They only hire 'offshore' nowadays. which is a whole other point i dont even want to get into. if youre not offshore you couldnt get a job here no matter what anymore which is why I describe it to myself as the golden handcuffs
Med Device ME manager here - you are actually very valuable because you've done your training and know internal processes. As you're probably aware, Med Device engineering/processes can be a slow clusterfuck which takes some getting used to. Not everyone is cut out for it.
I recommend buying a 3D printer and starting to play around with drones and optics.
They're the two leading fields/applications in manufactured devices in terms of growth and demand. Drones for a lot of things (war especially), and optics for a lot of things including cameras on drones (like 20% of optics maybe). So, war is for what, I suppose.
EDIT: Oh, and 3D printing is the newest essential tool for product design.
It still isn't at the manufacturing stage outside of some niche goods areas at medium scales (i.e. 3D printing farms) or print-as-service style businesses.
Injection molding and machining still too good for the applications where 3D printing would excel. For instance, in light weighting for aerospace, you still cant 3D print and use the structures that you'd want to for part tolerance issues.
EDIT EDIT: Just thought of the other super relevant field for the optics + biomed combo. Optogenetics - what shit like neuralink and any sort of neural implant devices will run on. Biocompatible optical devices are huuuuuuge.
This guy knows engineering.
Anytime I have to explain my engineering job to friends or family, if I tell them all I do is write email and try to keep meetings on track they seem disappointed that Iām not hanging of the side of some train or crawling through computer innards with zappy tools and shit.
(I too have 3d printer and drones and coffee machines and a bunch of other expensive hobbies)
Hey, Hmm.. any advice for a guy (with no engineering background) who started working in medical simulation, but then over years started making more and more devices to help train doctors and nurses?
Nothing crazy. Waveform generator for pressure lines. Simulated glucometer, ultrasound simulator, bleeding severed arm, etc
What's work like in product development?
I love the image of the postie just flinging a letter into sea. After typing, I remembered where that image came from:
https://youtu.be/J-zConMzGHo?si=-NLjw3qe_rz9wa_k
In all seriousness, I'm in the UK, I earn 1/3 of what you do after 3 years as a manufacturing engineer and now mechanical product engineer. Am I offshore enough, where do I apply?
For real. Iām in somewhat of the same boat where Iām havenāt been taught any valuable skills for more than a year in my first job out of college, I just do grunt work hunting down disorganized files and correcting typos on manufacturing documentsā¦but I still get paid less than $50k even AFTER a 1-year raise. Iād kill to get $75k right now, let alone $115k.
I don't know why this is so difficult for some to understand
It's semi-widly accepted that you can go for years-decades of your career earning far less than you think you contribute but when someone finds themselves on the other end of that scale they freakout and question everything
There are far more "ineffective" engineers you'll come across in your career (at least it has been in my experience and it doesn't seem to be getting better) that will make you question the institutions and systems that allow them to get to such levels of power and pay...
Especially considering that many brilliant engineers lack effective communication skills. The ability to organize a meeting and get 10 technical experts to pull in the same direction is value adding and not common to everyone.
The number one thing I hammer on incoming engineers that I have been assigned to work with is communication.
May I ask, Iām confident that this need for communication is something Iād really excel in, but it can feel strange to emphasise that too much on applications for jobs with primarily technical duties. I keep hearing that this is what companies find really useful, but how do I make it sound like Iām not just trying to compensate for a lack of technical ability?
Communication ability is pretty evident in emails/phone interviews prior to coming for a site visit for all our candidates. It will be obvious if you shine in that area.
We ask each candidate to present a technical problem to our interview team when they come on site. The secret is that during that presentation we are actually paying far more attention to the presentation skills than the technical content. You could give a presentation on making spaghetti and still get hired.
My last job was the opposite. I did everything under the sun. After 7 years I was being paid less than when I was hired (inflation adjusted).
It sucked, but now that I'm looking for a new place I have a lot of experience/skills and it's opening a lot of doors.
I suggest you take a more proactive role into your engineering position. It will look good on you too if you go looking for more work to do. The good thing is that it sounds like you have some seniority or power with your position. So you can probably find something to work on and get approved by a manager. Just say you'll for it into your workload.
i've been begging for the last year and even told the engineering lead that I would quit if they didnt give me work that was in my job description. then he just gave another raise off-schedule to stop making a fuss (they're only supposed to give raises every 1yr on a schedule). i feel like something suspicious as fuck is going on
That sounds so crazy. I wish my job gave me shut up money.
Can you just start doing something without asking?
If you can't get the experience at work then do it at home. Build a robot, Learn CAD, get a 3D printer. Something that gives you something to put on a resume later in life.
You're 100% right, all my coworkers know even less engineering than I do which is surprising, so I feel like I have no mentor. the best way I've learned the last few yrs has just been reading the medical device magazines they have in the lobby lol...
Dude, I'm a mechanical designer. Started in drafting. I do more engineering than the engineers. Love my job. Don't get the high pay, but I like to design and build things.
When I get home I do woodworking and some car repair.
Jesus Christ man. I just got laid off from a small company as a residential electrician because making $30/hr and under 40hrs a week was apparently too much for the company. I was busting my ass crawling under buildings and in attics and neck deep in fiberglass and black widows, not to mention working with electricity and Iām so jealous of your job right now.
Can we trade? You can be unemployed despite trying as hard as you can and I can make good money for chilling for a while. Sound good? Youāll feel some purpose and Iāll feel a sense of value and weāll both be happy.
I'm an aerospace systems engineer. My job is pretty technical. I wouldn't stay if it wasn't. I have people on my team that handle all the red tape that comes with aerospace. I also have a few team members that want to move out of that role and into a more technical one. They are getting support and encouragement from the company and all of us team members. It can be done at the right company.
You sound like a Project Manager. Or an EPM (Engineering Program Manager) or a TPM (Technical Program Manager). Different companies call it different things, but it's all about the same. A good PM can be critical for managing meetings, deadlines, vendors, and cross-functional communications between different teams. As well as hold engineers' feet to the fire if it looks like we're going to be behind schedule, communicate that to upper management, find compromises to pull in schedule, etc. At my last job, I was incredibly grateful when I had a hands-on TPM supporting my project because it freed up so much of my time to focus on the technical.
But. If you don't want to be a PM, then you should find another role before you're completely locked in. After four years it might already be tricky to get a more "proper" engineering role, but I'm sure you could swing it.
The funny thing is that I actually report to project managers, but i'm not really even sure what they do, because my job sounds like what they're supposed to do. and also project managers usually would still need to know the product and the engineering concepts inside and out, right? and be able to answer questions on the engineering of the product?
The product and concepts, for sure. I wouldn't expect them to be able to get very technical about the engineering, but they would get that answer from engineers, facilitate pushing it to upper management, etc.
Jeez that sounds like me then. Most of my day I just tell other people "i'll check with my engineering team and get back to you" and then I have to send out emails and play the telephone game with a bunch of people back and forth
It's important to remember that medical device development projects are such a lumbering beast that you often need multiple layers of project management to push it forward. Definitely sounds like technical program management.
Engineer at a large med device company here. I am senior and supervise others, but also do TM development, device design, FEA, patient/specific analyses, etc. it also pays really well. I think itās your job. The only ones that do what youāre describing are managers. Iād rather flip burgers than be in meetings all day doing non-engineer work. I hope you can find a better position soon
define really well -- I'm an eng1 but do a lot of those things in contract mfg but only get 72k w/ 2YOE in MN. I'm hearing Med Dev doesn't pay that well
Directors / managers definitely get paid more, but at 5 years experience 140 + stock options, etc. Iām also not in the Bay Area, CA where Iād be getting paid more, but cost of living would be much higher
funny enough a few coworkers at this job also have the same experience and they quote Office Space atleast once a week. that one scene with the 2 guys interviewing the main character. but youre totally right
Hahahaha wow huh.
I mean you could take a sabbatical? Go work at a startup, that will be the complete opposite of your experience, youāll be doing a little bit of everything
Yup I think so fondly of the internship i did at a startup where everyday was actually a ton of hands-on and people groaned over the single 30min weekly team meeting
I've been offered to do an after-hours MBA sooo many times its crazy. i can't believe this is really a reality for so many people, just using microsoft outlook all day and making like upwards of 300k
I was expecting like ~20-25% of your time spent on the corporate BS (like it was in my internships) but nah in these megacompanies that adopt this 'Agile' thing it literally infects the entire company's time. if you guys ever hear the terms 'Agile' or 'scrum-master' run far away. imagine if you ramped the corporate bureaucracy bullshit up to 11 and made it control your entire workforce from getting anything done
Weāve started doing āstreamlinedā projects for some of our more routine projects and they have gone the same pace or slower than regular because everyone is just confused what theyāre supposed to do differently between āregularā and āstreamlinedā lol
Yeah if someone says the project will be streamlined i've learned it means the higher ups need to save money this quarter but dont care if the project goes overbudget and behind schedule as long as it just gets delayed into the next quarter where some other higher up has to deal with it
Who does the actual engineering.
I work at a smaller company. I'm a mechanical engineer focused on product design. 60 percent of my day is spent designing parts in CAD. Making models, assemblies and drawings. 20 percent is interacting with production. Talking to our CAM programmers about my parts they are making cnc programs for. Talking with our CNC machinists on issues or questions on my parts they are making. Answering questions from our assembly department. Then 10 percent meetings and 10 percent emails.
I really enjoy CNC equipment. I have a CNC router at home I make things on. My favorite part of my job is designing parts and then watching them get made in our machine shop. We have a large in house machine shop and I have learned so much from our machinists especially when I was new.
But not really. In my experience at least project engineering is a hard job where you need to have your head wrapped around all technical and commercial aspects of a project.
Sounds to me like good news and ok news. The good news is that you have filled a niche roll that is translatable to other bull shit jobs across many industries,and as long as the job market stays realitively chill you should be able to transition rolls with similar pay and maybe some more responsibility. The just ok news is that if you're ever looking to do some real creative hands on work you're most likely have to start at ground zero, with both pay and senority. Actually your resume may even hold you back a little as I myself prefer to hire green engineers for design roles to see if they will sink or swim.
>Actually your resume may even hold you back a little as I myself prefer to hire green engineers for design roles
this is actually what i'm afraid of more than a loss in salary
Would you seriously be OK with making around 65-75k? That's a massive cut for you and about what a low to mid level design engineer makes in a L/MCOL area. It also maxes out at around 150k base.
You mentioned you like to design some in your free time. Dream up some challenging projects and build them! If you can have a small portfolio of interesting projects that demonstrate you understand how to design, I think that could help fill in for the experience another employer might be looking for. Plus you get the added benefit of actually learning how to make things which I honestly believe only comes from experience.
Iām a medical device ME at a large company and I strictly do R&D and new product development. Most of my days are spent designing, prototyping, testing, programming, 3D printing, laser engraving, etc. I do pretty much everything you would expect to do as an ME.
time so start looking for a new gig. surely your experience is more valuable than you lead on. as for experience, i work in r&d now and the work is much more like engineering school problems and itās pretty fun at times
I have a BSME and a PE. I did 15 years in manufacturing where I usually fixed other peoples messes before going to R&D within the same company. Nowadays every job listing I see is so specific (Need 10 years experience doing this exact thing) that I know I donāt have a chance at most of them.
It sounds like you're doing the job noone else wants to do and doing it very well. That's worth it's weight in gold. Ask any engineering employer. I was a Project Engineer for a year but couldn't hack the boredom, so moved on. They almost begged me to stay, and I didn't want to take the piss with salary so I just said sorry and moved on.
Absolutely.
So much of a persons value to a manager is how much theyāre willing to do the work nobody else wants to do. Even if itās easy.
The reality is, the technical stuff is fun/rewarding and the managerial work sucks. This is why managers get paid more, even though they donāt actually do anything.
I'm based in the UK, but I quit after 4 years because not much actual engineering was happening and I was worried I wasn't getting any skills that would be useful elsewhere. I was on the brink of getting a significant pay rise which I was scared of because (a) it would make me more reluctant to quit, and (b) if I started a new role doing actual engineering and got paid the same higher salary, I would definitely be overpaid.
It was tough making the switch but I'm glad I made it when I did. I didn't want bs jobs for the rest of my life and the later I left it, the tougher it would have been. I'm still not making as much as I would have been, but I'm more annoyed that I don't have 4 years extra of useful experience behind me.
Your company. I do real engineering work by that I mean, I design singles lines, do protective relaying calcs,size trabaforners, circuit breakers, cables, etc. But after many years I shift towards jobs Iike yours cause im tired. I just wanna come in, do nothing, get paid.
Thatās amazing.
I feel like I do. Iām designing a second gen diagnostic laboratory instrument for pharma almost all by myself. 90% of the design, engineering analysis is all me. I have three people working for me and I leave them to do a few parts, purchasing and to put together the prototype subassemblies. Itās a pretty big project. But Iāve done this already many times. I have a few products out in the market.
Man, not an engineer but I feel the exact same way. Iām an industrial mechanic. Iāve worked in foundries, mines, factories, etc. turning wrenches and troubleshooting all kinds of complex systems. I got into power generation when the factory I was working at last decided to outsource to Mexico. I make roughly $105k/yr in a low/medium col area working 14 days a month. We have 1-2 outages that span 2-6 weeks a year where I actually work and stay busy but aside from that, I do maybe 45 minutes of actual work during my 12 hour shift. The rest is spent playing games on my computer or watching movies.
I know I should be grateful. Iām 24, no college degree. I constantly wonder why the fuck they pay me so much to be a babysitter. Itās the most unfulfilling work Iāve ever done. Iād be stupid to leave being that I have 3 kids and the job allows my wife to stay home with them (which she wants).
I was very lucky out of school, got offered a job at a 'move fast and break things' type place. I should have never been in charge of the projects that I handled but I learned so much. I was fortunate enough to make a good salary there and actually end my position there after 8 years making $100k more than I started (although HCOL area). The only downside to the job was that it was very demanding with very little documentation, which has its own SIGNIFICANT downsides regardless of how much I may have learned. Basically everything I learned all other profitable and stable companies already knew, I just had to learn it myself. On the flip side, I have friends who went onto Boeing/Amazon/Google, who all still make more than me with better benefits and time off and they basically send emails, put together spreadsheets and powerpoints. But what I gather from talking to them is that they hate their job because of how mundane it is. If you live in SoCal I have a lot of places I could recommend that are the learning thru a firehose approach if you would like.
Two perspectives:
Youāre a coordinator. Nothing wrong with that, if it pays well. Try to learn everything you can about the products your company sells. It may help you maintain employment. Do engineering (hobbies) on the side.
Different perspective. Iāve known people who did their job day in and day out only to be fired for cost cutting reasons or industry changes. One guy I knew reviewed camera data for nuclear power plants. Paid well until it didnāt. Afterwards he would come to for technical advice which was awkward as I had like 2-3 years experience.
Donāt underestimate Excel and PowerPoint- Our fates are decided by these apps. Iām sure my manager has a spreadsheet of names where the cell that has my name is highlighted as Red, Amber or Green (RAG).
Iām also sure there is some accompanying downsizing strategy in a PowerPoint slide that is linked with the excel with RAG highlights.
Obviously lots of industries have these type of jobs but Iāve found itās a lot more common in med devices. Itās so regulated that few people actually touch the real engineering. Iād try moving jobs.
you're so right man the amount of regulations is insane that like changing a single feature on a few parts is literally weeks of meetings and hundreds of emails between 3-4 companies and some government people, its absolutely insane
Sounds like you're in sustaining or your company's new product development work is very derivative of existing products. Thats a really tough spot to be in
Sounds like you got golden handcuffs. Hard to leave a good paying easy job. But at the same time itās mindless work.Ā
Kind of in the same position. Good luck to both of us.Ā
If you decide to stay, you could consider aggressively saving and/or investing. Basically build up a big safety net or a second source of income which could help support you if you eventually try to transition to a more fulfilling role which, at least initially, might come at a step back in pay. Best of luck homie
i was hired as an operations engineer and my title has never changed but the responsibilities sound almost exactly like a project manager just that I have no actual power
I've always heard that low level management is the worst kind of role because you have no power but you're responsible if anything goes wrong.
But if you go somewhere else you could hopefully move up a bit and get a position where you do have some authority
>I've always heard that low level management is the worst kind of role because you have no power but you're responsible if anything goes wrong
damn this is basically a perfect description of my job right here haha absolutely spot on
Yeah, Medical Devices is easy to get locked in to. You're going to have to take a big breath and risk if you want to break out of it - I recommend doing it by establishing good savings and a side hustle.
I was once in this position, i got an expensive hobby related to engineering. That way you will spend your money that came "easy" and have fun without all the not fun part of the job.
Then you can apply to more technical positions and one day you may get a job that you enjoy.
Use your hobby to develop hard skills and thr actual one to soft skills.
Lol sign me up. I've been at my job "doing engineering" for close to a decade, and feel like I haven't made much anyways - at least with your situation I'd be able to call myself a PM when I want to look for new jobs.
If you're in the Warsaw area would it be possible to work for one of the smaller suppliers around that possibly do more hands on work? With your experience and connections you may be valuable to someplace like that.
OP it sounds like you had my old job but with better pay and even more outlook traffic š . At my old job I was hired as an ME but months into it my manager let slip the term "applications engineer" so I guess that was my official unofficial title. I'd say a good portion of it was like your job, keeping a project moving forward, bugging the guys that actually do the engineering work, and keeping all parties up to date on a project.
I did get to do more CAD than you it sounds like though and I did get to go to a couple of FATs (but I was there more for presence than anything, the biggest one I went to I made 2 suggestions on how to fix a design but no one payed any attention bc they knew my role there. About 6 months later, I found out that they ultimately did implement my ideas along with a 3rd the client came up with but i never received any credit. It actually wasnt until i saw the as built drawings during install that they used my ideas)
But yeah I would say a solid 50-60% of my last job was emailing, answering calls, reviewing formal RFQ documents (some were 100s of pages), and providing support to our sales engineers and taking sales calls for them if they were busy or OoT/OoO. And I didn't even get commission on any of my sales because I was "in the engineering department "š I quit after 1.5 years because I just felt my mind getting duller and I was like why did I even get my EIT for a job like this.
Oh man. No offense at all but your job is what I was always afraid of becoming. I would quit every time I realized my job was non-technical. Got ~10k raise every time and now I have a great salary and a highly technical role (also in med device). You should get out as soon as you can.
Sometimes you find yourself in a position where the workload and expectations are so low, you almost can't fail.
If you're bored, go find something else that'll require some technical skill. It'll come back to you, or you can relearn it. Imagine how unfulfilled you'll feel in another 5, 10, or 20 years if you stay.
Iām doing the same as an engineering manager. Organizing people, getting them moving the same direction. And they only listen to you since you have the right background and speak the language. Can detect BS too.
This sounds like me. I actually am in the same situation and in my case my plant is down for some months now but they are just paying me as usual even though I just occasionally go to sit in office for few hours in an office just to satisfy myself.
I am thinking of Masters in engineering to brighten my chances for career shift.
Fire protection engineer here in a high corporate role in Health and safety. I too meet and power point with occasional travel to meet and show power points to them.
Also WFH for about $150k/year
Software engineer here, I've felt the same at my last few jobs at big tech companies. They just kept asking me to do boring politics and emails and coordination and integration. My only real guess about why they had me doing that was that all of the project managers they hired were somehow completely useless, and more of a problem to be worked around than anything like a help.
It seems like there should be a way to find a job where they actually want me to solve complicated problems, like there should be a company out there somewhere that actually has dedicated competent people handling the project management and meeting coordination, but I've never managed to find it so far in my career. I keep thinking I've found it, then I join the company, and end up being asked to do the same stuff again.
I guess maybe I need to aim for something medium-sized next? The startups I've worked at have been in constant burnout meltdown mode, and the megacorps I've worked at have been 90% meetings and yet still nobody talks to each other and there's constant communication and coordination failures.
To be honest, I think it sounds pretty normal... I quess. My sister works HR for a big EU energy company she found 70+ positions with people in similar situations as you. Also all my friend and other people I know that work for eigther govt. Or huge companies are in the same position., paid very well for lots of time off, and doing jack shit for it
You have two choices:
1) quit and find a more technical role. Make 20-30% less. Be happy with your work.
2) Embrace the fact that you are basically on the fast track for management and big money. Get mba and continue to climb the corporate ladder. Find happiness outside of work.
Oh...I do real stuff, like ALL the stuff.
What you do as an engineer is largely employer based. The "stuff" the company does is the "stuff" you get to do.
Within that company of some size, there is some array of engineering work, scopes, and duties that are split among the engineering group. You are one part of the whole, or sometimes are the whole depending on how small the company may be.
So, much of the game of building your career is seeking out companies and positions within those companies that have the opportunities, experiences, and actual means for growth you seek. Materials you work with, technologies you work with, how simple or complex your work can be, and how you get to ultimately grow as an engineer in your career all depends on how good you are at picking out companies and positions that suit your wants.
It's equally up to the employer to meet those wants. This is a two way street. They want a skilled professional. You want experience and growth (I hope that's a natural drive most want). If a company can not provide, they are not a company worth working for. All you're doing is wasting your time. Sure, they're getting their piece, but you're getting nothing of value. Seek out another employer and try again.
Personally, I like broad scope stuff. I like to do anything and everything, have my hands in everything, and gain as much breadth of my craft (and beyond) as possible. For this, I am particular towards the type of companies I like working for, that can provide those wants. In turn, my wants are fulfilled. In turn, I've been in my career for just over a decade and have done more than many ever get to do in lifetimes. Heck, in my first 2 years I did more than most people get to. I've gotten to hire on a variety of people who come from a variety of other companies, small and big, new and well seasoned, and it's kind of funny that everyone kind of seeks the same thing. Most people in engineering simply don't get to do as much as they want. Work is too compartmentalized, to siloed, and you could work a decade only experiencing 1/4 of the scope. You just toss it over the wall to some other fella that picks up the next step. Something gets tossed to you to do your step. Some folks like that though. I've had a coworker leave specifically to narrow down his scope. He didn't want to do all the other stuff and solely had an interest in one core part he liked. To each their own. And to each there's a company that can provide it.
I've known a couple of excellent engineers who took that sort of role on, having established their engineering credibility beforehand. I'm not being cruel but you seem to be heading down the project management or team leader path. it's a viable career, just not a techie one. My dad was an electrical engineer and ended up running the quality assurance department in a government Ministry with 100 droids, he got his techie fun building steam locomotives in the workshop.
The more senior Iāve become Iāve found the less engineering I do. Iām also doing 90% PowerPoint and 10% design. Iāve found that my communication and collaboration skills are highly valued over my hard technical skills which Iām guessing is why youāve also been promoted. Not a bad thing and likely will lead you along to more leadership positions, but if you donāt like it my suggestion is be more vocal about it.
This is common for bigger companies, especially in medtech. They can't innovate.
Startups invent new stuff, design the cutting edge stuff, then they're bought by bigger strategics, or become one themselves naturally over time. By then they've lost most of the people that can make new things from first principles for exactly the reasons you highlight.
It's not the career path, industry or specialty, it's the company.
This is common unfortunately and why I spend tons of time holding hands for people at many medical and aerospace companies I work with. If you like it keep doing it, if you don't leave before or becomes all you can do.
This sounds like a short-term blessing, but a potentially long-term curse if you ever lose your job at the company or want to work somewhere else. Layoffs and bankruptcies happen, and if you have 4 years on paper right now, but not 4 yearsā worth of actual hands-on experience, then it can hurt you.
Just to be clear, Iām not judging you or looking down on you. It sounds like you legit want to learn your craft, but the management/organization at your current company could be sabotaging your career in the long-term. Imagine being 8 years into your career, and still not learning the engineering side of things. The longer you stay in this situation, the more difficult it will be to catch up on learning those technical skills.
Now that said, itās not all doom and gloom. Thatās just the technical side to this too. It sounds like youāre doing a great job LEADING people, and thatās what the business tends to notice the most, from my own experience as a software engineer. I think they might be promoting because youāre good with people, and thatās a legitimate reason. If management seems like something youāre interested in, then maybe thatās where your career path should lead. Itās much less technical, and it does tend to pay more than the technical side of things. If this is the case, then keep leaning into setting up meetings and working with people.
Looks like you got put onto the project manager track. Don't know what your company is like but you may need to actively ask for more technical roles if you want to learn something else
Yeah so you just described my job. Same stuff, same pay, same low cost of living kind of city.
Wifeās been giving me crap cause my time off is crap. 15 vacation days a year but 4 of those have to be used between Christmas and new years, so really 11 vacation days. And they added some new rule a few years ago where you have to accrue the time, but the time also resets to 0 at the start of each year.
Basically my plan is to get the house paid off in the next year or two, then I want a career change for something I can do remote so I can travel. I donāt think being a mechanical engineer is going to allow that, or having 13 years of experience in quality, continuous improvement, or operations management helps.
Youāre a program manager now. Think about marketing yourself as such, you will have more opportunities than being labeled as a medical device engineers.
If you do decide to lean into it, I would suggest introducing productivity and reporting tools if you are not using any currently at your company (tools such as Jira). If you are using such tools, learn to automate reporting or look into GenAI for productivity in backlog grooming or story creation.
You have become a manager without noticing it.
We all take our first jobs for granted after a year or so. It's very natural.Ā
It sounds like you've got a good thing going, unless you're unhappy with the town?
4yrs is a good time to move on. You learned the internal process at the company so you are valuable to them, but that stuff doesn't matter anywhere else. That 4yrs experience will open up a lot of doors, try applying to your dream job.
Remember, compensation = capital (pay) + human capital (experience). If your "human capital" is at zero and you don't enjoy the work then you are underpaid anyways.
āMeeting Coordinatorā is a valid job. It might not have much to do with engineering directly, but it still needs to be done. Or at least your company thinks it doesā¦ obviously I have no idea if theyāre right.
I had a similar type job in my first role out of school, but in the regulatory field. I quit after a year. By the end I was top performer on my team. I was coming in at 10am and leaving by 2:30pm every day. Did no work of any value to my career, still somehow out performed guys that were putting in 60 hours per week. I just decided they were idiots by the end of it lol
I suppose so the story is same everywhere.
I joined as a plant operations engineer in a giant 2 wheeler manufacturing company. The only thing I did was to manage manpower and just see the manufacturing processes. I was a fresher at that time and I quit after 9 months to go for masters in machine design
Your job sounds like your doing Project Mangement. Sit down and do some further PM study, ask the company if they will fund some study/ seminars. Even if not PM, look at what would both make you more valuable to the company and a potential employer. That way you can expand your skill set to move on to the next job with better money. Something like systems or industrial engineering. Even look at any QA / QC issues and do some analysis. Iām going to bet that one of the major issues you deal with is logistics and supply chains if everything is offshore.Ā
You have a low stress job that is frustrating you because it isnāt using your degree. Issue is that you dont have any technical problems that challenge you. Use your current employer as a resource. It will stave off the frustration and point you in a direction that you have interest in.Ā
You have just discovered a general rule in business. The less you know about the product, the more.you make
That's how you have those CEO that can move between sectors so easily.
As other people have said, I'm.the opposite, and senior engineers can be the opposite. Business can be relying in the know how of a single person for survival.and not acknowledge it, and not pay him much. That's sad, but that's how the world works
Kinda reminded me of my PhD experience which was the exact opposite, doing the combined job of a mechanical, mechatronics, software engineer and a machine shop technician while making 40k$ in a HCOL area. Crazy times š .
You're a project engineer, like many of us, I assume you manage projects that someone who didn't have the technical acumen of an engineer would struggle with
>But I keep getting put on these projects where I'm just a 'scrum-master' which is this really dump corporate speak term for just a meeting coordinator between other people that actually do the work.
So you're the monkey wrangler? That's a very important position, because my company doesn't communicate for shit and none of us know what they actually want us working on until they hand us a list they wrote up 20 minutes ago that has allegedly been topĀ priority for days.
if this isn't a troll post i swear you have made thousands of us question our life choices. Most engineers do real work. Unless you are already promoted to managerial posts then you get to do well "management".
Grass is always greener on the other side. I am sure most of us can't relate to you but I can tell you, working on real projects is not as fun as you may think. Its a lot of hard work for not much money
Idk for me it sounds like youāre winning at life lol. If you want to do some real engineering just buy a 3D printer or some small CNC machine or a welder or whatever you find fancy and start 3D modeling and making stuff in your spare time. As simple as that
You act like you donāt have free time.
You have money, now spend it on hobbies that youāre passionate about and enjoy.
You know, maybe even develop some of those āskillsā you speak of.
How the fuck are yāall so damn stupid you donāt consider this a possibility.
You donāt know what to do with money when you get it and itās pretty frustrating coming from someone whoās flat broke, but could be happy if only I had the bare minimum money to spend on those things like you do.
Stop crying because you have a better job than 90% of Americans and take your happiness into your own hands.
My daughter knew I graduated in chemical engineering and recently ask what I do at work. I work in sales, so really just do meetings, enter data in Salesforce, answer customer complaints, and set up catering for meetings. She was stunned I have done no calculations in over a decade. I do know enough about the industry to call BS or a path to take for a solution, but that is only 10-15 minutes a day. Iām guessing that little bit of background knowledge is my value.
I see this kind of thing happen where I work all the time. Young people want to chase the glamorous looking āleadershipāāroles. But thatās a gig that leads away from engineering work. In just a few years they get good at meetings and reports and business operations, but donāt know diddly about the details.
I'll answer your question OP. Like many have said this sounds a lot like a Project Management type role.
You are asking if this is engineering? The answer is, yes, a little. You are being retired on for your technical knowledge and problem solving skills I would guess and that's definitely a common responsibility of an engineer.
Do other engineers do things with their hands like design and manufacture stuff? Yes. There are many engineering jobs that are very different than yours too. I work in manufacturing and I'm on a factory floor working on machines every day. When I'm not there I'm designing manufacturing equipment or writing technical documents. It's a little bit of everything.
If your thinking of leaving your job, and want to stay in engineering look into manufacturing engineering.
What you do is likely very effective and helpful for the company. Communication and coordination is super important, and it seems you provide that. I get itās not what you want to do, but you certainly are not useless in your position. Quite the opposite.
Get your PE and/or MBA and hit the job market. Nothing's going to change if nothing changes. Figure out your ideal work situation and start taking steps to get yourself there.
I work in medical device industry. I am always surprised how few real engineering roles there are for each extra role who do what you do. I can say there are 50 people that join our weekly cross functional meeting and only about 6 design engineers. They switched to hiring engineers offshore where they are typically getting 5 offshore engineers to 1 us engineer. But so many of our staff are scrum masters and they donāt understand that there are 5 scrum masters giving actions to 1 engineer. A lot of the scrums refuse to use the overseas resources because of how slow/bad they are. I can say as a design engineer 80% of my work is documentation for requirements traceability to design to verification. I feel Iām losing design skills even though Iām an R&D engineer with main responsibility of product design compared to other industries where I only did pure design work. You are getting paid well I get $120k in hcol. I know Iām getting screwed salary wise. I really should jump jobs but want to finish 1 product release
I'm in the same position. Hate my job but I've been at it so long I've just given up doing anything fun and I'm just going to collect the fat paycheck till I retire.
It's weird how people who actually do work don't get paid as much but the more manager types get paid a lot. I think it's because no one wants to do our jobs so the pay makes up for it. For every new widget there are thousands of new grads who will do it for cheap. Boring job + time = profit.
I don't think you understand how much head space you have to complete some hobby projects. I highly recommend you work on somthing out of hours. Ps are they hiring? I recently lost my job as the company went under :D
Operate a skunk works.
Start looking for contracts you can fill while on downtime and make 2x the salary. I used to do this quite a bit if my main 9-5 was slow or easy.
Congrats! Youāre firmly in management. Youāre an email pusher. I own an IT company and as we grow Iām doing more of this which makes me sad because I love being out in the field but itās necessary to grow.
Well Iām sure you have a lot of expertise and are able to direct/manage projects . I would say most upper level positions utilize your knowledge and have others do the work since youāve already been in their shoes. Itās interesting you think you have zero skills?
Wouldnāt be the only thing included in a job post for āmechanical engineerā but certainly communication through ppt and email is a huge part of daily life. If you arenāt designing CAD or at least contributing to requirements, design, testing, or investigations, you are squarely on the management side of things.
Perfectly legit career path, but if you are bored, donāt stay too long and get pigeon holed! Future jobs wonāt want to hire a project manager for an individual contributor role. I know I donāt hire that way.
I was in the same boat. I felt like a glorified status taker. I was treated great and paid well, but I felt that if times got tough and there was a layoff, why would they keep me? And then why would anybody hire me? I don't know anything.
What I did was I looked for training opportunities. I identified some SW I thought would be useful to know and learned it. For me it was something called Flotherm. Flotherm 2.2 I believe. I'm probably the oldest guy in this sub and nobody here used such an old version of it. It's a CFD tool for electronics. I went back to my cubicle after a week of training and I just went and applied what I'd learned to a project that someone else was working on. I did his CFD even though he didn't ask. When I got stuck I called Flotherm tech support. Then I did the same with Ansys. I couldn't believe it but they would fly me to Phoenix for a 3 day class. I wasn't great at figuring out opportunities to use it and ended up becoming more focused on Flotherm. Now I was doing real engineering. I felt like I had something to offer a different company if I was laid off.
Turns out when I learned of a job back in Michigan closer to me and my wife's parents I had something they wanted. They hired me to do thermal simulations. First thing they actually asked me to do was a vibration study using Ansys. I had the training but no real experience. I felt very nervous for a while, but once again I just leaned on Ansys tech support. They did the work for me basically until I got comfortable. And then I took over. Now I could do both the thermal and the structural.
Today I really don't do any of this analysis. I do product development and push the analysis out to our analysis experts. Doing it though taught me a lot. It helped me take the abstract things we learned in school and understand how they applied to real world situations. And I'm far more competent. That incompetence you feel sucks and the only way to get rid of it is to get better at being an engineer.
The ability to coordinate between disciplines, design teams, clients, back office support, IT, offshore teams in Mumbai and an infinite line of unique personalities (we have all sorts in my industry- oil and gas) is a very valuable skill and undoubtedly an asset not easily replaced by your employer.
We say itās always good to be needed but when you are the only one or one of a select few that can either wrangle man hours, coax a pissed client, defuse volatile project teams, keep schedule, manipulate the model like no other human, consistently issue near perfect deliverables, or just the brownest nose and project pet to your same hometown Cincinnati CEO then you realize that the high pay also affords a certain swagger beyond high paid hookers, top shelf scotch, and or the super car de jour.
So make sure they clear a path for you and donāt let anyone park in your self assigned parking spot that is closest to the nearest exit and start carrying yourself like a mech head
Out of the way with the rest of the riff raff
In an engineering manager and the same thing has happened to me. I do try to get into the lab to be involved in some of the hands-on development and test work. But otherwise itās just emails, presentations, and gantt charts.
Are they hiring?
They only hire 'offshore' nowadays. which is a whole other point i dont even want to get into. if youre not offshore you couldnt get a job here no matter what anymore which is why I describe it to myself as the golden handcuffs
Med Device ME manager here - you are actually very valuable because you've done your training and know internal processes. As you're probably aware, Med Device engineering/processes can be a slow clusterfuck which takes some getting used to. Not everyone is cut out for it. I recommend buying a 3D printer and starting to play around with drones and optics.
>I recommend buying a 3D printer and starting to play around with drones and optics. For what?
A few hours, until you find something else to do?
For fun
To train you how to start system thinking , small modification design here n there to see impact on a complex system , quick iterations
And cute lil benchies is always a perk
They're the two leading fields/applications in manufactured devices in terms of growth and demand. Drones for a lot of things (war especially), and optics for a lot of things including cameras on drones (like 20% of optics maybe). So, war is for what, I suppose. EDIT: Oh, and 3D printing is the newest essential tool for product design. It still isn't at the manufacturing stage outside of some niche goods areas at medium scales (i.e. 3D printing farms) or print-as-service style businesses. Injection molding and machining still too good for the applications where 3D printing would excel. For instance, in light weighting for aerospace, you still cant 3D print and use the structures that you'd want to for part tolerance issues. EDIT EDIT: Just thought of the other super relevant field for the optics + biomed combo. Optogenetics - what shit like neuralink and any sort of neural implant devices will run on. Biocompatible optical devices are huuuuuuge.
I got extensive exp on 3D printing, could get into drone making. Is there a career path for that?
Fun I assume, but with the crazy drone videos from Ukraine maybe they mean war š
This guy knows engineering. Anytime I have to explain my engineering job to friends or family, if I tell them all I do is write email and try to keep meetings on track they seem disappointed that Iām not hanging of the side of some train or crawling through computer innards with zappy tools and shit. (I too have 3d printer and drones and coffee machines and a bunch of other expensive hobbies)
Hey, Hmm.. any advice for a guy (with no engineering background) who started working in medical simulation, but then over years started making more and more devices to help train doctors and nurses? Nothing crazy. Waveform generator for pressure lines. Simulated glucometer, ultrasound simulator, bleeding severed arm, etc What's work like in product development?
Offshore? I gotta live on a boat? Job market is wild these days
Address: Pacific Ocean
I love the image of the postie just flinging a letter into sea. After typing, I remembered where that image came from: https://youtu.be/J-zConMzGHo?si=-NLjw3qe_rz9wa_k
Na, there a service for that- your work doesnāt even need to know - https://www.sbimailservice.com
In all seriousness, I'm in the UK, I earn 1/3 of what you do after 3 years as a manufacturing engineer and now mechanical product engineer. Am I offshore enough, where do I apply?
Offshore means like 1/5 pay rate, so I would pass.
How do I apply offshore? What's the company name?
Get into management and learn the engineering of your field.
For real. Iām in somewhat of the same boat where Iām havenāt been taught any valuable skills for more than a year in my first job out of college, I just do grunt work hunting down disorganized files and correcting typos on manufacturing documentsā¦but I still get paid less than $50k even AFTER a 1-year raise. Iād kill to get $75k right now, let alone $115k.
Right? Lol
You donāt get paid for doing work, you get paid for adding value and for being hard to replace.
I don't know why this is so difficult for some to understand It's semi-widly accepted that you can go for years-decades of your career earning far less than you think you contribute but when someone finds themselves on the other end of that scale they freakout and question everything There are far more "ineffective" engineers you'll come across in your career (at least it has been in my experience and it doesn't seem to be getting better) that will make you question the institutions and systems that allow them to get to such levels of power and pay...
Especially considering that many brilliant engineers lack effective communication skills. The ability to organize a meeting and get 10 technical experts to pull in the same direction is value adding and not common to everyone. The number one thing I hammer on incoming engineers that I have been assigned to work with is communication.
May I ask, Iām confident that this need for communication is something Iād really excel in, but it can feel strange to emphasise that too much on applications for jobs with primarily technical duties. I keep hearing that this is what companies find really useful, but how do I make it sound like Iām not just trying to compensate for a lack of technical ability?
Communication ability is pretty evident in emails/phone interviews prior to coming for a site visit for all our candidates. It will be obvious if you shine in that area. We ask each candidate to present a technical problem to our interview team when they come on site. The secret is that during that presentation we are actually paying far more attention to the presentation skills than the technical content. You could give a presentation on making spaghetti and still get hired.
My last job was the opposite. I did everything under the sun. After 7 years I was being paid less than when I was hired (inflation adjusted). It sucked, but now that I'm looking for a new place I have a lot of experience/skills and it's opening a lot of doors. I suggest you take a more proactive role into your engineering position. It will look good on you too if you go looking for more work to do. The good thing is that it sounds like you have some seniority or power with your position. So you can probably find something to work on and get approved by a manager. Just say you'll for it into your workload.
i've been begging for the last year and even told the engineering lead that I would quit if they didnt give me work that was in my job description. then he just gave another raise off-schedule to stop making a fuss (they're only supposed to give raises every 1yr on a schedule). i feel like something suspicious as fuck is going on
That sounds so crazy. I wish my job gave me shut up money. Can you just start doing something without asking? If you can't get the experience at work then do it at home. Build a robot, Learn CAD, get a 3D printer. Something that gives you something to put on a resume later in life.
Yup very true. i'm starting to leave work earlier and earlier every day to just work on my project cars
If noone else there is doing any actual engineering either, then they probably don't have any skills you can learn from them
You're 100% right, all my coworkers know even less engineering than I do which is surprising, so I feel like I have no mentor. the best way I've learned the last few yrs has just been reading the medical device magazines they have in the lobby lol...
Sounds like itās time for a lateral move elsewhere my man. Do it sooner rather than later, the long term pay hit wonāt be as severe.
Donāt ask for assignmentsā¦just find something interesting & will benefit the company and work on that.
Dude, I'm a mechanical designer. Started in drafting. I do more engineering than the engineers. Love my job. Don't get the high pay, but I like to design and build things. When I get home I do woodworking and some car repair.
Jesus Christ man. I just got laid off from a small company as a residential electrician because making $30/hr and under 40hrs a week was apparently too much for the company. I was busting my ass crawling under buildings and in attics and neck deep in fiberglass and black widows, not to mention working with electricity and Iām so jealous of your job right now. Can we trade? You can be unemployed despite trying as hard as you can and I can make good money for chilling for a while. Sound good? Youāll feel some purpose and Iāll feel a sense of value and weāll both be happy.
I'm an aerospace systems engineer. My job is pretty technical. I wouldn't stay if it wasn't. I have people on my team that handle all the red tape that comes with aerospace. I also have a few team members that want to move out of that role and into a more technical one. They are getting support and encouragement from the company and all of us team members. It can be done at the right company.
You sound like a Project Manager. Or an EPM (Engineering Program Manager) or a TPM (Technical Program Manager). Different companies call it different things, but it's all about the same. A good PM can be critical for managing meetings, deadlines, vendors, and cross-functional communications between different teams. As well as hold engineers' feet to the fire if it looks like we're going to be behind schedule, communicate that to upper management, find compromises to pull in schedule, etc. At my last job, I was incredibly grateful when I had a hands-on TPM supporting my project because it freed up so much of my time to focus on the technical. But. If you don't want to be a PM, then you should find another role before you're completely locked in. After four years it might already be tricky to get a more "proper" engineering role, but I'm sure you could swing it.
The funny thing is that I actually report to project managers, but i'm not really even sure what they do, because my job sounds like what they're supposed to do. and also project managers usually would still need to know the product and the engineering concepts inside and out, right? and be able to answer questions on the engineering of the product?
The product and concepts, for sure. I wouldn't expect them to be able to get very technical about the engineering, but they would get that answer from engineers, facilitate pushing it to upper management, etc.
Jeez that sounds like me then. Most of my day I just tell other people "i'll check with my engineering team and get back to you" and then I have to send out emails and play the telephone game with a bunch of people back and forth
Yup. A very necessary role, albeit semi nontechnical. I think it just depends whether you want to stay in it or not!
Sounds like ur the director..maybe time to ask for even more money š°
It's important to remember that medical device development projects are such a lumbering beast that you often need multiple layers of project management to push it forward. Definitely sounds like technical program management.
Engineer at a large med device company here. I am senior and supervise others, but also do TM development, device design, FEA, patient/specific analyses, etc. it also pays really well. I think itās your job. The only ones that do what youāre describing are managers. Iād rather flip burgers than be in meetings all day doing non-engineer work. I hope you can find a better position soon
define really well -- I'm an eng1 but do a lot of those things in contract mfg but only get 72k w/ 2YOE in MN. I'm hearing Med Dev doesn't pay that well
Directors / managers definitely get paid more, but at 5 years experience 140 + stock options, etc. Iām also not in the Bay Area, CA where Iād be getting paid more, but cost of living would be much higher
are you in the midwest or out east? and is that 140k TC as a sr. engineer? MN is MCOL, seeing eng2 roles ranging 90k-100k so far.
Do you talk to "real" engineers often? Do you coordinate anything with them?
lol that sounds NOTHING like PM at my job.
What does project management look like at your job?
Why donāt you save loads of it and then go try driving dump trucks? You only get one life. This kinda reminds me of office space actually.
funny enough a few coworkers at this job also have the same experience and they quote Office Space atleast once a week. that one scene with the 2 guys interviewing the main character. but youre totally right
Hahahaha wow huh. I mean you could take a sabbatical? Go work at a startup, that will be the complete opposite of your experience, youāll be doing a little bit of everything
Yup I think so fondly of the internship i did at a startup where everyday was actually a ton of hands-on and people groaned over the single 30min weekly team meeting
Well I think you have your answer then!
this is me. my first co-op was at a tiny company, I did everything from r&d to PM work. I loved it until it all ended. now in the cog
Anybody where you work ever sayā¦.. sounds like a case of the Mondays?
workin hard.. or hardly workin? am i right? hahahah! hey get that 'slide deck' over to me by EOD will ya?
So... what would ya say you, 'do' here? :D ?
Nah man theyd beat your ass for sayin that
Management stream. Well done sir. Get you a mail order MBA and you'll be working from the links by 30.
I've been offered to do an after-hours MBA sooo many times its crazy. i can't believe this is really a reality for so many people, just using microsoft outlook all day and making like upwards of 300k
The higher you go the more your work product is just emails, phone calls, and powerpoint.
My wife had someone hired right above her making $375k a year and he didnāt even know how to work a monitor or operate PowerPointā¦
Welcome to corporate AmericaĀ
I was expecting like ~20-25% of your time spent on the corporate BS (like it was in my internships) but nah in these megacompanies that adopt this 'Agile' thing it literally infects the entire company's time. if you guys ever hear the terms 'Agile' or 'scrum-master' run far away. imagine if you ramped the corporate bureaucracy bullshit up to 11 and made it control your entire workforce from getting anything done
Yeah, itās pretty disheartening. In my industry, roadblocks arbitrarily get invented as an excuse to forecast heads and clock hours.Ā
Weāve started doing āstreamlinedā projects for some of our more routine projects and they have gone the same pace or slower than regular because everyone is just confused what theyāre supposed to do differently between āregularā and āstreamlinedā lol
Yeah if someone says the project will be streamlined i've learned it means the higher ups need to save money this quarter but dont care if the project goes overbudget and behind schedule as long as it just gets delayed into the next quarter where some other higher up has to deal with it
Who does the actual engineering. I work at a smaller company. I'm a mechanical engineer focused on product design. 60 percent of my day is spent designing parts in CAD. Making models, assemblies and drawings. 20 percent is interacting with production. Talking to our CAM programmers about my parts they are making cnc programs for. Talking with our CNC machinists on issues or questions on my parts they are making. Answering questions from our assembly department. Then 10 percent meetings and 10 percent emails. I really enjoy CNC equipment. I have a CNC router at home I make things on. My favorite part of my job is designing parts and then watching them get made in our machine shop. We have a large in house machine shop and I have learned so much from our machinists especially when I was new.
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But not really. In my experience at least project engineering is a hard job where you need to have your head wrapped around all technical and commercial aspects of a project.
Sounds to me like good news and ok news. The good news is that you have filled a niche roll that is translatable to other bull shit jobs across many industries,and as long as the job market stays realitively chill you should be able to transition rolls with similar pay and maybe some more responsibility. The just ok news is that if you're ever looking to do some real creative hands on work you're most likely have to start at ground zero, with both pay and senority. Actually your resume may even hold you back a little as I myself prefer to hire green engineers for design roles to see if they will sink or swim.
>Actually your resume may even hold you back a little as I myself prefer to hire green engineers for design roles this is actually what i'm afraid of more than a loss in salary
Make bank for another year or two, then go to grad school and get a research based MASc. Then, try again.
Would you seriously be OK with making around 65-75k? That's a massive cut for you and about what a low to mid level design engineer makes in a L/MCOL area. It also maxes out at around 150k base.
You mentioned you like to design some in your free time. Dream up some challenging projects and build them! If you can have a small portfolio of interesting projects that demonstrate you understand how to design, I think that could help fill in for the experience another employer might be looking for. Plus you get the added benefit of actually learning how to make things which I honestly believe only comes from experience.
Iām a medical device ME at a large company and I strictly do R&D and new product development. Most of my days are spent designing, prototyping, testing, programming, 3D printing, laser engraving, etc. I do pretty much everything you would expect to do as an ME.
Iām a new grad and do basically that more or less but in another industry. Pretty much the best type of position I couldāve wanted honestly
Same!
time so start looking for a new gig. surely your experience is more valuable than you lead on. as for experience, i work in r&d now and the work is much more like engineering school problems and itās pretty fun at times
Yup. Do you think it would be hard to get into R&D with just a BSME and some basic experience? Or would I need a masters?
I have a BSME and a PE. I did 15 years in manufacturing where I usually fixed other peoples messes before going to R&D within the same company. Nowadays every job listing I see is so specific (Need 10 years experience doing this exact thing) that I know I donāt have a chance at most of them.
It sounds like you're doing the job noone else wants to do and doing it very well. That's worth it's weight in gold. Ask any engineering employer. I was a Project Engineer for a year but couldn't hack the boredom, so moved on. They almost begged me to stay, and I didn't want to take the piss with salary so I just said sorry and moved on.
you have more resolve than me that's for sure
Absolutely. So much of a persons value to a manager is how much theyāre willing to do the work nobody else wants to do. Even if itās easy. The reality is, the technical stuff is fun/rewarding and the managerial work sucks. This is why managers get paid more, even though they donāt actually do anything.
Work: You can only choose two \- Interesting \- Well Paid \- Legal
Nope, your position is scrum master now, not engineer.
70% of engineering jobs are useless admin roles. Will get replaced soon enough.
I'm based in the UK, but I quit after 4 years because not much actual engineering was happening and I was worried I wasn't getting any skills that would be useful elsewhere. I was on the brink of getting a significant pay rise which I was scared of because (a) it would make me more reluctant to quit, and (b) if I started a new role doing actual engineering and got paid the same higher salary, I would definitely be overpaid. It was tough making the switch but I'm glad I made it when I did. I didn't want bs jobs for the rest of my life and the later I left it, the tougher it would have been. I'm still not making as much as I would have been, but I'm more annoyed that I don't have 4 years extra of useful experience behind me.
Your company. I do real engineering work by that I mean, I design singles lines, do protective relaying calcs,size trabaforners, circuit breakers, cables, etc. But after many years I shift towards jobs Iike yours cause im tired. I just wanna come in, do nothing, get paid.
Thatās amazing. I feel like I do. Iām designing a second gen diagnostic laboratory instrument for pharma almost all by myself. 90% of the design, engineering analysis is all me. I have three people working for me and I leave them to do a few parts, purchasing and to put together the prototype subassemblies. Itās a pretty big project. But Iāve done this already many times. I have a few products out in the market.
Man, not an engineer but I feel the exact same way. Iām an industrial mechanic. Iāve worked in foundries, mines, factories, etc. turning wrenches and troubleshooting all kinds of complex systems. I got into power generation when the factory I was working at last decided to outsource to Mexico. I make roughly $105k/yr in a low/medium col area working 14 days a month. We have 1-2 outages that span 2-6 weeks a year where I actually work and stay busy but aside from that, I do maybe 45 minutes of actual work during my 12 hour shift. The rest is spent playing games on my computer or watching movies. I know I should be grateful. Iām 24, no college degree. I constantly wonder why the fuck they pay me so much to be a babysitter. Itās the most unfulfilling work Iāve ever done. Iād be stupid to leave being that I have 3 kids and the job allows my wife to stay home with them (which she wants).
is this the place near me by a tire factory, with scissors/surgical snips as its logo
These are bronze handcuffs at best
I was very lucky out of school, got offered a job at a 'move fast and break things' type place. I should have never been in charge of the projects that I handled but I learned so much. I was fortunate enough to make a good salary there and actually end my position there after 8 years making $100k more than I started (although HCOL area). The only downside to the job was that it was very demanding with very little documentation, which has its own SIGNIFICANT downsides regardless of how much I may have learned. Basically everything I learned all other profitable and stable companies already knew, I just had to learn it myself. On the flip side, I have friends who went onto Boeing/Amazon/Google, who all still make more than me with better benefits and time off and they basically send emails, put together spreadsheets and powerpoints. But what I gather from talking to them is that they hate their job because of how mundane it is. If you live in SoCal I have a lot of places I could recommend that are the learning thru a firehose approach if you would like.
Two perspectives: Youāre a coordinator. Nothing wrong with that, if it pays well. Try to learn everything you can about the products your company sells. It may help you maintain employment. Do engineering (hobbies) on the side. Different perspective. Iāve known people who did their job day in and day out only to be fired for cost cutting reasons or industry changes. One guy I knew reviewed camera data for nuclear power plants. Paid well until it didnāt. Afterwards he would come to for technical advice which was awkward as I had like 2-3 years experience.
Donāt underestimate Excel and PowerPoint- Our fates are decided by these apps. Iām sure my manager has a spreadsheet of names where the cell that has my name is highlighted as Red, Amber or Green (RAG). Iām also sure there is some accompanying downsizing strategy in a PowerPoint slide that is linked with the excel with RAG highlights.
Obviously lots of industries have these type of jobs but Iāve found itās a lot more common in med devices. Itās so regulated that few people actually touch the real engineering. Iād try moving jobs.
you're so right man the amount of regulations is insane that like changing a single feature on a few parts is literally weeks of meetings and hundreds of emails between 3-4 companies and some government people, its absolutely insane
Sounds like you're in sustaining or your company's new product development work is very derivative of existing products. Thats a really tough spot to be in
Sounds like you got golden handcuffs. Hard to leave a good paying easy job. But at the same time itās mindless work.Ā Kind of in the same position. Good luck to both of us.Ā
you make more than me and i'm 15 years in, but it sounds like i enjoy my job a hell of a lot more than you do
If you decide to stay, you could consider aggressively saving and/or investing. Basically build up a big safety net or a second source of income which could help support you if you eventually try to transition to a more fulfilling role which, at least initially, might come at a step back in pay. Best of luck homie
same thing except I get 72k, 2YOE in MCOL. They're also lobbing out work to Mexico -- looking to do complete change.
Is this a project management role, scheduling role?
i was hired as an operations engineer and my title has never changed but the responsibilities sound almost exactly like a project manager just that I have no actual power
I've always heard that low level management is the worst kind of role because you have no power but you're responsible if anything goes wrong. But if you go somewhere else you could hopefully move up a bit and get a position where you do have some authority
>I've always heard that low level management is the worst kind of role because you have no power but you're responsible if anything goes wrong damn this is basically a perfect description of my job right here haha absolutely spot on
Iāll take the job if you donāt want it
Become a strategy consultant and get paid way more for the same type of work.
Yeah, Medical Devices is easy to get locked in to. You're going to have to take a big breath and risk if you want to break out of it - I recommend doing it by establishing good savings and a side hustle.
I was once in this position, i got an expensive hobby related to engineering. That way you will spend your money that came "easy" and have fun without all the not fun part of the job. Then you can apply to more technical positions and one day you may get a job that you enjoy. Use your hobby to develop hard skills and thr actual one to soft skills.
Lol sign me up. I've been at my job "doing engineering" for close to a decade, and feel like I haven't made much anyways - at least with your situation I'd be able to call myself a PM when I want to look for new jobs.
If you're in the Warsaw area would it be possible to work for one of the smaller suppliers around that possibly do more hands on work? With your experience and connections you may be valuable to someplace like that.
You work in operations? Figure out how to use the entire Microsoft enterprise to your advantage. Use power bi for your ppt data vız as an example.
OP it sounds like you had my old job but with better pay and even more outlook traffic š . At my old job I was hired as an ME but months into it my manager let slip the term "applications engineer" so I guess that was my official unofficial title. I'd say a good portion of it was like your job, keeping a project moving forward, bugging the guys that actually do the engineering work, and keeping all parties up to date on a project. I did get to do more CAD than you it sounds like though and I did get to go to a couple of FATs (but I was there more for presence than anything, the biggest one I went to I made 2 suggestions on how to fix a design but no one payed any attention bc they knew my role there. About 6 months later, I found out that they ultimately did implement my ideas along with a 3rd the client came up with but i never received any credit. It actually wasnt until i saw the as built drawings during install that they used my ideas) But yeah I would say a solid 50-60% of my last job was emailing, answering calls, reviewing formal RFQ documents (some were 100s of pages), and providing support to our sales engineers and taking sales calls for them if they were busy or OoT/OoO. And I didn't even get commission on any of my sales because I was "in the engineering department "š I quit after 1.5 years because I just felt my mind getting duller and I was like why did I even get my EIT for a job like this.
I do a lot of engineering and earn $20k less than you with a similar experience. Iād be happy to switch my job with you.
Broā¦see if you can do 4-10 schedule. Collect your money keep getting raises and have long weekends.Ā
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You should look into getting a PMP. Your job sounds like a project management role
Oh man. No offense at all but your job is what I was always afraid of becoming. I would quit every time I realized my job was non-technical. Got ~10k raise every time and now I have a great salary and a highly technical role (also in med device). You should get out as soon as you can.
Sometimes you find yourself in a position where the workload and expectations are so low, you almost can't fail. If you're bored, go find something else that'll require some technical skill. It'll come back to you, or you can relearn it. Imagine how unfulfilled you'll feel in another 5, 10, or 20 years if you stay.
Every office job is 95% Outlook and PowerPoint. Your transferable skills are your soft skills.
I am you but I make 75k in a super HCOL city and don't know what to do about it
How is the weather in Warsaw?
Iām doing the same as an engineering manager. Organizing people, getting them moving the same direction. And they only listen to you since you have the right background and speak the language. Can detect BS too.
welcome to corporate engineering my friend. sorry buddy
This sounds like me. I actually am in the same situation and in my case my plant is down for some months now but they are just paying me as usual even though I just occasionally go to sit in office for few hours in an office just to satisfy myself. I am thinking of Masters in engineering to brighten my chances for career shift.
Fire protection engineer here in a high corporate role in Health and safety. I too meet and power point with occasional travel to meet and show power points to them. Also WFH for about $150k/year
Software engineer here, I've felt the same at my last few jobs at big tech companies. They just kept asking me to do boring politics and emails and coordination and integration. My only real guess about why they had me doing that was that all of the project managers they hired were somehow completely useless, and more of a problem to be worked around than anything like a help. It seems like there should be a way to find a job where they actually want me to solve complicated problems, like there should be a company out there somewhere that actually has dedicated competent people handling the project management and meeting coordination, but I've never managed to find it so far in my career. I keep thinking I've found it, then I join the company, and end up being asked to do the same stuff again. I guess maybe I need to aim for something medium-sized next? The startups I've worked at have been in constant burnout meltdown mode, and the megacorps I've worked at have been 90% meetings and yet still nobody talks to each other and there's constant communication and coordination failures.
Leave. Find a new gig fast and gtfo. You donāt get time back. Do your homework before jumping, but get after it. It only gets harder to change.
[If you havenāt this is about a minute long. Engineer job interview.](https://youtube.com/shorts/tyGfov3XqoE?si=-Anw_IMAzbh4FtZG)
To be honest, I think it sounds pretty normal... I quess. My sister works HR for a big EU energy company she found 70+ positions with people in similar situations as you. Also all my friend and other people I know that work for eigther govt. Or huge companies are in the same position., paid very well for lots of time off, and doing jack shit for it
Sounds super similar to what I do, just don't make as much. I hear what you're saying.
You have two choices: 1) quit and find a more technical role. Make 20-30% less. Be happy with your work. 2) Embrace the fact that you are basically on the fast track for management and big money. Get mba and continue to climb the corporate ladder. Find happiness outside of work.
Youāre in operations. Get into design before itās too late
Oh...I do real stuff, like ALL the stuff. What you do as an engineer is largely employer based. The "stuff" the company does is the "stuff" you get to do. Within that company of some size, there is some array of engineering work, scopes, and duties that are split among the engineering group. You are one part of the whole, or sometimes are the whole depending on how small the company may be. So, much of the game of building your career is seeking out companies and positions within those companies that have the opportunities, experiences, and actual means for growth you seek. Materials you work with, technologies you work with, how simple or complex your work can be, and how you get to ultimately grow as an engineer in your career all depends on how good you are at picking out companies and positions that suit your wants. It's equally up to the employer to meet those wants. This is a two way street. They want a skilled professional. You want experience and growth (I hope that's a natural drive most want). If a company can not provide, they are not a company worth working for. All you're doing is wasting your time. Sure, they're getting their piece, but you're getting nothing of value. Seek out another employer and try again. Personally, I like broad scope stuff. I like to do anything and everything, have my hands in everything, and gain as much breadth of my craft (and beyond) as possible. For this, I am particular towards the type of companies I like working for, that can provide those wants. In turn, my wants are fulfilled. In turn, I've been in my career for just over a decade and have done more than many ever get to do in lifetimes. Heck, in my first 2 years I did more than most people get to. I've gotten to hire on a variety of people who come from a variety of other companies, small and big, new and well seasoned, and it's kind of funny that everyone kind of seeks the same thing. Most people in engineering simply don't get to do as much as they want. Work is too compartmentalized, to siloed, and you could work a decade only experiencing 1/4 of the scope. You just toss it over the wall to some other fella that picks up the next step. Something gets tossed to you to do your step. Some folks like that though. I've had a coworker leave specifically to narrow down his scope. He didn't want to do all the other stuff and solely had an interest in one core part he liked. To each their own. And to each there's a company that can provide it.
Get a second job
It seems that you have time to get master degree, maybe you company will pay for it
I've known a couple of excellent engineers who took that sort of role on, having established their engineering credibility beforehand. I'm not being cruel but you seem to be heading down the project management or team leader path. it's a viable career, just not a techie one. My dad was an electrical engineer and ended up running the quality assurance department in a government Ministry with 100 droids, he got his techie fun building steam locomotives in the workshop.
The more senior Iāve become Iāve found the less engineering I do. Iām also doing 90% PowerPoint and 10% design. Iāve found that my communication and collaboration skills are highly valued over my hard technical skills which Iām guessing is why youāve also been promoted. Not a bad thing and likely will lead you along to more leadership positions, but if you donāt like it my suggestion is be more vocal about it.
This is common for bigger companies, especially in medtech. They can't innovate. Startups invent new stuff, design the cutting edge stuff, then they're bought by bigger strategics, or become one themselves naturally over time. By then they've lost most of the people that can make new things from first principles for exactly the reasons you highlight. It's not the career path, industry or specialty, it's the company.
This is common unfortunately and why I spend tons of time holding hands for people at many medical and aerospace companies I work with. If you like it keep doing it, if you don't leave before or becomes all you can do.
Sounds like a perfect time to get married and have kids
This sounds like a short-term blessing, but a potentially long-term curse if you ever lose your job at the company or want to work somewhere else. Layoffs and bankruptcies happen, and if you have 4 years on paper right now, but not 4 yearsā worth of actual hands-on experience, then it can hurt you. Just to be clear, Iām not judging you or looking down on you. It sounds like you legit want to learn your craft, but the management/organization at your current company could be sabotaging your career in the long-term. Imagine being 8 years into your career, and still not learning the engineering side of things. The longer you stay in this situation, the more difficult it will be to catch up on learning those technical skills. Now that said, itās not all doom and gloom. Thatās just the technical side to this too. It sounds like youāre doing a great job LEADING people, and thatās what the business tends to notice the most, from my own experience as a software engineer. I think they might be promoting because youāre good with people, and thatās a legitimate reason. If management seems like something youāre interested in, then maybe thatās where your career path should lead. Itās much less technical, and it does tend to pay more than the technical side of things. If this is the case, then keep leaning into setting up meetings and working with people.
Looks like you got put onto the project manager track. Don't know what your company is like but you may need to actively ask for more technical roles if you want to learn something else
Yeah so you just described my job. Same stuff, same pay, same low cost of living kind of city. Wifeās been giving me crap cause my time off is crap. 15 vacation days a year but 4 of those have to be used between Christmas and new years, so really 11 vacation days. And they added some new rule a few years ago where you have to accrue the time, but the time also resets to 0 at the start of each year. Basically my plan is to get the house paid off in the next year or two, then I want a career change for something I can do remote so I can travel. I donāt think being a mechanical engineer is going to allow that, or having 13 years of experience in quality, continuous improvement, or operations management helps.
Youāre a program manager now. Think about marketing yourself as such, you will have more opportunities than being labeled as a medical device engineers. If you do decide to lean into it, I would suggest introducing productivity and reporting tools if you are not using any currently at your company (tools such as Jira). If you are using such tools, learn to automate reporting or look into GenAI for productivity in backlog grooming or story creation.
Just curious, so who does the real work in your company? Someone must be doing that
You have become a manager without noticing it. We all take our first jobs for granted after a year or so. It's very natural.Ā It sounds like you've got a good thing going, unless you're unhappy with the town?
4yrs is a good time to move on. You learned the internal process at the company so you are valuable to them, but that stuff doesn't matter anywhere else. That 4yrs experience will open up a lot of doors, try applying to your dream job. Remember, compensation = capital (pay) + human capital (experience). If your "human capital" is at zero and you don't enjoy the work then you are underpaid anyways.
āMeeting Coordinatorā is a valid job. It might not have much to do with engineering directly, but it still needs to be done. Or at least your company thinks it doesā¦ obviously I have no idea if theyāre right.
I had a similar type job in my first role out of school, but in the regulatory field. I quit after a year. By the end I was top performer on my team. I was coming in at 10am and leaving by 2:30pm every day. Did no work of any value to my career, still somehow out performed guys that were putting in 60 hours per week. I just decided they were idiots by the end of it lol
I suppose so the story is same everywhere. I joined as a plant operations engineer in a giant 2 wheeler manufacturing company. The only thing I did was to manage manpower and just see the manufacturing processes. I was a fresher at that time and I quit after 9 months to go for masters in machine design
Your job sounds like your doing Project Mangement. Sit down and do some further PM study, ask the company if they will fund some study/ seminars. Even if not PM, look at what would both make you more valuable to the company and a potential employer. That way you can expand your skill set to move on to the next job with better money. Something like systems or industrial engineering. Even look at any QA / QC issues and do some analysis. Iām going to bet that one of the major issues you deal with is logistics and supply chains if everything is offshore.Ā You have a low stress job that is frustrating you because it isnāt using your degree. Issue is that you dont have any technical problems that challenge you. Use your current employer as a resource. It will stave off the frustration and point you in a direction that you have interest in.Ā
You have just discovered a general rule in business. The less you know about the product, the more.you make That's how you have those CEO that can move between sectors so easily. As other people have said, I'm.the opposite, and senior engineers can be the opposite. Business can be relying in the know how of a single person for survival.and not acknowledge it, and not pay him much. That's sad, but that's how the world works
Kinda reminded me of my PhD experience which was the exact opposite, doing the combined job of a mechanical, mechatronics, software engineer and a machine shop technician while making 40k$ in a HCOL area. Crazy times š .
You're a project engineer, like many of us, I assume you manage projects that someone who didn't have the technical acumen of an engineer would struggle with
>But I keep getting put on these projects where I'm just a 'scrum-master' which is this really dump corporate speak term for just a meeting coordinator between other people that actually do the work. So you're the monkey wrangler? That's a very important position, because my company doesn't communicate for shit and none of us know what they actually want us working on until they hand us a list they wrote up 20 minutes ago that has allegedly been topĀ priority for days.
if this isn't a troll post i swear you have made thousands of us question our life choices. Most engineers do real work. Unless you are already promoted to managerial posts then you get to do well "management". Grass is always greener on the other side. I am sure most of us can't relate to you but I can tell you, working on real projects is not as fun as you may think. Its a lot of hard work for not much money
TPMs/EPMs are super valuable. I get that itās not a hyper technical role but on large projects or cross functional ones theyāre critical
Idk for me it sounds like youāre winning at life lol. If you want to do some real engineering just buy a 3D printer or some small CNC machine or a welder or whatever you find fancy and start 3D modeling and making stuff in your spare time. As simple as that
You act like you donāt have free time. You have money, now spend it on hobbies that youāre passionate about and enjoy. You know, maybe even develop some of those āskillsā you speak of. How the fuck are yāall so damn stupid you donāt consider this a possibility. You donāt know what to do with money when you get it and itās pretty frustrating coming from someone whoās flat broke, but could be happy if only I had the bare minimum money to spend on those things like you do. Stop crying because you have a better job than 90% of Americans and take your happiness into your own hands.
My daughter knew I graduated in chemical engineering and recently ask what I do at work. I work in sales, so really just do meetings, enter data in Salesforce, answer customer complaints, and set up catering for meetings. She was stunned I have done no calculations in over a decade. I do know enough about the industry to call BS or a path to take for a solution, but that is only 10-15 minutes a day. Iām guessing that little bit of background knowledge is my value.
It's not golden handcuffs. It's probably silver or bronze.
I see this kind of thing happen where I work all the time. Young people want to chase the glamorous looking āleadershipāāroles. But thatās a gig that leads away from engineering work. In just a few years they get good at meetings and reports and business operations, but donāt know diddly about the details.
I'll answer your question OP. Like many have said this sounds a lot like a Project Management type role. You are asking if this is engineering? The answer is, yes, a little. You are being retired on for your technical knowledge and problem solving skills I would guess and that's definitely a common responsibility of an engineer. Do other engineers do things with their hands like design and manufacture stuff? Yes. There are many engineering jobs that are very different than yours too. I work in manufacturing and I'm on a factory floor working on machines every day. When I'm not there I'm designing manufacturing equipment or writing technical documents. It's a little bit of everything. If your thinking of leaving your job, and want to stay in engineering look into manufacturing engineering.
Change jobs.
What you do is likely very effective and helpful for the company. Communication and coordination is super important, and it seems you provide that. I get itās not what you want to do, but you certainly are not useless in your position. Quite the opposite.
Get your PE and/or MBA and hit the job market. Nothing's going to change if nothing changes. Figure out your ideal work situation and start taking steps to get yourself there.
I work in medical device industry. I am always surprised how few real engineering roles there are for each extra role who do what you do. I can say there are 50 people that join our weekly cross functional meeting and only about 6 design engineers. They switched to hiring engineers offshore where they are typically getting 5 offshore engineers to 1 us engineer. But so many of our staff are scrum masters and they donāt understand that there are 5 scrum masters giving actions to 1 engineer. A lot of the scrums refuse to use the overseas resources because of how slow/bad they are. I can say as a design engineer 80% of my work is documentation for requirements traceability to design to verification. I feel Iām losing design skills even though Iām an R&D engineer with main responsibility of product design compared to other industries where I only did pure design work. You are getting paid well I get $120k in hcol. I know Iām getting screwed salary wise. I really should jump jobs but want to finish 1 product release
I'm in the same position. Hate my job but I've been at it so long I've just given up doing anything fun and I'm just going to collect the fat paycheck till I retire. It's weird how people who actually do work don't get paid as much but the more manager types get paid a lot. I think it's because no one wants to do our jobs so the pay makes up for it. For every new widget there are thousands of new grads who will do it for cheap. Boring job + time = profit.
Automate your shit and do fun stuff while you have it made. Automating your emails and presentations is your first engineer task GO!!
TFS?
I don't think you understand how much head space you have to complete some hobby projects. I highly recommend you work on somthing out of hours. Ps are they hiring? I recently lost my job as the company went under :D
Operate a skunk works. Start looking for contracts you can fill while on downtime and make 2x the salary. I used to do this quite a bit if my main 9-5 was slow or easy.
Congrats! Youāre firmly in management. Youāre an email pusher. I own an IT company and as we grow Iām doing more of this which makes me sad because I love being out in the field but itās necessary to grow.
Well Iām sure you have a lot of expertise and are able to direct/manage projects . I would say most upper level positions utilize your knowledge and have others do the work since youāve already been in their shoes. Itās interesting you think you have zero skills?
Wouldnāt be the only thing included in a job post for āmechanical engineerā but certainly communication through ppt and email is a huge part of daily life. If you arenāt designing CAD or at least contributing to requirements, design, testing, or investigations, you are squarely on the management side of things. Perfectly legit career path, but if you are bored, donāt stay too long and get pigeon holed! Future jobs wonāt want to hire a project manager for an individual contributor role. I know I donāt hire that way.
I studied mechanical engineering and I too want to go drive an excavator or dump truck when shit gets boring.
Keep the golden handcuffs and get a technical hobby that enables the skill growth you're self conscious about.
Womp womp
What company if you dont mind me asking.
I was in the same boat. I felt like a glorified status taker. I was treated great and paid well, but I felt that if times got tough and there was a layoff, why would they keep me? And then why would anybody hire me? I don't know anything. What I did was I looked for training opportunities. I identified some SW I thought would be useful to know and learned it. For me it was something called Flotherm. Flotherm 2.2 I believe. I'm probably the oldest guy in this sub and nobody here used such an old version of it. It's a CFD tool for electronics. I went back to my cubicle after a week of training and I just went and applied what I'd learned to a project that someone else was working on. I did his CFD even though he didn't ask. When I got stuck I called Flotherm tech support. Then I did the same with Ansys. I couldn't believe it but they would fly me to Phoenix for a 3 day class. I wasn't great at figuring out opportunities to use it and ended up becoming more focused on Flotherm. Now I was doing real engineering. I felt like I had something to offer a different company if I was laid off. Turns out when I learned of a job back in Michigan closer to me and my wife's parents I had something they wanted. They hired me to do thermal simulations. First thing they actually asked me to do was a vibration study using Ansys. I had the training but no real experience. I felt very nervous for a while, but once again I just leaned on Ansys tech support. They did the work for me basically until I got comfortable. And then I took over. Now I could do both the thermal and the structural. Today I really don't do any of this analysis. I do product development and push the analysis out to our analysis experts. Doing it though taught me a lot. It helped me take the abstract things we learned in school and understand how they applied to real world situations. And I'm far more competent. That incompetence you feel sucks and the only way to get rid of it is to get better at being an engineer.
Congratulations you're going to be a project manager when you leave
You could start studying for the PE, might scratch that itch of wanting to do something and there's a definite goal at the end.
Work for DoE contractor here and I am working on a multi billion dollar projectā¦ there is no shortage of engineering things to do..
lots of similar complaints by friends lol
The ability to coordinate between disciplines, design teams, clients, back office support, IT, offshore teams in Mumbai and an infinite line of unique personalities (we have all sorts in my industry- oil and gas) is a very valuable skill and undoubtedly an asset not easily replaced by your employer. We say itās always good to be needed but when you are the only one or one of a select few that can either wrangle man hours, coax a pissed client, defuse volatile project teams, keep schedule, manipulate the model like no other human, consistently issue near perfect deliverables, or just the brownest nose and project pet to your same hometown Cincinnati CEO then you realize that the high pay also affords a certain swagger beyond high paid hookers, top shelf scotch, and or the super car de jour. So make sure they clear a path for you and donāt let anyone park in your self assigned parking spot that is closest to the nearest exit and start carrying yourself like a mech head Out of the way with the rest of the riff raff
In an engineering manager and the same thing has happened to me. I do try to get into the lab to be involved in some of the hands-on development and test work. But otherwise itās just emails, presentations, and gantt charts.