Changing job after graduating

[ismael_]

Hello everyone,

I'm a fresh engineer graduated in mechanical engineering. I'm about to finish my intership and get hired by the same company I work for, in France.
The past 2 years, I discovered a new passion for programming and my interest increased even more throughout my intership which combines programming and structural analysis. As a result I developped some decent skills, especially on Python. I really love this kind of work, writing, debugging and making complexe algorithme to solve difficult tasks for engineers.
But the issue is that, my future work as an engineer hasn't anything to do with programming and I won't be allowed to continu my inernship work. Also I don't see myself doing meshing, static calculs on CAE softwares in the future.

So my question is :
Is it possible to get into IT whithout wasting too much time ?
What are the steps to follow to make a good transition from structural engineer to IT engineer ?

Thank you in advance for your respond.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

1) Prepare a resume that accurately shows both your education and experience. Do not try to "guess" what you think an employer looking for an IT engineer want's to see. Sometimes employers need employees with odd combinations of qualifications. Even if they don't, your resume will show that you can adapt to new fields.

2) Apply for jobs as an IT engineer. Accept being ignored or rejected as "business", not personal. Keep trying.

 

[CWB1]

Not sure the market in France, but stateside you would be in a tough spot. It’s fairly common today for MEs to write basic macros and programs, but when that goes from a side-project to full-time it’s usually turned over to an experienced programmer. If you’re looking to get into IT otherwise then all you need are a few Comptia or other certs.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

I'd also highly recommend you understand what IT actually means... IT guys rarely write code (scripting is generally the max, and there's very little of it in most cases). IT guys are typically troubleshooting network system errors, dreading patch Tuesday every week, re-installing OSs on crashed systems, etc. If you want to code, become a software engineer.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[ismael_]

Thank you all for your answers, I really appreciate it !
I 'll take note of everything you told me. When I was talking about IT, you were accurate MacGyverS2000, I was talking about software, cloud computing etc...

 

[IRstuff]

You might have more luck looking for companies that specialize in engineering software development.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[geotechguy1]

It's not impossible, I know people who have leveraged some coding experience at a previous job + a one year after degree (in Alberta there is a push to re-educate oil and gas engineers into programmers at the moment so these types of programs are fairly well available) into a programming profession. There are companies looking for this combination of skills. For example, someone has to write the code for Slope/W and other similar programs.

 

[EnergyProfessional]

Couldn't you just introduce programming to your engineering job? I assume the engineers there currently don't program, but you could show how that would solve many of their problems efficiently and you can be the programmer right there.

Like if you automate some tasks they do manually etc. i have no programming knowledge, but use many skills no one at my place had before, just because i learned them on my way. No one ever told me to do that, they just make my job easier.

 

[MintJulep]

Not withstanding your self-assessment, it is unlikely that 2 years of self learning has made you a "good programmer" on the level of the people that you will be competing against who have studied programming formally.

I have taught myself programming over much longer than 2 years, and have written some extensive programs. In that time and with that experience I have learned that I know nothing about programming.

What are the job responsibilities of the position that you are about to accept? Is there really no way that programming can be applied to at least some of the responsibilities?

Why have you accepted the position if it does not interest you?

 

[phamENG]

You mention structural analysis - are you doing building structures or just the structural mechanics of mechanical parts and assemblies? If the former, and that's what you want to do, go over to the structural forum. There is one person in particular there - JoshPlum - who has significant experience with two of North America's largest engineering analysis software companies, and I believe at least one of them has a large international footprint as well. He'd have some really valuable insights there. I don't believe he did the actual programming, but worked with the programmers to integrate the engineering theory and methods into the software. There are a few others over there that do some pretty in depth programming for personal projects and have built their own analysis software for their particular niche.

 

[ismael_]

thank you all for taking your time to answer and help me, I'm very grateful !

EnergyProfessional : Exaclty, but the programming skills required are pretty low. Like it's just developping macros to retrieve results in a text file (.f06, .dat) that's it. What's more, a lots of softwares don't support powerful programming languages such as Python, a lot of them has their own languages such as TCL with HyperWork, ADPL with Ansys etc... which doesn't interess me

MintJulep : I'm not a programmer, I only have the basics and I do not pretend I master programming. I was just asking If there were people like me who made the same move, how did they do, what's the steps etc... I know that companies offers training program for engineers, or people that own a master degree at least, to hire them next. But I also know that there people are self taught and succeeded anyway. That's it

phamENG : thank you, I will look over it !

 

[ismael_]

MintJulep : Also I accepted because the wage is quiet good and currently I have no options. It's better for me to be active than unemployed, it's just a question of time before I move. I was planning to get a 2nd master degree in computer science or get into a training program or something else ? I don't know what's the best that's why I prefered to talk about it before doing anything.

 

[EnergyProfessional]

I don't know your profession, or programming. But with creativity you can invent some needs. For example, we use Autodesk Revit and it has an option for API programing, and dynamo. Python is one of the languages it uses. That way a user can add tons of functionality. Most users just use Revit like it was made and are happy, but you CAN add millions of features tailored to your company's needs. Skill level ranges from low, to really high (you could make software add-ins and sell them, for example). So you should check if your current company uses software that also is open to add-ins, API etc.

Looks like you are structural. So with structural knowledge, and programming knowledge, I'm sure you could create or improve useful tools. While you do your work you come across ideas how to automate and simplify things. Don't wait for your colleagues to come up with ideas, they probably are happy with what they have and are not programmers.

You also can do freelance work on the side and see how that goes. That way you see how well you do against actual software engineers.

 

[Landen Anderson]

After training, I had several options where I could go to work, but both of these options were unpromising, although they were directly related to my academic specifics.