[Keith Seymore]

BTW - I appreciate you starting this thread, Poncho-Mike, and I appreciate the input from everyone.

This is timely discussion from my standpoint.

K

[carcrazy]

Electrical Engineer from Youngstown State University back in the 70's. Spent a lot of my career in data communications/test engineering at ITT and Northern Telecom. Left in the mid 80's to form my own contract engineering/manufacturing company. It got fairly large (160 employees) so I sold it in 1998. Haven't looked back.

[Elarson]

Mechanical engineer since 1984. I've spent the whole time working for contract engineering firms. It wasn't planned...it just kinda worked out that way.

I've found the variety and flexibility that I crave working contracts. I've gotten to work on nuclear projects, space shuttle stuff, automotive & truck projects, tooling, large material handling, steelmaking, and on and on. I tell friends and family that I'm the "weird projects" guy. For the last couple of decades, I've done a lot of work for a large multinational aircraft engine company. A few observations from that company:

1) the in-house engineers are expected to put in "casual overtime". Nights and weekends make a 60-70 hour week not unusual.

2) the younger in-house engineers are being put more in the position to be project managers and do less and less of the interesting technical stuff.

3) the company is getting more and more invested in developing design practices. The purpose is to make design engineering more cookbook. The cynic in me thinks management envisions cheap trained monkeys able to just walk thru a design practice and then the company is less dependent on smart engineers.

Overall, I have no desire to be one of the in-house guys. The firm I work for is pretty flexible on time off as long as the work gets done on time.

Eric

[grrrrregg!!!]

Originally Posted by bird72

Interestingly I just got a legal letter. Two of the engineers in my old group started a class action lawsuit regarding unpaid overtime. We worked lots. This is the evil of corporate America. In engineering (with few exceptions), we are all "Management". "Salary". In the old days that was great. It meant. yes, you put in OT when needed, but you got time off when needed for appointments without asking, and flexibility and were treated as management with some decision making power.

It evolved into no summer vacations, inable to take PTO except for a long weekend, never a week straight. So it became slave labor with a pile of work one could never complete. And you got smacked for making a decision.

I hope they nail this big unnamed by me national telcom. Due to they said they would sue me if I yak I won't say name..... Their name coincidently rhymes with stink. I hope I get a 100K check for the time I donated. Not holding breath. But in my state, it is not legal to work someone with no compensation. It is all in what a judge deems what compensation is. But I never got a darn thing. Sorry on thread detour.

I know where your coming from. I just retired from at&t as an Equipment Engineer, previously ( LEC ), previously Design Engineer. Around 10 years ago at&t engineers won a similar class action law suit. Now, Managers that are salary and have no subordinates are to be paid ot for working past 8 hours. Managers with subordinates are still salary. They could only go back so far for back pay owed, back pay checks for 20-25k were the norm for longtime Engineers.

[Heybuck]

Originally Posted by fiedlerh

BS Ceramic Engineering (Material science) here, but haven't been involved in that for decades. Used to work on glass furnaces, but there aren't many left in the USA.

That's an interesting statement about how few glass furnaces are left in the USA now. I'm sure its the same situation over here. In the case of the glass furnaces, I'd lay a bet that most of the work is now being done overseas and imported back simply to save money.

The demise of long term (in many cases over 100 years) industries is going to lead to more and more unemployment and some trades can never be recovered.

Just as an example, a good friend of mine (Tom) is a printer. He started small, worked his guts out, eventually employing 9 shop floor workers, 2 girls in the office and 2 salespeople out on the road. About 3 years back he could see it all slowing down. His competition were outsourcing their work, sometimes to Tom, but often overseas. Tom's own customers were getting thin and he started letting people go. 8 months ago, he had to close up and guess who bought all his machinery. The Indians. He was selling Heidelburg presses which cost over a million dollars for $5000. All dismantled and shipped in containers to India. Better that than let the scrap guys buy them.

Now Tom is working with a guy who's business takes orders from clients, they set out the pages, get the client to proof read the job, it then gets e-mailed to India or China (more often China), the job is completed and on a DHL Express plane back here usually within 24 hours. Much cheaper, often faster and who is the winner here??? Certainly not the average Joe who wants to go to work, put in his 8 hours and go home knowing that tomorrow his job is secure.

Its a sad state of the world isn't it!!

Ian

[beertracker]

BSEE mid 1980s. First job was with a computer manufacturer and this sealed my fate in the computer industry. I tried changing industries but never had the "right" industry experienced. So I stayed in the computer industry until I was told we don't need you any more in 09. I searched for another engineering job for two years then gave up. Time caught up with me and I was too old. I have held jobs in test, systems and development engineering from laptops to desktops and 4P file servers.

I have seen the outsourcing of U.S. engineering talent and the importation of foreign workers who hold H1B visas. My biggest career mistake was not being a foreign H1B worker. Corporations such as MS, Dell, Intel and HP loves these types.

The other thing I observed in the corporate world is the promotion of the LGBT agenda. When taking a online code of conduct training and test you better give the right answer or you will be selected for remedial training. So much for a sexual harassment free work place.

[1966Lemans]

Originally Posted by Half-Inch Stud

We delivered LANDSATs (7), EOS(several), GPS IIR/M (21), DSCS III (14 SVs), IABS(10), MM III (500+), Falcon HTV (2), many Commercial GEOs, lots other stuff, etc.

Dude! I'm still flying Terra, Aqua and Aura (AM-1, PM-1 and Chem-1)!!

[Ben M.]

Originally Posted by beertracker

The other thing I observed in the corporate world is the promotion of the LGBT agenda. When taking a online code of conduct training and test you better give the right answer or you will be selected for remedial training. So much for a sexual harassment free work place.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Being able to pat the girl's butt when she's walking by and telling some guy who's a better engineer than you that he's a flaming homo are gone and I'm personally glad as someone who was on the receiving end of the good ol' boy BS hazing.

As far as outsourcing to India\China goes, it will eventually come back to bite companies when their products fail or have to be redesigned 4-5 times before they actually work. It's just going to take time. We've already seen attempted outsourcing get pulled back in at work because the companies over in China don't have a clue how to actually lay out an RF board or make a high voltage capacitor live at full voltage and rep rate. When it takes 6-18 months longer on a project because it keeps failing, you bet management is going to try and figure out what's wrong (usually blaming the one guy who is left as "an engineer").

[Stuart]

Some kinds of engineering aren't going to be outsourced; my work involves a lot of building construction so there's a fair amount of field work. It won't be cost effective to fly in someone from India to run out to a construction site for a one hour meeting.

[Half-Inch Stud]

Originally Posted by 1966Lemans

Dude! I'm still flying Terra, Aqua and Aura (AM-1, PM-1 and Chem-1)!!

Those are pretty big LEOs huh. We built those in the mid-90's so 20 YEARs is a bargin. Not familiar with Chem-1 though.

I hope their Master Oscillators are working fine, they're DROs made in PA!

[mgarblik]

The non-payment of overtime is not limited to the engineering field. Almost all salaried positions do not pay any or little. In higher education, it is called "overload". Teaching extra classes above full time is paid at 25% of your full time salary. Not 125%, 25%!. For over 15 years I typically worked 8:00AM- 10:30 PM. 1 hour for lunch. That's 13.5 hour day, with 5.5 of those hours paid at 25%. Typical of all higher education in OH.

[poncho-mike]

It seems to be the same story everywhere.

When I worked at IBM, there was some additional money added to your check when overtime was planned for a department or project. It wasn't a lot of money, maybe 10% extra. In addition, the company gave you a small amount of money (about $5) if you worked more than 10 hrs a day for meal allowance. This was in the 80s through the mid-90s. That got cut out in the 90s, and they just expected you to work long hours.

My wife and I had been talking about having another baby since we were both in our upper 30s at that time. One night about 8PM, my wife called me. Her message was simple, "I think I'm going to get pregnant tonight, would you like to be here for the conception?".

My youngest son was born in Jan 1996. By that time, I was absolutely burnt out after working 55 - 60 hr weeks for several years. The final straw came in an argument over vacation time. I took a Friday off, but worked a full day Saturday. When recording my time, my boss told me to record one day of vacation. I refused, arguing that I worked 5 full days and had over 40 hours in. I went over his head and went to HR. I won that round, but I was absolutely fed up. I dropped my hours to about 40 per week and went home on time. It felt good, but about a year later I was laid off.

[ho428]

I do custom machinery design, been in the field for over 30 years. We need a couple engineers to do what I do but can't find any. Everyone young wants the corporate Engineer job, whereas we do the concepts, designs, our own drawings, work close with fabrication, and some hands on during testing.
Corporate style Engineering pays more, but I'd hate it.

[johnta1]

Everyone young wants the corporate Engineer job,

What do they do?
(corporate engineer)

Sit around and take credit from others?
Not really an engineer?

[69goatboy]

Originally Posted by johnta1

What do they do?
(corporate engineer)

Sit around and take credit from others?
Not really an engineer?

A corporate engineer is one who works for a very large company, and whose job description requires them to wear one hat and one hat only.

Like ho428, I'm an mech. engineer that does custom machinery. I work for a smallish, but global company. I do concept, R&D, design, detailing, and sometimes I even get to assemble and test my own prototypes. I wear many hats. I even do cost accounting from time to time.

I've known many engineers that have worked at GE (GE aircraft engines are designed and made here in Cincy). If a GE engineer does turbine calcs, that's all he/she does. That's a corporate engineer.

But back to the OP, I agree with the others, contracting is your best bet at your age.

[ho428]

Originally Posted by johnta1

What do they do?
(corporate engineer)

Sit around and take credit from others?
Not really an engineer?

Meetings, paper shufflers, concepts and pass it on to draftsmen or outsourced. Or they do only one specific thing.
We get a lot of applicants that don't know how to go from concept to complete machine without a support team. We basically do it all.
It's not rocket science, just basic machinery, but it's amazing how few understand it.

Not one of mine or my company's, but this is the type machinery I design.

[Andre]

Although I don't consider Land Surveying to be engineering, most places in Europe call it Geomatics, and a couple 4 year programs in the USA call it Geomatics Engineering.
This is an industry that has always needed more registered surveyors. In Florida, it is extremely easy to find a job in this profession, and at all levels.

[69goatboy]

Originally Posted by ho428

Not one of mine or my company's, but this is the type machinery I design.

Is that kraft liner for corrugated?

[johnta1]

That's cool!

Are you in the printing industry?

[Captainofiron]

ME here in the Aerospace industry, used to do propulsion testing, but now work for an electronics manufacturer

Originally Posted by bird72

I am a telcom engineer. Took "the package" 2 years ago rather than do work of 3 people. Was 58 then and not ready to retire, but hell on earth was worse choice. Contractor job options were instantly available, would have been on road within 500 mile range all the time. Am studying to be a personal trainer now (fitness) for age 50 and up so that is my new path.

From what I saw in the civil field before I left, all the firms where staffing with greenie weenies out of college (less pay & ins cost), fresh civil PE's and only keeping one seasoned older engineer on staff. It was impacting me as I was dealing with civils who didn't know real world jack, but were arrogant know it alls.

I watched engineering go from a glory career job to metrics and treating people terribly and working them endlessly. I hope the entire engineering world is not this way. Sorry on gloom, but the up side is there are still choices out there also, and path changes even late in life. Good luck!

It is becoming more and more like that everywhere, not sure why. I think it might have to do with it becoming more prevalent for engineering groups to get non-technical managers that do not understand that many engineering projects (especially development) cannot easily be quantified into metrics or percent completes and inevitably becomes tons of busy work for the engineers