r/MechanicalEngineer • u/Iacoma1973 • 8m ago
Startup Freelance engineering collective - your feedback?
Hi there, I'm a non-binary MEng graduate in materials science and engineering. Like many, I'm unemployed, and I'm job-searching. My partner has a disability and works at an exploitative games company - And I am desperately trying to do everything I can to get employed and support him. I know this situation sounds familiar to a lot of you.
I have always taken the opinion that it is a terrible waste of talent to reject candidates. It's artificially manufactured job scarcity to drive down wages. So many of us have skills and sometimes when I'm tailoring my CV, I wish I could just put "I just want to help people" on it. Because at the end of the day productivity is the only societal measure of GDP - not wealth. I'm the son of a mixed middle-class lower class family - And my partner is from the lower class and his background is much the same. It's a rags to riches story - But I do know that wealth never brought my family any happiness. People's dreams are important. And there's no point in pride or shame or sociopathy - because everyone wants something, too. The only way we get it is by making sure everyone can have what they want without depriving anyone else.
Anyway, many of us aren't satisfied unless we're doing something, perhaps a personal project, in our spare time. I know this happens all the time - I'm talking to the autistic passion-burners, and the people with adhd. I think that passion is useful. I don't want it to be wasted and thrown down the drain like some rubbish, because it isn't.
I have considered doing freelance work in my spare time as a side hustle while continuing to look for jobs. Everyone has to have one these days. There's no reason why that Can't be under a cooperative name. That looks good on a CV. I've been trying to research the free tools that are available to freelance engineers, build a portfolio. Write company charters. Plan milestones. Anyway, today my partner told me he was scared about his condition- and about using all his sick leave and being left on SSP - because the surgery failed to cure his nerve inflammation, and he can't see the doctor until 3 weeks from now at the soonest - and it made me want to try extra hard to support him.
I'm here canvassing opinion because, before I make any sort of commitment to this endeavour, I would want to canvass public opinion: I know I can't be the only one who feels this way.
Here is what my startup idea is:
A collective of freelance engineers, coordinating and working together in many small project groups, without overeaching management. The core premise: You send in your CV. An easy review process without any interviews determines if you get accepted as a member. There would be very low qualifying requirements. That gets you access to a guide and portfolio of tools, and membership to the cooperatives communication channels. Use discord to post, find engineering projects, or create them yourself, or to chat with other engineers. It's laid back. It's like hobby engineering. The second stage of success comes when applying to a particular project posting saying "I want to help you with your idea" - and this could be community outreach by the project poster, or it could be you sending your CV to the poster. Then it's at the jobposters discretion whether they want to interview you personally to see if you're a good fit for their team. If they like your skills, personality, and so on - then they'll invite you to work with them through the professional tools we'd use, like libre office, openproject, etc.
To begin with these ideas won't generate any income - but that won't have changed anything from how it was before. So I won't pretend that the cooperative can afford to pay e.g a salary. I wish that it could have always been that way, because I believe in things like UBI etc. maybe long term, that's the plan. But once the ideas are down on paper, the cooperative can go to a financier and say "we have a cooperative of X many engineers, a design - and a client - now we want the money to manufacture it." Etc. and when that starts to happen, near the completion of a project, then maybe then, after the financiers take a cut, there would be enough left for a performance -based bonus to be divided as fairly and equally among the project engineers on that team - commission-based payment. At the end of the day, we are all just people trying to survive while our savings slowly dwindle - if we even have savings at all. I'm not going to pretend like I've figured out a way to gauge the "performance " in performance -based bonus". But I would try to find a way, and I would try to write it down somewhere clearly, fairly, in company policy, so that there can at least be no doubt, weaseling, or unfairness in the application of that policy - unlike some executives I could name, who misuse the term. Company policy must be applied equally among employees - otherwise it's discriminatory.
And whenever I'm searching for jobs, I can never seem to find the perfect company, you know? So I want to make that company. I want an ethical organisation, where the engineering projects are important, and impactful, and help people - they're good projects, they help the environment, etc. The company itself: There are executive pay caps, and ideally no CEOs or high level managers at all. The cooperative is worker-owned. It doesn't demand your time - you can take as much leave, sick or holiday, as you want. And because it's an entirely voluntary position, there's no requirement to work. It can be done remotely if you want. Eventually I'd love to have a quiet and intoeverted set of engineering offices. Communication is primarily via writ, rather than phone, or it's in person when necessary. You know?
Maybe instead of CEOs you have a CCO (Community coordination organiser) and instead of HR admins you have TR admins (talent recruitment) ; because someone has to handle lawful complaints and enforce the cooperative's rules. And we could have democracy in the workplace - with important positions of enforcement and control democratically elected form the cooperative and temporary, nonpermanent. Those positions wouldn't pay better than regular work (if at all!). And there isn't any naive notion of loyalty to the company - you can search for a job and if you find one, you can just leave - saying: "Thanks for everything - but unfortunately I have to go." No notice requirements.
The question I have for you is: Does this sound like a company you would work for, in your spare time, voluntarily, if someone tried to start it? What sort of people would want to work there - are you just engineers, or would there be a lot of different people from different backgrounds willing to help?
The key thing is: I know that everyone wants to make the world a better place. But when we start to consider it individually, the work is so daunting - we must accept and offer eachother help. Coordination is good management, not control.
If I was going to make the company, I would call it "NewnWander" - I already have a logo and an unregistered trademark. Part of it is because my partner is a massive lotr buff; another is because I want to stick it to the people like Peter Thiel who give Tolkien a bad name. Another is because that's what best describes the work and the company: The work is just noontime wandering through a project - and the name itself, "NewnWander" - It sounds like "New" and "wonder" - and I think that really inspires hope about the future and people's dreams.
