Looking for some career advice 2

[on4now4]

Hello all,

I have had a very long road on my way to being an engineer. I started out of high school with very little math and ended up getting my associate in CAD. I then decided it just was not enough and worked very hard to make it through all the math classes at night while I worked as a designer during the day to pay for it. Then I transferred from the local community college to U of M. Now I am in my first semester at U of M studying Electrical Engineering with a minor in physics but I still have some concerns.

From my experience as a designer in the hydroforming world for 4 years. I have learned a lot of things about the industry one of which is that generally speaking especially in the auto industry there is not much actual engineering that happens. Its mostly just you work on one little piece of the puzzle and how your going to make it fit in with all the rest of the pieces. I want a job where I can be a part of something bigger. Something that will allow me to really use all this math I have learned and work as a small team to make something really big happen.

I have had my heart set on a career at NASA for some time now but am also realistic in the fact that it probably wont happen. Yes I'm still applying for internships and so on but I want to explore other options if I can not secure a job.

So my question is this. I live in Michigan which means um surrounded by everything automotive (Which I don't want to be involved with any longer!). I am willing to relocate for the summer to take an internship somewhere exciting but besides NASA I am somewhat at a loss for ideas of places I would be interested in. Can any of you recommend somewhere like what I am describing that I could apply for a summer internship with possibility of full time position after? Somewhere that's really exciting and will allow me to be a part of something really big and exciting.

As well I have a lot of interest in propulsion methods. I would love to be a part of new space travel propulsion systems...

 

[GregLocock]

I have had to relocate for every single new job I have ever had, so that's a good start. I do sort of agree, the automotive industry has a lot of people with broad experience, relatively few go deep. But those jobs /do/ exist. i suspect you'll find the same breakdown is true of any large engineering organisation

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[TheTick]

What makes you so sure working at NASA doesn't suck?

 

[on4now4]

I really have no way of knowing that working at NASA wont suck. But I am really interested in space exploration and would love to be a part of the future propulsion systems. I more or less just hope that it would be a smaller group that allows you to be a part of the big overall project and not just one little piece. Then again I am probably wrong because what I want is just not how anything is run these days...

 

[BUGGAR]

Most of the wheels I know started out as cogs.

 

[IRstuff]

"I more or less just hope that it would be a smaller group that allows you to be a part of the big overall project and not just one little piece. "

You remember the movie Apollo 13? A roomful of people that knew how to ad hoc a carbon dioxide filter.

Everything you work on is going to be one little piece of a bigger system in every large company. If you want an impactful job, you need to be looking at smaller companies, not larger. Big fish, small pond, etc.

TTFN
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[on4now4]

I generally agree with you. The problem is that generally smaller companies you are just a supplier for one of the bigger companies. So although you will make a much larger impact at the company you are at and you may get to wear more hats at the small company than a big company. Generally small companies don't have to money or infrastructure to do really big and cool things.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Small companies around Detroit are likely to be part of the automotive supply chain, which is a special ecosystem having its own distortions.

Elsewhere, small companies can be niche players in large businesses, or they can be future large companies, just in an early state of gestation.

Small companies don't have cash to spend for anything.
Large companies have cost controls so they _can't_ spend money on speculation.

In both cases, to do something new and different, you need to trade creativity and your own labor for a lavish budget.

Doing more with less is a decent working definition of engineering.

Are you really an engineer?




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MacGyverS2000]

My career choice (okay, so it wasn't a choice in the beginning, but it has worked to my advantage!) has been to work at a number of different (and increasingly larger) companies taking on a range of roles... at this point in my career, I'm able to apply my experience from those varied positions to the one at hand (and to good effect). I still work at both small and large companies, but I have a wider range of control, and that also means I get to see (and affect!) the whole picture.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[MadMango]

I have to agree that if you want broader involvement you will want to seek out smaller companies, manufacturing companies specifically. From your posts, it sounds like you want to get into "systems architecture" or similar. If you go for the larger companies, the jobs are usually more specialized. I have friends that work at NASA, sometimes they develop a bolted connection for years. That is something that doesn't sound particularly appealing based on your posts. Other friends work at those "one little piece" aerospace industries (ASRC, JPL, Raytheon, Rockwell Collins), and they have more control over their part of the puzzle.

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

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[KENAT]

You do realize a lot of nominally NASA engineering is outsourced to Industry right?

There are a number of private spacecraft companies that might be of interest to you, and on top of that a number of propulsion companies.

How about applying to some of them?

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[rjoto]

"I am probably wrong because what I want is just not how anything is run these days." I think you're spot on with that. I don't think you're going to find high impact and large projects in the same role especially as an intern or eventual recent grad. It's just not practical. Usually anything that's "really big" and "really exciting" is going to be important enough to have a good number of engineers working on it.

That being said, check out ZIN Technologies near Cleveland, OH. They're a smaller company with does work with/for NASA and they hire quite a few interns (or at least they did last time I checked).

 

[on4now4]

Kenat, Can you name any in my area? What I am really looking for is names.

rjoto, I will check into ZIN Tech.

After doing a lot more searching one job somewhat catches my eye is a Research Engineer. I never even knew this was a thing as I was under the impression that all the research was done by physicists and so on. As well I think many of you are right about NASA being just another big company however if I can get into one of their intern programs I would love to at least try it out so I can at least say I did it. If I hate it that's fine. At least I tried. I just don't want to look back and never know if that would have been a perfect fit. Of course I am probably drawn mostly to NASA because its just the first name that comes to mind in the space industry and they are the ones sending people into space and actually doing exploration.

The other draw for me however is that I would think they do a lot more of the research and such than the suppliers but maybe I am wrong?

 

[KENAT]

C'mon on4now4, if you're seriously interested in working for NASA you should be able to Google search for companies in related fields. Not so sure about in your area but...

SpaceX
The Spaceship Company
XCOR Aerospace
Orbital ATK

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[IRstuff]

I think that you'll find that almost all companies are going to be limited in research opportunities, particularly commercial companies, unless they are gigantic, ala Boeing-sized "Phantom Works" or Lockheed Martin's "Skunkworks". Another alternative would be federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) like Aerospace Corporation, which are funded to research by and for the US government. Or federal/military labs, like the US Night Vision and Electro-optical Sensors Directorate (NVESD) at Fort Belvoir.

Commercial companies that accept government contracts are limited to something like 8% of income for independent research and development (IRAD or IR&D), but these IRAD projects are usually limited to product development, as opposed to basic research. In a company like Boeing, though, 8% of income, can still be a massive amount of money. Northrop Grumman spent something like $5B in IRAD to develop the F5 fighter that was used in "Top Gun," but couldn't get it sold into military inventory, except as a trainer.

Basic research does get funded in competitive procurements from agencies like DARPA, or even the NRO, CIA, or NSA. You can do some websearches to find companies that get awarded contracts. Other VERY small companies can tap into Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contracts, and these companies, "SBIRs" tend to specialize in competing for that sort of funding, but that can be a trap, since the funding is usually insufficient to productize something, and the companies might stay in the SBIR world forever.

TTFN
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[Terratek]

I don't know how it is with automotive or mechanical, but in Civil, you can get a pretty diverse exposure and relatively deep training if you are willing to change every 2-3 years and accept the entry level salary that accompanies the change. You don't really become truly proficient in most things in less than 5 years, IMO, but 2 to 3 years still gets you along quite a ways.

For example, I have a college friend who took a low paying civil job, then a low paying structural job, then a low paying MEP job. Now, after 7 years, she offers MEP and either self performs or subs the others out if they become out of her depth. But she can sub them with confidence that she will be able to check for major issues.

 

[carlharr]

1st tier aerospace suppliers probably offer the best opportunities of interesting work for a new engineer.

http://www.jcb.com

NX 8.5 with TC 8.3

 

[concretemasonry]

I worked in the aerospace industry as a CE from a school with a 5 year curriculum. It was in the hay-days of the 1960's. It was not really work, but was a combination of vacation, going to graduate school and seeing things I never imagined. - I work for the Rocketdyne division pf North American Avaiation the produced the H-1, J-2 and F-1 engine and had about 12 rocket test stands in Santa Susana, CA and almost exclusive access to several of the test stands at Edwards AFB. We got involved with water reservoirs for flame deflector cooling water. Our normal duties were for trying to keep up with changing engine properties (thrust, gimbaling and harmonics). Usually, we had to inspect the test stands, make sketches for modifications to allow the stands to be modified within a week to keep on schedule. Our clients were NASA, Air force, Navy in addition to corporate costs. - It was a great experience, gave me several years of evening graduate school (tuition free with mileage and parking) at USC. Later, one engineer for Parsons Engineers was also my instructor for structural design evenings at USC. I worked him to instrument and analyze some test stands (400 second engine firings to empty the fuel tanks for dynamic effects) and later worked with 4 years later on an analysis of a river island plant site for a large 2 unit nuclear power plant for the utility I worked for at that time.

The space industry is not as narrow a working arrangement as some people think. In that industry I also worked with blast forming of metal and had to design a lot of exotic materials in addition to stainless steel and also deal the the effects of chlorinated and florinated liquid oxygen in place of normal liquid oxygen for propulsion.

I only worked in the aerospace industry since I was a personal six year program (2 yrs high tech, 2 yrs construction and 2 years general civil engineering, but it was wide open to the learning you would not get belsewhere. You never realize what you learned and understood until you are looking back in time.

Dick

I think that working with an aggressive smaller company could offer a lot

Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.

 

[andriver]

You're going to need higher education than a bachelors to be a research engineer fyi.

 

[Gandalf89]

NASA is just one of the possibilities. Find a job in line with what you enjoy doing .