Career growth for an FEA engineer. 2

[prebasha]

I have been working as an Analysis Engineer for little over 4 years now. All this experience is in Automotive/heavy machinery domain. Even though I like what I do, it feels very monotonous now, I often wonder what upward direction I can take from here.

Any suggestions regarding courses/training etc to take?
Any other inuts?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SomptingGuy]

Performance simulation.
Systems.
Acoustics.

- Steve

 

[IRstuff]

Shouldn't this be a question to your supervisor?

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[Twoballcane]

The defense industry is always looking for good Mechanical Engineer Analyst, especially if you have some background in design such as electronic packaging, structure, and thermal.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”
"People get promoted when they provide value and when they build great relationships"

 

[GregLocock]

The trouble with FEA as a career path is that it isn't one.

Oh, maybe you might become a team leader or whatever, but there are other guys going for that job as well, and even if they don't pull anyone in from outside to do it, and you get it, you'll probably find that the analysis you used to do is far more interesting then the team leader B/S, simply because that's the sort of personality FEA attracts.

So, if you are going to stick with node pushing as a job, some other alternatives are Crash, which looks like fun, Fatigue, which looks like agony, and Sompting guy's list. Multiphysics and co simulation are great buzzwords being thrown around.

An alternative you may not have considered is to spend some time doing the physical testing used to correlate your models. By this I mean working in a Modal Analysis Laboratory or a test engineering type role. At the very least it'll reduce your chances of getting RSI.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[prebasha]

Thanks everyone.

Greg, it's kind of scary to think that there is not clear career path for FEA engineers, After all everyone wants to grow and earn more money as needs are also going to change over the time( wedding and kids and house and blah balh!)

Secondly, I've noticed that managers are more into deliverables, hours put it and super efficiency with tools than real enigineering. I mean, they have kinda stoppped asking 'why this' about analysis and are more concern about every other thing. If a guy-X can do something (without knowing why he is doing it) in less amount of time than guy-Y, guy-x is a hero.

I find MBD intersting and also planning to learn it but still not clear about where I would (or should) end up in 5 years down the lane.

Thanks again.
PBS.

 

[Twoballcane]

Which type of FEA part are you interested in doing? Are you more interested in coding FEA or being an Analyst? And what do you mean by career path? As in stuff you can do or a move up in title and pay? If you are more interested in coding, you can look into joining companies such as ANSYS, PTC, Flotherm…etc or you can even create your own software. I actually know the guys who created TAS from scratch. If titles and more pay are what you’re looking for, than mid to large defense / aerospace companies may be your best bet. They typically have the career paths of Engineer, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, and Engineering Fellow (as close as you can get to VP level of pay). Your function may be an analyst, but as you grow your career, you have to have a broad experience in design, other theories of analysis (thermal dynamics, heat transfer, dynamic, structural…etc), in other words, you have to be a jack of all trades and a “master of one” which is being an analyst. Even get mechanical testing under your belt so that you have data to support your analysis. If you are just doing FEA (data in data out) without other skills, like other single function jobs, you will become stagnate in that function. FEA is a tool to use to perpetuate a career, however, not a career in its self.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”
"People get promoted when they provide value and when they build great relationships"

 

[SomptingGuy]

The trouble with FEA as a career path is that it isn't one

New graduates where I work are liberally sprinkled around the various areas. It's very rare for any that land in FEA to want to stay there. Most move on to less specialized areas after not too long. Although they retain what the've learned.

- Steve

 

[GregLocock]

I agree FEA should be one tool in a well rounded engineer's arsenal, not the sum total of his expertise. However there is a darkened room not very far from here where 70 introverts would like to argue that my perspective is wrong.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[KENAT]

I'll back up those who question the idea of an 'FEA Engineer'. A "stress analyst" that makes extensive use of FEA (or similar 'analyst' roles) sure but an FEA Engineer is odd. My title use to be 'CAD Engineer' which I always thought was silly, I mean 30 years ago did they have 'Drafting Table Engineer'?

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[321GO]

The 'problem' is that you're job is vital but at the same time far away from the actual 'sell' so to speak.

Sure, you can make a decent income, but as a FEA specialist you're always kind of in the background.

 

[GregLocock]

Surely the same could be said of many technical specialisations?


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[spongebob007]

"The 'problem' is that you're job is vital but at the same time far away from the actual 'sell' so to speak."

My experience and opinion is that this is pretty much true of almost all purely technical roles. I (half) jokingly say that when a project goes right, management and or marketing take all the credit, but when a project goes wrong, engineering gets all of the blame.

Generally a purely technical job is going to be a dead end at a lot of companies and not a career. Sure you will probably making more money, but 20 years from now you will be sitting at the same desk doing the same thing you are doing today. This is especially true at smaller companies. In these scenarios the only real way to advance your career is to go over to the dark side.

In large organazations, expecially defense companies, there are two basic career paths for engineers: managerial and technical. You can advance your career and still stay mostly technical, but if glory is what you are looking for, you almost certainly will have to leave the purely technical world behind.

In terms of FEA work, what I said above applies. If you want a job as an FEA engineer your best bet would be a large organazition probably in defense or automotive. Most small companies just don't have the workload to justify a full time analyst. In these scenarios FEA is but one tool in your arsenal and you could spend maybe only 20% of your time doing FEA.

FEA today is approaching what CAD has become. Anyone can be a mouse jockey and make pretty pictures. Your skills will have value if you move beyond basic static stress analysis.

 

[prebasha]

Thanks everyone.

Moving into defense is not an option for me as of now because of security clearance and all. The problem with automotive industry is it's too unstable.

'Glory' etc does not feature in my wish list. What I want in life is to have good time at work for as long as I work and earn decent enough to provide my family a good life.

So my guess is climbing the ladder by adding a tool/technique a year, becoming a TL, PL etc in the process is the only way.

Cheers!