How can I achieve mastery in a stress engineering role working in the aerospace industry? 4

[EdwardNigma]

Hey all. Recently, I was listening to a podcast with a guest named Scott Galloway. Scott mentioned that the key to building wealth is by finding something we are good at, that has a 90-95% employment rate, and being at the top 10% or better yet 1% of employees which made me think about my situation (ie aerospace engineering has a relatively good employment rate with a large pool of candidates). Scott also stated that finding something we're good at would result in becoming passionate about our job, and not the other way around, and recommended to just sticking to that one job and no side hustles.

I find that I've enjoyed my structural engineering classes in school and, while I'm currently doing a master degree in aerospace structures, I have found that I perform better than others. I try to understand things to an elemental level and find some sort of practicality but I haven't achieved mastery as a stress engineer in the aerospace industry.

Putting things into perspective and looking back, I worked in a machine shop while in college and I was the best across different small companies in the industry. I also noticed that when I threatened to leave to focus more on my studies, I was able to get more money. I'd say a good living for someone without a degree or any formal training. After finishing my degree, I became a design engineer in the aerospace industry. I was close to achieving mastery but didn't stay long enough in my role to master my discipline. I've struggled to advanced faster in my career as I’ve dealt with difficult people working in the industry. I’m a likeable guy outside of engineering but, when I’ve worked in different groups, sometimes I’ll meet a senior engineer who won’t help me learn the role and will throw me under the job with the manager. Keep in mind that I work for a large OEM and there are politics in the corporate world.

Now I work as a stress engineer, as I always wanted to analyze structures against failure modes. I’ve worked on primary structures, interiors, and other structures but I don’t feel like I’ve mastered my job. I am a hard worker but, although I have lacked mentorship, I am now in a good stress engineering group with potential.

So, the question I have is, how can I achieve mastery in working as a stress analyst in the aerospace industry? What steps should one take to become better? Looking beyond the corporate world bureaucracy and lack of pay by staying in the same job instead of job hopping, I would like to excel in my role to see I can achieve more passion and relatively speaking good compensation for my work.

 

[IRstuff]

With that said, my questions were meant to be more about performing well as an engineer, not building wealth.

That's fine, but as engineers, we do need to know what assumptions/presumptions are made that can affect the course of a design development. Financial education is surely one serious lacking in most engineering curricula.

Another possible lack is a decent public speaking class or seminar; we had one in my school, and while they did teach a lot, it wasn't until I worked at Boeing where I got a serious lesson from a Boeing corporate communications team. They videoed the presentations and went through both the speaker and the presentation materials, focusing on "uhs" and "horse charts".

If you really want to shine, then being the go-to person for doing technical presentations is a must. Being able to see and describe why and how your work integrates with others' is also a must. If this is something you want to work on, then Toastmasters might be a good resource.

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

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[EdwardNigma]

@IRstuff, you bring up good points.

I did my share of presentations when I was a designer also at Boeing with PDRs and CDRs related my projects. I actually got good at presenting but it has been a while since I presented to a large audience due to the nature of my work now. Maybe it'll come back with time. I don't know yet.

In the past, I took some formal classes on public speaking at work. Picked up breathing techniques to calm myself as I would always have a tendency to get anxious even though I presented well. I made sure I understood my projects well for Q&A with the panel. As a designer, peer checking my coworker's jobs and becoming a focal with technicians in the shop floor for my design team helped understand design and the build process. However, I have noticed that when talking to people one-on-one, I've been a bad listener at times and that would add additional work/waste. I have been more proactive about it and have made good improvements in recent projects.

Thinking about my career and how it has progressed with the different jobs I've had, I have been more of a generalist when it comes to design and it would be nice if I could do that as a stress engineer.

 

[IRstuff]

That sounds good. I've tended to think that being a generalist, with sufficient depth was more valuable to my company than being a specialist, but YMMV. My thinking was that when push came to shove, having a generalist that could cover a myriad of short-term, short-duration tasks was more valuable than keeping a bunch of specialists on staff that would wind up under-utilized and get bored and go off to find something more exciting anyway.

In any case, that's something to consider, as well, whether your specialization is adequately fulfilled or you'll be sitting around waiting for an assignment that only you can do.

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

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