Which way is forward for career 3

[RMech]

My background is as follows: -

Apprenticeship in Mechanical Engineering
BEng in Mechanical Engineering with Business Management
PhD in Mechattronic design in orthopaedic medicine
One and half years experience in overseeing the development of an injection moulded disposable medical device for use in the human eye.

My current salary is very poor and I am concerned that the skills I am gaiing are not very tranferable as I work only in the Opthalmic industry.

Please can anyone advise me what sort of position I should be looking for as a next step in my career and what sort of salary I should be looking for?

e.g. project management, designer £20-40k etc.

 

[Heckler]

RMech,

I would look into starting you own company. If you feel you have the experience in your field to support that venture.

 

[Beggar]

How poor is your salary given that you've only got 18 months work experience?

What experience are you gaining?

What do *you* actually do?

What are your skills?

Pretty tough to offer advice about career direction without a bit of information to go along.

--------------------
Bring back the HP-15

http://www.hp15c.org

--------------------

 

[Beggar]

Oh yeah, another line of questions:

For you, what defines a successful career?

How do you define "going forward?"

What's important to you (money, time off, stability, prestige, recognition, resource availability)?



--------------------
Bring back the HP-15

http://www.hp15c.org

--------------------

 

[Ashereng]

RMech,

What is important to you?

This question sounds simple, but it takes a lot of thought. Most people actually can't answer this question, aside from some general fuzzy concept.

There are a lot of competing factors, and their importance changes with the current situation in your life. What is important now, may not be in 5 years, and vise versa.

Sit down and think about this question. There are many resources to help you determine this. Once you decide what is important, the path to get there usually is a bit clearer.

For example: If what is important to you is to become a Project Manager, then I suggest that you look for a position with another company if there isn't one available within your current organization. You already have a Mech Eng degree with Bus Mgmt - maybe a MBA would be the next logical step.

 

[RMech]

Thank you all for your responses.

I won't go into great detail, but my current role is split between coordinating all tasks and the design of medical devices to be taken from concept to mass production.

My current project is a device assembled from injection moulded parts, so this has involded lots of prototyping, tool modiifcations, biocompatibility testing, risk analysis etc

My salary is early £20s

My very loose definition of successful is constantly growing in value as an employee in an industry that is going to be successful in the UK in the future.

I have chosen the medical device industry because I believe the high-tech industries will remain in the UK while much of manufacturing dissapears. Also people are living longer providing greater requirement for medical devices.

I also would rather be in the medical device industry than the defence industry, but I am also realistic about available oportunities.

Perhaps I could get into medical device consultancy, design or project management?

Any views very welcome! Thanks again!

 

[Ashereng]

My very loose definition of successful is constantly growing in value as an employee in an industry that is going to be successful in the UK in the future.

I have chosen the medical device industry ...

Well, if this is what is important to you (you did not mention money), then I suggest a series of different roles and position to increase your familiarity with your industry, i.e. vertical integration.

You currently work for a company that produces a product. I am sure there are lots of different roles in your company that you can learn (given your 1.5 years experience). You may also wish to consider the vendor (people who you buy from), consultancy (people who advise) and client side (people who you sell to). This is what I mean by vertical integration.

You mentioned PM. Are there also opportunities in sales/marketing, field services/tech support of the product, clinical trials, etc. that interests you?

Once you know what and how you want to expand your knowledge, it becomes much easier to recognize opportunities when it comes a'knockin.

 

[GregLocock]

Your job, detail-designing and developing a machine and getting it into production, is typical of that for a level II or III engineer, if you look at definitions of engineer on salary.com.

You basically have 1.5 years of postgraduate work experience, which also puts you in level II.

I suggest that you do not need to change fields as I agree with your analysis of the long term prospects.

So, the real question is what do level II engineer jobs pay in the UK, is low 20s reasonable?

If you are a student member of a professional organisation you should be able to get hold of their salary surveys. Failing that, a flick through 'Professional Engineering' suggests that 24k-28k would not be unreasonable, derpending on where you are located.

Your best bet would eb to find a company that values your PhD. Good Luck.





Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.