Junior Engineer Woes 8

[anominal]

I have two years of job experience with the same employer, one in the field and one in the design office. This is my first full-time job after college.

In the design office I've primarily been a draftsman. The majority of my time has been spent cleaning up CAD files created by ill-trained, less computer savvy, senior level engineers. I've gotten very good at it...

It's grunt work. I don't want to specialize in correcting other peoples CAD mistakes, yet there seems to be no end in sight. I've put up with it for a year. Before I start seeking other employment opportunities I'd like to know if anyone else has been in the same boat.

Perhaps I'm just another plebe from generation whine, living in the age of entitlement.

 

[IRstuff]

There's indeed a huge variation among companies, and over time as well. We've had a fairly stable group for about 4 yrs, and now, about 20% of the group has decided to move on.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[calguy07]

From Spongebob007:

"I will also second what was mentioned about attitude earlier. I make no bones about the fact that the tasks I assign to the new guys are crap work that I don't want to do, but that somebody has to do them. I tell them to think of these assignments as a test, and they are being "graded" on their ability to get the tasks done correctly, with minimal guidance, on time, and all the while having a good attitude. I remind them that successful completion of this "test" will lead to them being assigned bigger, more interesting tasks, and that eventually they can be responsible for entire projects."

At my company: "oh look, since you like grunt work and you did such a good job, here's more of it!!"

 

[berkshire]

As an employer, I would give junior members of my staff various tasks. I would then while pretending not to pay any attention to them, note their attitudes and how they applied themselves to the tasks at hand.
Unlike Spongebob007 I did not tell them they were being graded. None the less that was, precisely, what I was doing.
The ones that handled assignments competently got given more interesting tasks,the ones that copped an attitude or did not do well, stayed at the level they were at, or eventually left, or were let go.
B.E.

 

[GerhardSA]

anominal, my 2cents:

I was in the exact same position about a year ago, doing mostly drawings and the like for about a year and a half, and before that, while still studying I was a steel worker.

Got a job at another company and am climbing the ladder faster than the other junior engineers. I work for a company of about 25 but with some very big projects.

All the small stuff started coming to me because I could do the structural sizing but more importantly I could guide a junior draftsman to produce a drawing that is understandable and correct, without a lot of checking from my bosses. They liked this because it was nominal input from them and they got to charge for this.

The other junior engineers had to work with the more experienced draftsman, who didn't really have time for engineers that is not so sure about what they were doing.

Bottom line: 6 months down the line I got a nice little team together. I learned a lot more design than the other engineers, the bosses needed to search for design work for them to do in a project,they sometimes got a bit pigeonholed in one thing. I got a complete project, experience on the complete design, as well as bringing in about three times what they do.

I actually got a section on a huge project we are tendering for, I get to join all the prelim meetings, am involved in the costing phase, prelim designs etc. I have more responsibility than any of the other junior engineers, even though some of them are more than 2 years my senior.

And it all started with a crappy 15 months of drawing, for a very low salary.

 

[anominal]

All:

Thank you for your input. I had my yearly appraisal last Friday and the conversation was good.

I avoided using the words "pigeon hole" and instead expressed my desire to have more "meat and potatoes" engineering. My boss liked the phrase. He admitted to me that the type of work I had been seeing wasn't ideal for my professional development; but it was work that had to be done. Empty promise or not, he said when new opportunities are presented to the company that I would be well positioned for increased responsibility.

A side note, I've drifted away from CAD in the past two months... so I'm quite happy with how everything is turning out.