Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
(OP)
I have been working in company for 5 years as mechanical design engineer.
Although I worked in the same company & in the same design division, I was transferred to different sections of design department thrice, which gives me mixed experience in different design departments.
To make my situation clear, I would like to tell my work experience in brief:
1. I worked as Gas turbine performance engineer for 2 years. Job nature was primarily defect investigation & simple performance calculations for engine testing. From this experience, I simply learnt about the construction & testing of gas turbine.
2. Next one year, I worked as Detail design engineer. Job nature was doing basic mechanical calculations, making 3d models and preparing drawings. From this experience I learnt GD&T, AutoCAD & NX.
3. And for the last 2 years I worked as Engine system engineer. Job nature was engine oil system analysis (using Amesim software), designing oil system components like valves, piplines, pumps. From this experience I learnt system analysis and from my own interest I learnt the basics of CFD analysis (CFX) to do flow analysis & heat transfer analysis.
This kind of mixed experience made me specialist in nothing! & I dont know based on what area of specialization I can apply to some other company?!
I fear, if I get fired from my present employer, then I couldnt get any other good job. A friend of mine has a job experience of 5 years in stress analysis and he has good opportunity to get job in that field. Like that, I like to have some specific work experience, which can fetch me a good job anytime.
What should I do to improve my career?
Should I learn more on GD&T, drawings & 3d modeling?
Or, Should I learn CFD or any other thing?
I am in a state of confusion, any suggestion will be greatly helpful & sincerely appreciated.
Thank you.
Although I worked in the same company & in the same design division, I was transferred to different sections of design department thrice, which gives me mixed experience in different design departments.
To make my situation clear, I would like to tell my work experience in brief:
1. I worked as Gas turbine performance engineer for 2 years. Job nature was primarily defect investigation & simple performance calculations for engine testing. From this experience, I simply learnt about the construction & testing of gas turbine.
2. Next one year, I worked as Detail design engineer. Job nature was doing basic mechanical calculations, making 3d models and preparing drawings. From this experience I learnt GD&T, AutoCAD & NX.
3. And for the last 2 years I worked as Engine system engineer. Job nature was engine oil system analysis (using Amesim software), designing oil system components like valves, piplines, pumps. From this experience I learnt system analysis and from my own interest I learnt the basics of CFD analysis (CFX) to do flow analysis & heat transfer analysis.
This kind of mixed experience made me specialist in nothing! & I dont know based on what area of specialization I can apply to some other company?!
I fear, if I get fired from my present employer, then I couldnt get any other good job. A friend of mine has a job experience of 5 years in stress analysis and he has good opportunity to get job in that field. Like that, I like to have some specific work experience, which can fetch me a good job anytime.
What should I do to improve my career?
Should I learn more on GD&T, drawings & 3d modeling?
Or, Should I learn CFD or any other thing?
I am in a state of confusion, any suggestion will be greatly helpful & sincerely appreciated.
Thank you.





RE: Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
I've been doing this for over 30 years now. In my first 12 years I had no job longer than two years, and I learned a LOT! Now I'm doing what I love. I might never have known that if I had just tried to buckle down and stay in one field just because that's where I had spent the previous few months.
RE: Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
More seriously, no, you are doing absolutely fine. It might be worth becoming an expert in something that takes your fancy, but since that takes 10 years it can wait.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
The only kind of job you can get by doing the exact same thing for years and years is the exact same job again. Variety is the spice of life, and it adds depth to every engineer's judgement.
Communicating that to people in HR may not be so easy, but there are always ways.
Good luck, and I hope it's not because you fear an imminent "downsizing" that you're writing this.
STF
RE: Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
Everyone view is that the diversified experience is good..
But that is in terms of knowledge and learning..
When it comes to job opportunity, is it not that specialization has advantage over diversified experience?
@SparWeb
s.. As u guessed, its my fear about 'downsizing'.. I want to improve myself such that I could be able to get job in case of downsizing by the present employer..
Can anyone tell me, which field of mechanical design engineering (like drafting, 3d modeling, stress analysis, cfd, etc.,) has good job opportunity?
RE: Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
As far as which specialties might be hot right now, I can promise you they won't be hot tomorrow. The bottom line is that nothing gets done, nothing gets built, nothing gets sold without all of the above happening. No one part of the overall process is more important than any other part. Anyone who plays any part in the whole process contributes equally.
The "hotness" of specfic fields will vary WIDELY depending on which part of the globe you are in and which businesses happen to be expanding there. As far as which one to learn more about - yes. All of them. The one you like the most will be the one you are best at.
RE: Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
Both specialization and generalization have their pro's and cons. I'm not sure there's a simple answer.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Need Career advice for Mechanical Design Engineer
It depends
I don't have a particular specialty, but I'm reasonably quick at picking sufficient knowledge to quickly react to new demands; the company may then decide whether they need to hire a specialist to fill in the detail work.
TTFN

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