Levels of design engineering 2

[jd90]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. I was unsure where to put it!

Just wondering as a mechanical engineer what the different levels of design engineering are.

I was recently talking to someone at a large construction and chemicals company who expressed themselves as design engineers, in the sense they acquire different components to create an overall assembly (pumps, valves, materials etc.). Whilst other design engineers are more focused on designing individual components from scratch or improving designs (my initial idea of a design engineer)

Just wondering if there is terminology to differentiate between the two? I would also be interested to hear from people in both areas, pros? cons?

thanks

 

[KENAT]

Design Engineer is a generic term for people who design things - as opposed to other Engineers who might oversee production, or primarily analyze others designs or....

Might be electrical, might be mechanical might be some other field.

Might be working on individual components or complex systems of many parts.

Different organizations may use the term differently.

I wouldn't get hung up on the title, after all a rose by any other name....

What specific industry sector are you talking about & where in the world as that may make a difference.

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[dbill74]

All engineers are "design engineers" (except for perhaps a 'software engineer'). What differentiates us is what we design. For this reason and the example you provided, the better terminology is discipline or branch. Is one discipline better than another, no. In fact one cannot do their job without the other.

A "level" of engineering you could refer to is one's experience and how a company chooses to define your roles and responsibilities based on your experience and knowledge.

 

[Jboggs]

In my experience that term is one of many that have very different meanings in different companies. There is no common overall or industry-wide meaning.

 

[MJCronin]

It has been my experience that many "design engineers" are people who have skills and experience with CAD and a two year degree.

They commonly report to degreed/licensed engineers who sign and take responsibility for drawings produced.

There is a lot of overlap in skills ......

MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer

 

[dgallup]

Well, I'm a "Advanced Design Engineer" according to my business card. In this case "Advanced" means that I'm doing the early work at the start of a project to determine if it's feasible and worth investing time and money in taking the project to completion.

I disagree that All engineers are "design engineers". We have process engineers, calibration engineers, quality engineers, development engineers, application engineers, all kinds of engineers who don't do any design work.

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[MadMango]

Scope of role varies with industry.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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[andriver]

MJCronin,

You are referring to "designers"...a fancy name for a drafter (no offense).

Design engineers should have a 4 year ABET accredited engineering degree and understand engineering concepts. Never in my life have I heard of a 2 year CAD guy beeing called a design engineer.

 

[JNieman]

There is a world of difference between "drafter" and "designer" in the structural/architectural world. That industry is one of those where you /don't/ call someone an engineer without a degree or stamp.

There are people who've learned enough to basically be an unlicensed engineer in their knowledge and aptitude. This allows an engineer to only have to check their work rather than do all the work. Some designers are worth a lot more than some engineers in the same company, because of this. They may have incomplete courses of study, a non-engineering degree, or gained it all through experience, or any combination of the above. No, they aren't going to be designing the next cable-stayed bridge, but there are a whole lot of steel structures that are quite simple, but require a knowledgeable designer and engineer's P.E. stamp.

It's not a "fancy name for a drafter" as the responsibilities, value, and requisite knowledge are vastly different.

 

[KENAT]

andriver, there is a whole wide world outside of your non exempt USA centered existence.

In that world there are places where you don't have to have PE, FE/EIT or even an 'ABET accredited engineering degree' to be considered a design engineer.

While they haven't responded to my suggestion for clarification, I believe the OP may be from England and hence any of those acronyms would not apply anyway.

In England late 90's/early 2000's most of my senior colleagues had HNC/HND/Apprenticeships and got the title 'Design Engineer'*. Some of them were smarter and better engineers than a few pHD's I've known and certainly better than one CEng (equivalent of PE in the UK) who worked with us for a while .

However, this is straying into the 'who gets to be called an engineer' category which has been done to death multiple times before and not really answering the OP's question.



*(Of course, this education was in a land where to some US members of this site even elite universities that have a nice annual boat race are little more than trade schools since every student only study's their major and doesn't have to take history of rock & roll or underwater basket weaving 101 for gen ed credit.)

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[Nereth1]

I concur that it depends entirely on industry. How large or small of a picture you look at may have very little correlation on the skill required or complexity of the design as well.

On the really micro end of the scale, if you are designing some small component of a large system that happens to be relatively simple, you are going to be competing against an entire market of similar widgets that have all been optimized by your competitors because of the simplicity. The more the market has already optimized it, the more you are expected to squeeze the last bit out of it. So there isn't any relief down at the component level.

At the other end of the scale, the guys designing big complex configurations may not know how their particular gearbox works, they may not even know specifically what gearbox ends up getting specified, but they are designing it to interact properly with their drive system, they have to make sure the entire structure is rated to take reaction forces, dynamic loads as the whole system spins up, etc. The scope is much larger.

In the end, it's a complex job choosing components specifications for the hundreds of parts in the assembly, and then it's a complex job for the people choosing specific components for their subsystems that meet those specifications, and then it's a complex job for the guys probably in other businesses who are competing to supply those components.

Unless you have a unique product that the market wants. Then you can be woefully incompetent and cruise along as the only choice people have if they want your widget, right up until the point that someone else finishes copying you and you lose all your market share.