Engineer versus Designer
Engineer versus Designer
(OP)
I'm 6 years out of college (BSME). During those 6 years, I was (and still am) titled a "Mechanical Engineer", but 99% of what I've done has been design work, NOT full blown engineering with lots of calculations, FEA, that sort of stuff. My worry is that if I change jobs, I will have nowhere near the skills and knowledge necessary to be hired as a "real" engineer. Certainly I am not the first person to have this happen to them. Any advice to give? Thanks! Very worried...





RE: Engineer versus Designer
What area of mechanical are you in? Are you in the construction industry where you are designing HVAC plans for buidings? If so, I would suggest that you get your "design" experience to the level of being capable of taking a job from start to finish. I provide electrical plans for construction and there are not a hell of a lot of calculations that are required in this industry. It's definitley not rocket science, but instead a matter of being well versed in the code so that you know what is required and what is not in a given design.
It would be good if you were more specific about what you do in your job.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
TTFN
RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Occasional detailed analysis might give you a better handle on where the 'rules of thumb' come from, but you really have no incentive to reduce the machinery's mass. In fact, other things being equal, astute buyers will prefer heavier machinery, just because that usually correlates to trouble free service.
You could go looking for work, right where you are. Do you have chronic unexplained field failures in any part of your product? Unexpectedly short bearing life would be a symptom. You might not know about it if it happens outside the warranty. Look for aftermarket traffic in replacement parts that shouldn't need replacing. Dig deep, analyze everything, find the real root cause, improve the product.
Or design something on the side. Like model airplanes or engines, or anything that strikes your fancy, just to keep your brain working. If you can get money for it, that keeps you in beer. If you can't, you have a hobby.
I would _not_ advise giving up a good job, or even a mediocre job, just because it doesn't challenge you in every possible way. Make lemonade.
Oh, yeah. I find this scary, but in some places, the calculations and FEA are done by designers, who happened to be sitting in front of the fast computers when the Pro/E salesman slithered through. The engineers were downsized to pay for the Pro/E. They'd be happy to take designer jobs. They'd be ecstatic to take your job.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Engineer versus Designer
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
So you're saying that if I can make a good salary doing what I consider relatively easy practical design work I should NOT give up my job for a more "engineer-like" job at say a biomedical company?
My main question is whether or not after my only 6 years of employment doing design work I will even be able to get back into engineering or if I will be "found out" by my co-workers right away at the new company. Maybe I'm selling myself short, not sure. Very concerned though.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Mike has a great point. Im sure that there are moving parts that exert forces, induced vibration, shock amplifications, high temps that may reek havoc with electronics …etc. You should do some spot detailed analysis so you can say with confidence things like “e.g. this aluminum part is only seeing 10ksi of stress so there is a factor of safety of 3.5 which is acceptable, the forced frequency is 250 hz and the part attached has a resonant frequency of 275 hz so these two may be coupling which is bad, the electrionics attached to this wall requires that wall to be at 35degC and I am calculating that the wall is 25degC worst case this is acceptable, in shipping there is a 50g shock load can the machine handle that?…etc”.
You should do the spot calculations just so you can get a bigger picture of the product not just the nuts and bolts. Start with simple cases like cantilevers, sin vibrations, simple thermal circuits, small shock loads…etc. This will give you so much more insight that you might catch a problem before it goes to the manufacturing floor.
Good luck
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Regarding "lots of calculations" and "FEA analysis", that's often the easy part. The difficult part is sometimes coming up with a mechanism that does what you want it to, finding a suitable material for a given application, designing a part that can be produced at a reasonable cost, and developing a test plan to determine the expected life of your components and what kind of warranty your company can afford to offer.
I think you've got a very simplistic view of what constitutes engineering.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
I'd guess that you've stopped learning much new stuff at this point.
Your (unstated) concern about stagnation is valid.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
Hunt through this site and you'll find plenty of threads that dissect the differences.
If you're working as the latter, you should get out as soon as possible.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
I'm not sure what I am, or more importantly what industry would clasify me as. I design machinery using Solidworks. I do the mechanical design and the electrical design. I size all the components. I even personally test a lot of stuff. My job isn't just nuts n' bolts but it's far far from (for example) what the guy who designed the SSME's for the space shuttle did. I almost feel that I might actually be overpaid in the eyes of the industry. I was going to post my salary but it just doesn't feel right.
As far as the other posts, some are helpful but others seem to be missing the mark, as if my initial question was not actually read? Maybe people are suggesting that I turn my job into more of an engineering job by analyzing my designs more?
RE: Engineer versus Designer
If that's your desire, then you can either do as part of your current job, do it on the side, or do it at another job, which appears to be a summary of most of the posts.
And if you feel that you're stagnating, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I get the feeling that you're whining about your lot in life and apparently waiting for someone to drop a golden opportunity on your doorstep. Yes, if your current skill set is inadequate, you'll have difficulty finding another job at the same salary or same level. Would you expect anything else? If you think that you need to expand your horizons, take a class, move to another position, take a paycut, or whatever.
You're an engineer; you've found a problem, now design a solution. Your last post is interesting, but so what? The question is WHAT YOU WANT TO BE. If you've read other postings on other threads, you'll find that most engineers don't do that much math anyway, and there are engineers who ONLY do FEA. Do you even know if FEA is what you want to do?
TTFN
RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I find this all to be true in this day of high powered desk top computers and CAE applications. I worked with a designer that thought he was an engineer. He had an ego which was something similar to "small mans complex" and his design work suffered greatly.
Best Regards,
Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 5.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)
Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience every time.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
You probably need to leave it, just to realize that you have a dream job. In biomed and aerospace, you'd _never_ get to design/engineer an entire machine, or even all of one piece of a machine.
[
True story: A former aerospace designer once became part of my team. He had spent eight years, designing brackets that hold the fuel lines on the left side of a particular jet engine model. He had never seen an actual engine up close, never visited a test cell, never even seen a drawing of the other side of the engine, or of any other engine, never designed a bracket for any other purpose, never designed anything but those damn brackets. He was actually a great designer, but it took a while to re- expand his world.
]
I tried FEA once; bought a limited license, beat on it hard enough to find a bug in the program, had some nice email exchanges with the guy who wrote it. He said it shouldn't take more than three years of doing nothing but FEA to get comfortable with it. I decided that I sure didn't want to do just one thing for any length of time, and I found FEA rather tedious. Later I discovered that every other senior ME at my then employer had also quietly bought a FEA package, beat on it, and decided that he didn't want to become the company FEA guy, either.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Through the years, I have noticed that many jobs are written to require experience with a specific software- such as Solidworks. That qualifies you for jobs that a lot of other people aren't qualified for. And it'll disqualify you for a lot of jobs that want some other specific software.
I have also found, that just because a job is done by a "designer" who is not an engineer, doesn't meant it OUGHT to be done that way. That can wind up to be an "engineering without a license" situation. Engineering requires knowledge and experience, but does not necessarily involve complexity.
If you do get into FEA, if you just do a bit of it now and again, that experience probably won't count for much either.
You may want to looking into get licensed (for prestige purposes). You may want to look into continuing education of fields of interest to you just for future reference.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Being a designer is great particle experience that many engineers, the ones who have never seen nor touched a component that they have been hacking with the use of FEA’s can get. If you decide to go down the road of an “engineer” then you have all of your field experience to help you engineer and design something that you know will work once in the field. I know how you feel; I’ve been working in a division that deals with small projects, say less than $10 grand for the engineering with minimal calculations and a hole lot of field and particle experience. I am now working in a multi-discipline project office on large-scale projects where I am designing and engineering. I have found that my previous design work has helped my colleagues and me, even though it would only be a very small drop in the whole project scope. It was a big decision for me to make that move, I lost a lot of seniority in the company, but I believe this project work is the experience that I need if I wish to move on to other companies.
Cheers,
M.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
a. the company I work for is actually paying me too much to be doing practical design work and if they ever go belly-up, I will have to take a job making a lot les $$$
b. I will soon cap-out at my company as a practical designer and not have the skills to attain a higher paying job somewhere else as either a designer or an engineer.
I am 29 years old with 6 years of experience.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
By the sounds of it, you already know what you want to do.
Cheers,
M.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
You're the only one who can make the decision, but for me I realized I needed to move on and see the rest of the engineering world.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Dextermech, johnsmith, et. al.: Could you define "real" mechanical engineering for me?
You all seem very focused on FEA but from my perspective, FEA is just one small subset of activities that fall within the mechanical engineering arena. Johnsmith seems to take it even further and somehow discount linear FEA as being lesser engineering of sorts.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
In my opinion anyone using FEA should be able to solve the problems in the above course both by hand and with FEA. They should also be able to explain the difference in results.
OK I'll admit I haven't done more than a few of them.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
RE: Engineer versus Designer
As a matter of fact, the experiences you have make you a unique and interesting hire. Why the hell would i want to fill a room with a bunch of guys with the same skillset to solve my new new problem.
Personally i think your issue is not lack of skill, but it's lack of confidence.
Wes C.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
Let me try to be succint.
What you're doing *sounds* ilke "full-blown" design engineering.
It doesn't sound like "full-blown" HVAC or thermodynamic analytics or airframe analytics or what have you.
"Engineering" is a huge field and, in my experience, most people master and practice a very small subset of the skills introduced in an undergraduate ME curriculum.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
as with most professions. Would you want an ob-gyn performing your vasectomy?
Wes C.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
We have engineers that have been working for 10 yrs that will be left in the dust if they change to a different industry or even if they change projects, since their legacy experience before our merger was with different design practices in tolerancing and usage of datums. Rather trivial, but expensive, since we've had at least two projects with fubars because assumptions were made that allowed mounting points to be unspecified for flatness and parallelism. Since this was done by more than one engineer, it was a problem with the design practices manual from one organization, but each engineer in that organization was steeped in a poor design philosophy and now need to be re-oriented.
While others have unique skill sets and experiences, so do you. Whatever you're doing now, which might include more cradle-to-grave interactions give you certain advantages as well.
TTFN
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Best Regards,
Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 5.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)
Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience every time.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I worked for about 5 years for a UK aerospace/defense company as a Design Engineer straight from University with a BEng in Aerospace Systems.
I covered a broad range of activities, from concept definition through detail design and drafting with CAD, project management, trials, tolerance analysis.... I actually used any of the more analytical skills, stress analysis, aerodynamics, thermal analysis etc, very little. Once I’d proved myself, I got some pretty generous pay increases and thought I was doing fairly well for my age/experience.
I had similar concerns to yours.
I moved to the US and though it took a while due to immigration, location and clearance issues I now have a job as a ‘CAD Engineer’ basically doing the same thing in a different industry for more money (given the change in location etc not as much more as the numbers would initially suggest but certainly more). The interesting thing is that a lot of the guys I work with are Designers/Drafters not Engineers and so I get volunteered occasionally to do more ‘Engineering’ type stuff such as simple stress calcs so have actually been doing more of this type of thing (I even bought a copy of Roarks!).
Hope this helps.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I probably do lack confidence. Not to make excuses, but it's a little hard to have tons of confidence when you've only worked one place since college, and you just don't know what's out there lurking in the dark. Maybe I'm just paranoid.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
One thing you, and only you, can decide is whether your current position, however ideal, is going to increase in scope. If not, then it may be necessary to shake things up. Talk to your manager. If there's no help there, then you may need change course, despite how good you maight have it. Stagnating in a golden cell is still stagnating.
BTW, just because you ARE paranoid, doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you.
TTFN
RE: Engineer versus Designer
The real mechanical engineering things should be
1) Analyzes engineering designs, schematics, and customer specifications to determine; stresses, strains temperatures, deflections and pressure requirements and limits on products.
2) Performs non-linear finite element analyses on components and assemblies using contact elements and plasticity.
3) Analyzes ability of product to withstand stresses imposed by conditions such as temperature, loads, motion, and vibration.
4) Performs fracture mechanics analyses to determine failure of components from cyclic fatigue crack growth and defines critical defect sizes.
These duties involve many engineering principal and calculations. Since I have the similar situation with dex, I would like to tell my story here.
I graduated with Master in ME and worked as research engineer in university for few years. My research background is the fracture behavior of the shape memory alloy and piezoelectric employing numerical methods. Since I know I am not the stuff for lecturer in university, I found a job in company four years ago, and work at Dallas as ball valve design engineer. Of course, in the beginning, I tried to find some positions, which is more related to my research background. However, I found either few companies work on this field or they have no openings. So, I found my current job in the traditional industry.
After working for few years, I found my duties only related to CAD design with Pro/E and Autocad, with few analysis. Of course, I know the CAD designer need draft experience in order to make a good design. But somewhat, I found what I am working is less theoretical and numerical. We can't use any FEA and CFD softwares, since my boss think it is not necessary, expensive and they assess the dimensions based on their working experience. My boss is near 60 old guy and I think he knows a little bit in FEA. This job really make me disappointed and I find myself as drafter, more than the "mechanical engineer". I don't have a PE too.
I am quite curious why some guys think FEA is only small subset of the engineering?
I have a graduate degree, I would like to work at the high-technology and cutting-edge industry with the good tools. I know MEMS might be my choice, but I have no direct experience.
Others mention a good point that "someone will be left in the dust if they change to a different industry or even if they change products to be designed" I agree with it, even though sometimes, the skills are transferable! This even makes me worried about current situations. I should keep my current position in this industry or jump to another industry which employs more engineering or calculations in their design world???
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Well, it's a bit like the final Calvin and Hobbes strip.
http:
The world is big and magical. Seen through a CRT it may look like FEA matters more than most things, and to be fair FEA is a significant part of current engineering, but is by no means dominant, or even especially cutting-edge these days. Where I work there are several hundred engineers, doing what I would call engineering. 30 are doing FEA. Maybe another 10 or 20 are generating the correlation data that the FEA guys need. perhaps another 30 or 40 rely directly on the FEA results - but if FEA vanished, those jobs would not, we'd just go back to hand calcs, a la Bruhn, and more rig tests, and other difficult, expensive, fun things.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
TTFN
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I agree with IRstuff, being able to do calculations is worthless if you don't understand the theory enough to rough out a good design to start with.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Sure, people uneducated in the background can run the software, but it can be dangerous. Errors can be missed and things can fail.
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I am a mechanical engineer, and I do not understand the naivete of someone who believes:
or asks
There are many many facets to mechanical engineering that you fail to mention and in doing so you show your lack of curiosity with the world around you.
Here is some advice for you. If you don't like your lot in life then CHANGE IT! Don't sit around and talk about how the world has dealt you a raw hand and expect me to feel sorry for you. As a matter of fact, I'll give you some advice that may push you down the road to a more fulfilling career. Take a course or two in English composition. Maybe it's not your "engineering" skills that are holding you back.
Wes C.
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RE: Engineer versus Designer
Maybe the person making those statements has been in the same type of role in the same industry and hasn't had the chance to see other aspects of engineering. I've been places where FEA was extremely important on a regular basis, but for most of my work its useless. These things vary between industry and job, but I have been around a few places.
I think the OP and others WANT to change their situation. Heck, I want to change mine. Maybe they're just not sure how.
BTW, how's your day going? :D
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Engineer versus Designer
We had a dedicated Stress Engineer (they hired a second just before I left) who did 90%+ of all the stress analysis.
I remember him using FEA about twice! The rest was done by hand calcs usually verified by some testing if it was really critical. As well as the FEA he did for a couple of the larger jobs where it was justified we'd subcontract for some FEA analysis but it always seemed to take 10x as long as his hand calcs and I don't recall it ever finding something critical he had missed. It was usually a tick in the box in the contract or was done as verification of the hand calcs to avoid/minimize testing.
Now I'm not down playing FEA, it is a very useful and powerful tool but.... It is not the be all and end all of Mechanical engineering IMHO.
Maybe I'm the odd one out. I actually like the design aspect, coming up with neat mechanisms (or rather applying well proven ones in a clever way) or finding ways to fit things in while meeting time/financial constraints etc or even just creating ....
Maybe this is partly because I'm week on the analysis side although I have taken some steps to correct this. However, Design is the reason I wanted to become an engineer not analysis.
To me analysis is a tool for design not an end in itself.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I'm right there with you. I feel the same way!
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I now work alongside Mechanical Engineers in the water industry designing and building clean and waste water plants. None of the mechanical engineers seems to spend any time on anything like FEA yet they seem to have productive and fulfilling jobs doing mechanical engineering. Surely that says something about it being a subset of engineering?!
RE: Engineer versus Designer
One of my tasks for today is the process engineer needs to report to management. "How long will my pipe hangers last with the piping shaking like that?" they ask. I'm not picking parts from a catalogue, and I'm not pulling out my partial derivatives (yet) to solve this. Everything's not black & white.
If you think you are underutilized that doesn't necessarily mean its not engineering, just means you aren't happy. I have those tedious days too, ride them out and make a sober decision about your career.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
1. Those who design parts.
2. Those who design machines using a bunch of parts.
3. Those who design systems using a bunch of machines.
There are also different basic types of engineering jobs. At one end of the spectrum are those where the engineer spends most of his time at a computer doing analysis. At the other end of the spectrum are those where the engineer hardley spends any time in the office. There are many types of jobs in between these two extremes.
Besides design, there are engineers in sales, administrative and production jobs.
None of the engineering jobs that fall into these different categories is more or less important than the others. All require a techinical background like engineers gain in college.
Dextermech, if you are interested in doing the calculations and analysis, now would be the time to find such a job while your career is still fairly young. However, if you like your job and are considering a change only because you think you should be doing those things (not because you have a burning desire to), I wouldn't be too concerned. There are many engineering jobs similar to the one you have where you would be considered an experienced engineer. With the equipment I design, there are about 4 types of calculations I do on a regular basis, and those have become very routine for me. We don't need anything as sophisticated as FEA. If I were hiring an engineer, I would hire someone with your experience over someone who had thousands of hours of detailed analytical calculation experience.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I also like your decription of Mechanical Engineering. I think your 3 types are the best decription I've heard yet.
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Do you mean there are 3 types of mech eng or 3 types of design done by mech eng?
I certainly have done all 3 in my last job and at least the first 2 in this.
However good post.
Ken
RE: Engineer versus Designer
I hope this issue is not being over floged.
I left the university with a B.Eng in Mechanical Engineering, and a longing for those beautiful calculations and that feeling of just saving the world with one well taught out solution to the greatest engineering problem. That was 7yrs ago and now I remember those days and laugh at myself.
Check out my journey:
Year 1-2 - CAD Engineer, Construction Company
Year 2-4 - Planning Engineer, Consultancy Firm. The first year in consulting was spent developing procedures and work method statements for pipeline construction companies. I had to master industry codes and standards on my own. The rest was spent developing project management plans for huge pipeline construction projects.
Year5 - Project Engineer, Pipeline Construction Project
Year 5-Present - Management, am now an assisstant manager in the biggest construction company in Nigeria.
Sorry this was not meant as a resume, but to show dextermech the paths that engineering can take you through without being involved with long integration and differentiation.
Point of correct- I've not given up hope of solving the greatest engineering problem.
Greg Akhibi
Clearwaters Consulting Ltd
RE: Engineer versus Designer
What knowledge or skills that you think is important to your current position? What are the duties of Project Engineer? Any technique knowlege involved.
I think we don't expect much calculation in the engineering world. What skill is important?
RE: Engineer versus Designer
Modern management skills
Business acumen
Good communication skills
Leadership qualities
As a project engineer, my job is to manage the project execution in-line with the approved plans and develop, analyze, and recommend alternative options as need arises.
Example: I developed a routine in Microsoft excel for buoyancy calculations during a river crossing operation. This is all basic fluid mechanics. We contract the job to a consultant for a more details analysis using FEA and other steady state analysis software, turned out we arrived at the same result. Of course our client will be more comfortable with the tons of paper from the consultant.
Bottom-line is that you are an engineer practicing engineering what ever the level you are playing at. If everybody in the engineering family is busy with calculations who will manage the finances, clients and other issues that arise in the normal course of engineering business?
Engineering is the most dynamic of all professions.
It is a privilege to be in this family.
Greg Akhibi
Clearwaters Consulting Ltd