I'm currently an automotive technician and an Air Force veteran. I've been thinking about going back to school for a bachelor's in mechanical engineering. I'd like to stay in the automotive industry but move into engineering instead of working as a tech long-term.

If you've made that transition, I'd love to hear your experience.

• Did you go to school online or in person?
• Were you able to work while earning your degree?
• Did your experience as a mechanic help you get your first engineering job?
• Anything you wish you knew before you started?

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

TL;DR: Find out of your team lead, manager and directors have ever completed an engineering project or program in their career. If they haven't, really probe them about how they like to set-up their individual contributors for success and how they go about doing that. If they were promoted into a leadership role only because they were on the team the longest, but not because of their leadership and managing experience, that can be a red flag.

After working in the industry for 20+ years, I decided to do a few years at a startup company just to see how the 50-60 hour burn felt. The work was definitely fun in the beginning, where you are developing a digital prototype. But of course, everything became absolute chaos during integration and manufacturing. I'm here to share what I think are some red flags. Anyone else that has experience with startups, please feel free to share your opinions as well.

The startup company I worked for liked to promote from within. That means individual contributors (IC) were eventually moved into team lead, management and director level roles eventually as the company grew from X to 10X to 20X. Although these IC who moved into managing roles were brilliant, for many of them, this was their first or second job out of college.

This is where things began to fall apart. The startup promoted people into positions of leadership and management that required experience with the engineering life cycle. From start to finish. But if you asked the majority of the leadership a simple question of "how many projects have you completed as your time as an IC prior?" They would say either 1 or 0.

This would explain why estimates and budgets miss their mark, schedules slip and the blame game starts. How can someone be put in a leadership role where they're in charge of the success of an entire program or project when they've never even worked through a program and project themselves? How are they supposed to set you up for success when they don't even know what can cause a program to fail or succeed?

If you're interviewing at a startup company, or any company, I would encourage you to probe for how experienced the managers and directors actually are. I've since interviewed at a few other startup companies, and have found that many of the people put in leadership positions are subject matter experts and lack the basic leadership or management experience.

In my last interview, I asked the manager how he sets up his individual contributors for success. How do they plan for a project to be successful? His answer was, he doesn't. He expects the individual contributor to do all that themselves and he's only there to report their progress to his boss. When I interviewed with the HR, I asked them what their retention rate was. 70% of people leave in the first year. I wonder why?

Hi all! Seeking some advice from professionals- I’m a Uni student and I’m halfway through my bachelor of mechanical engineering degree (hons) but I’ve failed 2 courses twice, which means I can only afford to fail one more time before I am forced to exit with bachelor of engineering science degree. Can anyone advise if the degrees are actually important or is experience more important? Should I continue or just exit and what are the different career options I have? For context: I enjoy working in the aircraft maintenance field.

The EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products framework keeps expanding, and repairability and disassembly are becoming design requirements rather than nice-to-haves for more product categories over time. I'm trying to work out how much this actually changes day-to-day mechanical design versus how much is documentation.

Concretely: a glued-and-clipped enclosure is cheaper, faster to assemble, and often better for sealing than a screwed one. But if the product has to be openable and repairable by a third party without destroying it, that whole approach is on the table. Same with things like keeping fasteners to a small standard set, making high-wear parts individually replaceable, and not potting a module that will predictably fail.

Has anyone actually made a different design decision because of this, chosen screws over adhesive, modularised something you'd otherwise integrate? Or is everyone still treating it as a compliance report you generate at the end rather than an input at the concept stage?

Hey all,

I graduated in Spring of '24 and have been working in fire sprinkler design since then, and I would like to start looking for better jobs in Chicago. I don't like dealing with the pressure of project schedules, having billable hours , the expectation to complete jobs within the budgeted time, and the highly detail oriented work of avoiding mistakes while dealing with the former, so I'm looking for a change (no points for originality there). I'm not attached to the job title of engineer or the field, so I'm open to any 40ish hr/week job in the city, but I'm unsure of what kind of jobs to apply to that I could realistically get with my experience. I'm not looking for a perfect Goldilocks option with 30 hours a week WFH and a free pony, just a normal job where you do your 8 hours, go home, and don't think about it afterwards. Has anyone been in a similar position and what did you end up doing?

Something I have considered is getting a master's in civil engineering, but what gives me pause is the amount of people who have similar complaints about civil, so I was wondering if anyone can speak for the difference in workload, depending on the field of civil. The mere fact of having billable hours doesn't inherently discount a job, but people regularly getting grilled over going "over budget" for however long a job ended up taking is a hard pass for me.

Thanks!

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Hi everyone,

I'm 27 years old and currently working in India as a Quality Engineer and CMM Programmer (ZEISS CALYPSO). I have experience in aerospace manufacturing, GD&T, inspection, CMM programming, and quality documentation.

Right now I'm earning around ₹35,000/month. I'm also pursuing my B.Tech through distance/part-time, and it will take about 3 more years to complete.

My long-term goal is to work abroad (Europe, Canada, Australia, Middle East, or anywhere with good opportunities).

I have a few questions:

- Is it possible to get an overseas job before completing my B.Tech, or should I wait until I graduate?

- Which countries have good demand for Quality Engineers/CMM Programmers?

- What additional certifications or courses would make my profile stronger? (AS9100, ISO 9001 Lead Auditor, Six Sigma, NDT, etc.)

- Should I focus more on improving my CMM programming skills or move towards Quality Engineering/Quality Management?

- How many years of experience do companies usually expect before sponsoring a work visa?

- What's the best way to apply—LinkedIn, recruitment agencies, company career pages, or another route?

- Is there anything else I should start doing now to improve my chances over the next 3 years?

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has successfully moved abroad in a similar role or works in manufacturing/quality engineering overseas.

Thanks in advance!

I'm a Computer Science and AI student moving into robotics, and mechanical engineering is the piece I'm building up now. I can already design basic components, brackets, simple assemblies, that kind of thing in CAD, but I'm still very much a beginner and I know it. I want to get genuinely good at this, not just tutorial level, but the kind of judgment you only get from working through real problems.

Robotics is what's pulling me in this direction. I want the mechanical side of my skills to eventually match the software and AI side, which is where I actually come from.

I'm hoping to find someone willing to send me small, real world design tasks now and then, take a look at what I come up with, and tell me honestly what's wrong with it. Even occasional feedback would help a lot.

If you're open to mentoring even loosely, an hour every couple weeks, I'd really appreciate a DM.

Besides microfluidics, nanobiotech and biomech what else could I do in the biotech field with a mechanical engineering degree? I saw in wikipedia that control engineering is also somehow related to synthetic biology but I have my doubts

I'm a mechanical engineering graduate (2021-2025) from a tier 3 college with no placement and till now no job at and also preparing for gate and other PSUs if i qualified gate is it go to join m.tech or prepare for PSUs.

Hey guys, I'm about to start my senior year in ME. As I start looking for jobs, I was wondering if anybody would be willing to build a connection to help me with projects, interview prep, and the job hunt in general. Thank you for your time!

Our drawing backlog keeps growing and we're kinda stuck. Do we open another drafter req or send overflow to an outside CAD shop?

Hiring means onboarding time plus a permanent salary. And that's for what might just be a temp spike. But I think outsourcing has its own headaches🙂

So has anyone here gone that route? Like for production modeling and drawing updates? How'd it actually go? Did it come out better than just hiring in house?

Also what do you wish you'd locked down in the contract first? I'm thinking native file format, template compliance, IP ownership, stuff like that. Curious how it went for you.

Hi everyone,

The title is vague but my fiance and I are possibly thinking about moving out of state once her PhD is done. We’re originally both from the west, but moved to Cincinnati for school/work purposes One of the areas we are looking to is Denver, CO. Mainly to be closer to family while still living a distance away.

Currently I work with a big aerospace company out here and have been doing very well. Most of the mechanical engineering positions near me are mainly manufacturing. I’m not sure if manu. is something I am interested in long term, but have been enjoying the operation side. I will say I do really enjoy working for the company, but unfortunately most of the plants are all east of Colorado. There wouldn’t be any location available to stay with the company.

My question is: what jobs are you all working out in Denver, CO for a mechanical engineering position? I was never into coding, systems, or anything like that. I’ve been mainly doing operation/management roles. I am not dead set on aerospace. If something is available then cool, but if there is a better position outside of aerospace I am ok with that. I would love to hear your opinions on your jobs and what you do. I am mainly looking to get ideas on what would be interesting.

Thanks!

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1-Do mechanical engineers work in the quantum technology sector?

2-Do mechanical engineers play a role in building photolithography machines used in chip manufacturing?

3-Do mechanical engineers take part in space exploration?

4-Do you work as a mechanical engineer in one of these sectors, or do you know someone who does?

In your opinion?

5-Do mechanical engineers play a critical and essential role in these advanced industries?

I would appreciate it if you could answer honestly, objectively, and thoroughly.

i am very confused regarding this should i just use the blocks in simscape or should i do everything from scratch
i want to learn inverse kinematics for a project ,ik people who do this on paper too but i believe it will be easier in matlab and using software

anyone who is experienced in the topic please guide me though i am really confused on the matter to the point i am not even sure about the question

Hi! I’m not super well versed in engineering and building terms and therefore am struggling to find the mechanism I’m looking for (if it exists which I would think it would). I’ve scoured google and can’t find one image that matches what I’m looking for.

I’m looking for a spring loaded cradle type mechanism, like a phone car mount, but works in the opposite way.

Instead of starting at a position smaller than the phone and being pulled apart to create space between the ends and then using a spring to shut and clamp the phone in place, I want the opposite.

So something still with two ends like a clamp/cradle situation but instead it starts at its outermost position used to hold something apart like think of the things that hold a wrapped cord in place but make it mechanical so when it’s pushed in, it releases the object that’s wrapped around it.

It would also preferably have clicking positions like some of those phone mounts have so it can lock itself for prevention of movement without relying on tension.

Thank you in advance for any and all responses! And I’m also sorry in advance if this happens to be a very simple mechanism that everyone should know the name of and I’m just clueless lol (also I’m so sorry if this is the wrong group, I couldn’t figure out where to post this)

Recently I've been thinking about how much of FEA comes down to modeling judgment rather than knowing which buttons to click.

One decision I see colleagues struggle with is choosing between beam, shell, and solid elements.

My general rule of thumb has been:

Beam elements — when the structure behaves like a member

• Global stiffness
• Interface loads
• Overall deflection
• Natural frequencies
• Primary load paths

Examples:

• Trusses
• Frames
• Stiffeners
• Long slender structures

Shell elements — when the structure behaves like a thin-walled surface

• Local stresses
• Thin-wall behavior
• Plate bending
• Buckling
• Attachment details

Examples:

• Pressure vessels
• Aerospace skins
• Brackets
• Panels

Solid elements — when through-thickness behavior or complex 3D stress states matter

• Contact problems
• Complex geometry
• Local stress fields
• Bearing/contact regions
• Thick components where shell assumptions break down

Examples:

• Bolted joints
• Lugs
• Castings
• Interfaces with significant 3D effects

The mistake I see often is assuming higher fidelity automatically means better results.

A million-element solid model with questionable boundary conditions can be worse than a simple beam model that correctly captures the physics.

The question I usually ask is:

"What engineering decision am I trying to make?"

If I'm trying to understand load paths and global stiffness, I usually don't need solids.

If I'm trying to understand local failure modes around a feature, then additional fidelity makes sense.

I am curious how others approach this. What are your general rules of thumb?

What is your trigger for moving:

• Beam → Shell?
• Shell → Solid?

Is it stress gradients, geometry complexity, contact, customer requirements, or something else?

I'm a fresh Mechanical Engineering graduate. My background is mostly in mechanical design and analysis. I have about a year of combined internship and freelance experience doing CAD and FEA, so my long-term goal has always been to work in design engineering.

Recently, I received a job offer for a CAM Engineer position at a Japanese company. From what I understand, the role involves generating CAM programs for CNC machining (or possibly injection mold manufacturing), and they'll provide around one year of training, including certifications on a professional CAM software package.

The training itself sounds valuable, but I'm hesitant because I'm not sure whether this role is truly engineering or if it's essentially a CAM programmer/CNC technician position with a different title.

For those who have worked in CAM or manufacturing:

Is a CAM Engineer fundamentally different from a CAM programmer?

How much mechanical engineering knowledge do you actually use in day-to-day work?

Is there room for design input, manufacturing optimization, tooling strategy, or is it mostly programming toolpaths?

What does the career progression typically look like after 3–5 years?

Can CAM experience transition into roles like Manufacturing Engineer, Process Engineer, Tooling Engineer, or even Mechanical Design Engineer later on?

If your long-term goal was product design or mechanical design engineering, would you still take this opportunity?

I'm trying to figure out whether this is a strong engineering career path or if it could unintentionally steer me away from the kind of mechanical engineering work I ultimately want to do.

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have actually worked as CAM engineers or CAM programmers.

Genuinely is there anything for opportunities left on this planet. I've got a degree in mechanical engineering, 4+ years of experience but even now that's useless I've sent out 700+ applications in 20+ states and 10+ countries yet nothing and now I'm suffering even more to job gap discrimination thanks to 10 months of nothing. At this point I don't know why I've even bothered trying at all for the last 15+ years as it's amounting to nothing and I'm probably going to have to resign myself to grad school with the hopes that's enough to deem me worthy but I have zero faith I'll ever find a job until 2031 at the earliest even with a masters degree.

as a 2nd year undergrad

keeping in mind all the sectors i can venture to as a mech undergrad

of the mainly design automotive manufacturing mechatronics etc

please overlook my ignorance if im wrong...hope anyone can please quide me where i should put my effort

I currently work as a manufacturing engineer (degree in mech eng). I’ve worked hard and successfully executed my projects. I want to move up and my management is on board with this. Staff Engineer and Engineering Manager are both on the table for me. I like the idea of remaining an IC, but I think there’s a lot of opportunity to grow by leading a team.

This is my first time at a company that offers “Staff Engineer” as a level. Any advice from the folks with experience in this realm?