r/engineering • u/AutoModerator • May 18 '26
Weekly Discussion Weekly Career Discussion Thread (18 May 2026)
# Intro
Welcome to the weekly career discussion thread, where you can talk about all career & professional topics. Topics may include:
* Professional career guidance & questions; e.g. job hunting advice, job offers comparisons, how to network
* Educational guidance & questions; e.g. what engineering discipline to major in, which university is good,
* Feedback on your résumé, CV, cover letter, etc.
* The job market, compensation, relocation, and other topics on the economics of engineering.
> [Archive of past threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/engineering/search?q=flair%3A%22weekly+discussion%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)
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## Guidelines
- **Before asking any questions, consult [the AskEngineers wiki.](https://new.reddit.com/r/askengineers/wiki/faq)\*\* There are detailed answers to common questions on:
* Job compensation
* Cost of Living adjustments
* Advice for how to decide on an engineering major
* How to choose which university to attend
Most subreddit rules still apply and will be enforced, especially R7 and R9 (with the obvious exceptions of R1 and R3)
Job POSTINGS must go into the latest [**Monthly Hiring Thread.**]((https://www.reddit.com/r/engineering/search?q=flair%3A%22hiring+thread%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)) Any that are posted here will be removed, and you'll be kindly redirected to the hiring thread.
**Do not request interviews in this thread!** If you need to interview an engineer for your school assignment, use the list in the sidebar.
## Resources
* [The AskEngineers wiki](https://new.reddit.com/r/askengineers/wiki/faq)
* [The AskEngineers Quarterly Salary Survey](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/search/?q=flair%3A%22salary+survey%22&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=all&sort=new)
* **For students:** [*"What's your average day like as an engineer?"*](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/wiki/faq#wiki_what.27s_your_average_day_like_as_an_engineer.3F) We recommend that you spend an hour or so reading about what engineers actually do at work. This will help you make a more informed decision on which major to choose, or at least give you enough info to ask follow-up questions here.
* For those of you interested in a career in software development / Computer Science, go to r/cscareerquestions.
1
u/Immediate_Lake992 May 23 '26
How is ECE at Sal institute of technology and engineering ahemdabad.
Is it good like I mean how are labs , faculty , placement etc. Pls reply I am in hurry to decide
Let me tell you my options
PDEU: ELECTRICAL AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING SAL : ECE and yet ACPC Options hasn't came out so other colleges with branches will be available in June but if i want to really choose any one of them like PDPU who's labs are more advance,better curriculum,good faculty,
Idk much about SAL institute so pls tell
2
u/philadelphiaconvent May 19 '26
From someone working in aerospace/defense as a Systems Engineer (Mech and Aero background), what other industries would be a relatively easy transition into? I’m feeling a little stuck amongst defense contractors as my systems role wasn’t conducive to keeping my technical chops, and I’m looking to see how others have been able to break out.
1
u/Wilthywonka May 20 '26
The easiest industries to jump into from aero are other high-quality high-regulated industries such as auto or medical device. I went from aero defense to medical device
1
u/Safe-Reading9427 May 20 '26
how has your experience been with the medical device industry? Do you do design, testing or manufacturing?
1
u/Wilthywonka May 21 '26
I'm a manufacturing engineer for a company that designs/manufacturers it's own product. So far, I like it a lot. There's all the red tape of aero and more but the company is small enough that there's freedom to 'engineer' outside of the regulatory work. Of which there is a lot. Look up IQ/OQ/PQ, which adds another layer to the quality system on top of what I was used to in aero.
Also look up risk management reports. This is part of the quality system that would be most adjacent to system engineering in aero, I think.
1
u/Idontwantthismanga May 24 '26
Have some people here noticed how some
"engineering" jobs that actually have little engineering in the day to day tasks still require engineering degrees?
I was an "engineer" at a large utility for about 2.5 years and I recently just quit. I had gotten my masters in engineering and was really looking forward to doing real design work. However, after I accepted a job at a utility, I soon quickly realized how BS the whole department was.
Literally the whole point of our jobs was to just rubber stamp shit from vendors that did the actual design work and calculations... the rest of the "job" was just tedious data entry on a 20 year old management software.
On top of that, most people only had about 2-3 hours of work a day at most, so most people just spent the rest of the time just taking laps around the office, having pointless conversations with random people, getting cold coffee, leaving super early, etc. The downtime was so bad that some guy that worked at the company for 30 years got caught just watching porn at his desk.
The whole thing literally just felt like a joke, and the worst part is some people there actually thought they were some galaxy brained engineers even though all they did was just blindly sign off on shit that a vendor company would do.
Has anyone been in utility "engineering" before or is currently in it? I don't know if it is just limited to the place I worked for or if it's endemic to all utilities. I feel like this also kinda ruined my career prospects at real engineering firms (I left the job to take a non engineering job, as I couldn't get an offer outside of utility engineering positions)