. I don't even know if I want to be an engineer anymore. It's frustrating.

Devian666
Aug 20, 2008

Take some advice Chris.

Fun Shoe

shyduck posted:

So I'm a mechanical engineer and I've been working for a wastewater consulting firm for 2+ years (this is my first post-grad job). I generally like the field. However I think I'm running into some issues that I can't seem shake.

We work off billable time, which means timesheets. I loathe them. Part of the problem is their mere existence in the first place, but I always feel like it's really difficult to encapsulate what I did within 30 minute segments. I always feel like I'm going to be judged because I spun my wheels with something or I needed time to think something out because it's the first time I've ever done a specific task. I know it's in my head because I've never once gotten negative feedback or questioning about time entries. But there's days where I feel like I've gotten nothing accomplished even though I did research and whatnot, and I just never know how to properly account for it. It's not like I made X amount of widgets where I can easily account for that.

On top of that, and this probably compounds the problem, I was diagnosed ADHD as an adult. I do take medication, but it's not bulletproof. Sometimes it's hard for me to put projects down within allotted time, or I'll get keyed in on a project detail and it turns into a time sink. I use a pomodoro technique clock and that helps a little bit.

Also, it's a small company, and we're busy. I mean that's great and I'm thankful for a job, but it's Iike get thrown into a smattering of project tasks and everybody needs them done now, and I feel like it's hard to complete them to a satisfactory level. It's like lately I can only spin so many plates before some start crashing down. I'm constantly interrupted by people. Plus I just don't feel like I'm developing as an engineer with never being able to truly absorb or anything-- just any random kick poo poo out the door when it needs to be out.

I've been doing this for 2+ years and I don't know what I particularly excel at. I don't even know if I want to be an engineer anymore. It's frustrating.

This is pretty common experience. It takes time to have reached the point where you have done some work that is similar. Sometimes it's easy to get stuck on an item and not have the mental energy to make a decision. Sometimes you may need to put down the piece of work and come back to it later.

For projects where you don't feel like you are working through it efficiency I take a different approach (it gets easier with experience) but I create a task list of things I need to check, calculate or otherwise design. That way I can focus on a particular piece of design work, then once it's done I can do something else on the list without trying to get into the mindset of the big picture again. This helps with the approach of breaking big tasks down into a number of smaller tasks.

Constant interruptions are always a problem, and they get worse when you work on many projects at the same time. Just recently I'm on top of the work due to the virus drop off and not feeling the constant mental exhaustion I've felt for the past two years. Interruptions and the pace of work do make things difficult but if you can develop techniques to manage everything you can do well.

Don't get hooked up on timesheets, just put the time down to a project. Your cost versus the money charged won't be that bad. Also some projects they will be able to fully bill your time so it's worth putting down. Sometimes clients are just paying you to have a massive poo poo or drink coffee.

CarForumPoster
Jun 26, 2013

⚡POWER⚡

shyduck posted:

I'm a mechanical engineer [...] We work off billable time [...]

I feel like I'm going to be judged because I spun my wheels with something [...] I just never know how to properly account for it. It's not like I made X amount of widgets where I can easily account for that. [...] ADHD as an adult.

2) it's a small company, and we're busy. [...] I get thrown into a smattering of project tasks and everybody needs them done now. I feel like it's hard to complete them to a satisfactory level. It's like lately I can only spin so many plates before some start crashing down. I'm constantly interrupted by people. Plus I just don't feel like I'm developing as an engineer with never being able to truly absorb or anything-- just any random kick poo poo out the door when it needs to be out.

I've been doing this for 2+ years and I don't know what I particularly excel at. I don't even know if I want to be an engineer anymore. It's frustrating.

You may just be venting, but as a 31yo Mech E undergrad who also has ADHD...I deeply empathize with this post.

This is how nearly every engineer adult with ADHD feels, timesheets or not. I felt and sometimes still feel this way, even though I'm now the CEO. My thoughts on this are two fold, so I broke it into two responses:

1) I've had the same thoughts and feelings at every job. I once had a manager say to a customer who thought my timeline on getting a thing done was too optimistic: "don't doubt carforumposter, he's an animal. I give him tasks I expect to take a week that get done in a day." (One for my fav ADHD coping mechanisms: take however long I thought something would take and multiply it by 2, then round up. I did that in this case and the customer STILL thought it was optimistic. )I felt this way sometimes, though not most of the time, while working under that manager. My opinion of myself was not in line with the reality that mattered. Therapy was transformative in managing those feelings and in listening, measuring and internalizing what the reality that mattered was versus what my own internal dialogue says. Is till have that dialogue, but it now serves as a useful radar rather than over-saturating me with false results. After therapy I could not only manage the expectations I had for myself, though not perfectly, but could calibrate and manage others. I learned its important to develop positive relationships with my supervisors so I could have frank feedback discussion more often than most people needed it, and almost all of them have been happy to accommodate that. The result has always been that I'm their best employee. I 100% believe that without therapy I probably wouldn't have had many of the positive outcomes I've had in life.

2) This is the nature of small companies. Its super important to have an ongoing, open, honest dialogue with your boss in that situation. Not one based on pity, but one where you recognize the business needs a bunch of fires put out and you want to talk to them about how to best use you to do it....even if it means not putting quite as many fires on specifically YOUR plate.

CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Aug 30, 2020

French Canadian
Feb 23, 2004

Fluffy cat sensory experience
Carforumposter is speaking wisdom but I'm gonna try and reach the escape hatch this time around. And no more going from engineering job to engineering job. I need to get the gently caress out of this field altogether. My brain is not meant for another 10 years of this poo poo.

I'll send messages from the other side :goleft:

Not a Children
Oct 9, 2012

Don't need a holster if you never stop shooting.

shyduck posted:

So I'm a mechanical engineer and I've been working for a wastewater consulting firm for 2+ years (this is my first post-grad job). I generally like the field. However I think I'm running into some issues that I can't seem shake.

We work off billable time, which means timesheets. I loathe them. Part of the problem is their mere existence in the first place, but I always feel like it's really difficult to encapsulate what I did within 30 minute segments. I always feel like I'm going to be judged because I spun my wheels with something or I needed time to think something out because it's the first time I've ever done a specific task. I know it's in my head because I've never once gotten negative feedback or questioning about time entries. But there's days where I feel like I've gotten nothing accomplished even though I did research and whatnot, and I just never know how to properly account for it. It's not like I made X amount of widgets where I can easily account for that.

On top of that, and this probably compounds the problem, I was diagnosed ADHD as an adult. I do take medication, but it's not bulletproof. Sometimes it's hard for me to put projects down within allotted time, or I'll get keyed in on a project detail and it turns into a time sink. I use a pomodoro technique clock and that helps a little bit.

Also, it's a small company, and we're busy. I mean that's great and I'm thankful for a job, but it's Iike get thrown into a smattering of project tasks and everybody needs them done now, and I feel like it's hard to complete them to a satisfactory level. It's like lately I can only spin so many plates before some start crashing down. I'm constantly interrupted by people. Plus I just don't feel like I'm developing as an engineer with never being able to truly absorb or anything-- just any random kick poo poo out the door when it needs to be out.

I've been doing this for 2+ years and I don't know what I particularly excel at. I don't even know if I want to be an engineer anymore. It's frustrating.

My man, you are literally me 5 years ago. Been in water/wastewater consulting for 7ish years. Been dealing with ADD for 20+ years.

First off: The timesheet thing loving blows and there is literally nothing you can do about it. It's how the industry has decided as a whole to hold people accountable, and you literally cannot write proposals for most public entities without having that info accounted for. It's antiquated and lovely and frankly just plain disconnected from the reality of the job. You will have some days where you feel like you got a week's worth of work done, and some weeks where you have gotten nearly nothing of substance done because you were doing research, waiting on another discipline, fixing mistakes, or god help ya you just didn't feel like working so very hard - part of the ebb and flow is stretching your billable hours sensibly across those times.

Part of getting experience as an engineer is just making do with the time you have and putting out the best design you can in the allotted hours/time in your week. Compromises happen. Addendums happen. Change orders happen. The only thing you can do to manage that, if you're truly putting in your full 40 a week, is to be honest with others about your availability. Expecting perfection in this line of work or really anything else is a fools errand, you CAN NOT do things 100% perfectly and push them out within any sane budget unless you get lucky. Develop standards, processes, and templates so you're not ever redoing any work between projects - they're the most helpful tools at your disposal.

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

(This is mostly a rant)

I work for a large company as an analyst doing thermal and flow simulations (mechanical engineer with thermal CFD background). To this point my work has been focused on supporting the design iteration process. My manager initiated a big project late last year whereby each analyst on our team would build a CFD model of one of the several large experimental testing machines our company operates at our location. The idea is that once we have a validated model for each machine, the analyst in question can make a prediction about the outcome of any planned experiment, and by comparing to results we can improve our modeling capabilities and help direct future experiments in a productive direction. Seems like a good use of our efforts, and the whole thing is supposed to happen in OpenFOAM which is a nice opportunity for me to learn that platform.

This project is supposed to account for 50% of my time this year and was the main focus of my forward-looking performance review with said manager just yesterday.

Today I found out from the project lead on the testbed to which I've been assigned, that this particular machine is scheduled to be decommissioned in Q2 of this year. It's replacement is another machine that another analyst is already assigned to model. There is of course no point in spending weeks or months building and validating a model to match a machine that will be shut down within months of the model's completion.

It didn't even occur to me to ask about the timeline of this machine when the project was proposed, but now I guess I know better.

This has been my first real experience with the "left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing" phenomenon at in my ~18 months at this company.

Target Practice
Aug 20, 2004

Shit.
I hosed up not taking the FE right out of school (2018). I also have ADHD and since I had testing accommodations in school it turns out I can get those same accommodations from NCEES or whoever does it. Between work and being newly married and living life I didn't study, I finally got my documentation together to get accommodations and covid hit and made it super hard to test.

Now I'm 3 years out of school and I feel really dumb, lol, like I've forgotten almost everything I learned :(.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Target Practice posted:

I hosed up not taking the FE right out of school (2018). I also have ADHD and since I had testing accommodations in school it turns out I can get those same accommodations from NCEES or whoever does it. Between work and being newly married and living life I didn't study, I finally got my documentation together to get accommodations and covid hit and made it super hard to test.

Now I'm 3 years out of school and I feel really dumb, lol, like I've forgotten almost everything I learned :(.

I got a girl who works for me that is in your shoes but 4 years out of school. She drove up to take it last month and had a 99.0 degree temp and the test center wouldn't let her in... I have been basically sitting on a promotion for her for 18 months... hope she passes.

Anyone else reading this take the FE in school!

mekilljoydammit
Jan 28, 2016

Me have motors that scream to 10,000rpm. Me have more cars than Pick and Pull
I took the FE in school. A decade and change later I have yet to work with any PEs so no PE for me.

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

mekilljoydammit posted:

I took the FE in school. A decade and change later I have yet to work with any PEs so no PE for me.
Same. I'm deep into computational analysis now so unlikely to go the PE route at this point. But it took minimal effort to do the FE while I was in undergrad so I'd still stress it to anyone in school now.

bawfuls fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Feb 19, 2021

mekilljoydammit
Jan 28, 2016

Me have motors that scream to 10,000rpm. Me have more cars than Pick and Pull
Yeah, I'm not like _against_ taking the FE stuff as an undergrad. I just, personally, don't know anyone in my generation who's a PE.

bred
Oct 24, 2008
Secondhand info but I work in medical mfg in california and have 2 colleagues who got their PE without working with PEs. I was under the impression that there where requirements to work with PEs for years but they said they took the test first, passed, then submitted an application for consideration citing their work is regulated by the FDA. It works because the state is under federal jurisdiction.

mekilljoydammit
Jan 28, 2016

Me have motors that scream to 10,000rpm. Me have more cars than Pick and Pull
That may be possible in some cases; it hasn't been in mine. Not really important to me or my career path, just kinda funny the change in emphasis.

Hello Sailor
May 3, 2006

we're all mad here

My school required that we at least take the FE to graduate. Didn't have to pass, but did have to make the attempt.

French Canadian
Feb 23, 2004

Fluffy cat sensory experience
My friends and I took the FE back in 2008 right before graduation and I think it was a nice thing to have on my barren resume for my first job. One friend did wind up becoming a PE but I feel like it's not common if you're in a really diverse job market.

Also I'm about to exit engineering for the most part and holy gently caress I'm pumped. 13 years is enough. gently caress Solidworks. gently caress DFMEAs. gently caress it all lmao.

Never take a job where everyone isn't generally nice and cool. If people are frequently assholes (even if not to you) pack it the gently caress up!

Not a Children
Oct 9, 2012

Don't need a holster if you never stop shooting.

I took the FE about 4 years out of school. There are a ton of great study guides out there (I used the Lindeburg book), and the test is semi-open book with a searchable reference guide. Take 2-3 months averaging studying an hour or so a day and you'll be fine.

DaveSauce
Feb 15, 2004

Oh, how awkward.
Honestly I can't say I regret not taking the FE. But I'm in CompE/EE so it's nearly meaningless, plus I was focused on getting the hell out of there so taking time to add the FE on to my list of poo poo to do was a non-starter. They told us once or twice to take it before graduating, but also said that we probably wouldn't need it. That said, if I had to take the FE now I would be completely and utterly screwed, so if you're going to take the FE do it ASAP.

I've been in automation my whole career, and about the only jobs I know of that require a PE are in wastewater. Which I hear actually isn't too bad, but the vast majority of automation jobs don't need it. So far I've met 2 controls engineers with a PE, and neither of them put it to use at the companies I met them.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Goes without saying but if you are a Civil Engineer you must go down the PE route. All the other disciplines are maybes. Mechanical work for buildings, yes. Electrical work for large power infrastructure, yes.

I think it says a lot to push your resume up over other new grads, especially if you didn't have internship experience.

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totalnewbie
Nov 13, 2005

I was born and raised in China, lived in Japan, and now hold a US passport.

I am wrong in every way, all the damn time.

Ask me about my tattoos.
I work in automotive and I don't know anyone that's a PE. I'm sure they're around, I've just never run across any of them. Definitely very industry/job-specific.

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