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Adding a data point, I'm in consulting and I got Engineer II at my three year review# starting at Engineer I. We've since added an Associate Engineer title for fresh out of school like I was, so I guess I kinda got a leg up?
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Jun 15, 2021 17:34
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I work at a utility and our promotions are based around performance and perceived replaceability. We have levels that are 1 through 4. 1->2 is 2-4 years typically. 2->3 is gated by having a PE and generally is given around 4 to 6 years after hire. 3->4 i’ve seen given to people with 6 years of experience (these folk make management before 10 years) but i know people with 20 years of experience that haven’t gotten their 4. The 10 year mark for this promotion is typical for a good employee. Those who are at 15+ years with no 4 are definitely low performance relative to the group.
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Jun 15, 2021 19:02
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I’ve only really worked in large Defense but there are 6 levels before hitting the significant pay and jump to Fellow / Chief Engineer / Sr. Manager. Engineer 1/2, Senior 1/2, Principal 1/2. Technically HR delimits these by 2 years of experience, so those cruising up the ranks can hit Principal 2 in their mid-30s, or people can get hired in kinda high based on years of experience. During hiring surges I have legit seen that if you were going to be hired, YOE was 90% of the determining factor for salary grade. Usually inertia works against you, so I’ve seen plenty of 20+ YOE people be in, and retire in, the Principal 1 pay grade. Low performing, high YOE people typically get stuck in Senior 2. Each of these positions carries with it a normalized pay curve, and your performance is ranked against people in that pay curve, so when the company is huge there is a meaningful difference of what your level is because someone will say “relative to all the other people in this salary grade, how did X perform”? You can technically be burnt by going up too fast. I think I agree that more than not it is just a distraction and means for people to get all twisted up about their level relative to others. It almost never tracks to day-to-day responsibilities and skill unless you are at the bottom (new college hire) or top (SME - and even then…) Crazyweasel fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 15, 2021 19:19
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Gin_Rummy posted:For reference, senior engineer at my company is basically the equivalent of eng 3. I haven't been here for my whole career, but if you count my previous jobs, I have been an eng 2 for six-ish years now... we also have multiple people on my team the same age or younger who are seniors. This was my experience when I was in the defense industry: 1 2 3 = Senior = 5-10 years post undergrad. 4 5 6 I made engineer 3 four years post undergrad but I also graduated late, worked engineering jobs all through college, and played the promotion game correctly. If you want advice on the promotion game in that industry for levels 1-3 I can answer questions. Be prepared to move jobs is an important part of that game.
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Jun 15, 2021 19:27
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We have associate, engineer, senior, staff, principle at my company. Promotions aren’t based on merit but based on head count. Ie someone has to be promoted in order you to go from engineer to senior engineer in most cases. We employ mechanical and electrical engineers for reference. Entertainment company.
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Jun 16, 2021 00:40
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Consultant engineer at a 20,000+ firm as background, title's are meaningless here. Since we grow by acquisition, the definition of say "project engineer" is different depending on what office, field you're in. Also we have two levels of title, our leadership title (think for signing authority) and our technical title (governs what we can bill at based on typical contracts with municipalities). If you're after "senior engineer" just for the job title, that seems like a pointless waste to me. People I graduated with 6 years ago are "vice presidents" at making GBS threads home building firms. If you're after new skills and responsibilities, you probably need to make that clear during whatever performance review thingamabob you do. If you're after more money/profit sharing or what have you, I'd say you need to switch jobs.
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Jun 16, 2021 14:22
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In my megacorp, title and pay grade are intrinsically linked. So an engineer 1 is essentially synonymous with a specific paygrade which encompasses a salary band ranging from $Xk to $Yk. So if you're a senior engineer, you are definitely making between $X and Y, whereas engineer 2 you're definitely between $R and $Q. I think you guys are correct in many ways on a lot of the points being made, because the responsibilities and requirements are fairly arbitrary... in my team specifically, everyone generally does the same kind of stuff regardless of grade, though the "seniors" tend to get the more complex design assignments. That being said, anytime I have found a senior 1 position on the company's intranet job board... I more than qualify. Most of my peers seem to agree that I am absolutely getting shafted, as are quite a few of my team mates who have more experience and more education than me (and all the other seniors too, actually) but are also classified as eng 2. I guess we're just the unfortunate victims of one of the boomerest managers who thinks engineers have to take their lumps and work sixty hour weeks "just like he did" to be worth any salt. I'm also very frustrated because I can see more senior role job reqs opening up that are distinctly within our group now and none of us are getting a chance to step into those, because I guess we aren't ready or some bullshit. As said previously, I already know I need to just find a new job and I have been actively looking for some time... so I guess at the end of the day, I am probably mostly just venting about the lovely situation.
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Jun 16, 2021 22:51
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Yeah, in my company each title level has a specific pay range. If you reach the top of the range for your title, then you are stuck until you either get a promotion or HR adjusts the ranges.
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Jun 16, 2021 23:24
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Same. Typically HR updates the range every year to more or less keep up with inflation.
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Jun 16, 2021 23:44
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Ours is weird in that Principal engineer isn’t the highest, with Tech Staff (manager equivalent) and Senior Tech Staff (senior manager) being above it. Usually places I had worked before had one principal engineer who was the misanthrope who knew a poo poo ton but had bad people skills so didn’t get shunted to the management track 
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Jun 16, 2021 23:45
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priznat posted:Ours is weird in that Principal engineer isn’t the highest, with Tech Staff (manager equivalent) and Senior Tech Staff (senior manager) being above it. Usually places I had worked before had one principal engineer who was the misanthrope who knew a poo poo ton but had bad people skills so didn’t get shunted to the management track
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Jun 17, 2021 00:43
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Gin_Rummy posted:In my megacorp, title and pay grade are intrinsically linked. So an engineer 1 is essentially synonymous with a specific paygrade which encompasses a salary band ranging from $Xk to $Yk. So if you're a senior engineer, you are definitely making between $X and Y, whereas engineer 2 you're definitely between $R and $Q. I think you guys are correct in many ways on a lot of the points being made, because the responsibilities and requirements are fairly arbitrary... in my team specifically, everyone generally does the same kind of stuff regardless of grade, though the "seniors" tend to get the more complex design assignments. That being said, anytime I have found a senior 1 position on the company's intranet job board... I more than qualify. I climbed up my corporate ladder very quickly to start and at first it was just working hard, then I had a mentor who was successfully promoted every 2 or 3 years over an 18 year stretch. He taught me about who actually holds the power to promo at all these different levels and how to work it. You might want to find someone like that if you want to stay with your company. You could possibly circumvent your manager and build a relationship with his boss, who may be the actually decision maker on who fills what roles and who is promo’d
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Jun 17, 2021 12:32
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Crazyweasel posted:I climbed up my corporate ladder very quickly to start and at first it was just working hard, then I had a mentor who was successfully promoted every 2 or 3 years over an 18 year stretch. He taught me about who actually holds the power to promo at all these different levels and how to work it. You might want to find someone like that if you want to stay with your company. On one hand, the benefits we have right now are pretty nice... but on the other hand, this company and my boss have contributed to a souring of any enjoyment I had for this field. I am actually an aero who fell into mech and I had a self-realization a few weeks ago that I basically hate all of the mech parts of my job, so I am not really attached to where I am at. However, if I was I wouldn't really have a shot at fostering relationships with the higher ups either, because our group is actually in a satellite branch... we are the only ones from our division at this location, so I have only met the boss of my boss once three years ago.
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Jun 17, 2021 14:57
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Not sure how often people look at this thread, but if anyone is looking at getting a first job or getting a new one, we're dying for people in the Veterans Administration. We need project engineers bad. We've been getting tons of money thrown at us to fix infastructure, equipment, and facilities that should have been dealt with decades ago, but the VA went underfunded so long that our manpower is extremely low. A lot of VA medical centers are hiring as fast as they can, but there has been a shortage of interest or people aren't checking for postings on USAJobs. You don't need actual project management experience if you can just argue you have coordination and review experience. We can actually use more design side experience since most of us have been on the management side for our whole careers and lack a bit in design review skills. You don't need EIT or a PE either, but it doesn't hurt. We just got a special pay scale for engineers so our pay is now more competitive (still not as good as private, but employment is more stable and we still get a pension on top of the TSP (401K equivalent). If you're interested the positions on USAjobs are for 0801 job series engineers. If anyone is interested, but put off by how USAjobs works and how the documents need to be PM and I'll talk you through applying.
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Jul 28, 2021 15:00
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-Zydeco- posted:We just got a special pay scale for engineers so our pay is now more competitive (still not as good as private, but employment is more stable and we still get a pension on top of the TSP (401K equivalent). Also, only working 40-45 hours a week is a benefit all its own.
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Jul 28, 2021 15:20
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Question cross-posted from SAL because I didn't think about there being a thread for professional engineers in BFC. I'm looking for a (hopefully) user-friendly software that would let me put in certain parameters for objects and forces acting on said objects and then give me an idea of how they would move over time, be able to view the force/momentum/stresses/whatever on a given object at a given point. Does anyone know of a software like that? I use Fusion 360 for 3d object modeling and it has a simulation mode but it's static simulations rather than being able to model something in motion. I think MATLAB might have that but as I understand that it also has its own programming language and while that's not impossible for me to learn I'm already working on learning code stuff for my IT job and there's only so much of that I can cram in my head at once. I'd like to eventually go back to school for Mech E at some point but my finances right now say no, so I've kind of been trying to teach myself concepts based off of my existing physics knowledge from when I went to school for CS and took physics as an elective.
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Aug 3, 2021 20:45
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The class of software you're looking for is called multibody simulation. There's used to be a really easy to use one called Working Model but I don't know if it still exists.
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Aug 3, 2021 22:22
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Thank you, I'll look into the options there and see if I can find comparisons about ease of use and features and price and whatnot.
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Aug 4, 2021 00:03
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I just got accepted for a job at a company as a Design Engineer. Basically the same job title as my previous employment in the UK. It's an actual company as opposed to a family-run business, so I'm looking forward to having proper guidance, training and being sent on courses. The previous job was very stressful because I constantly felt like I was falling but somehow managing to land on my feet, as I had little direction from my boss, and was left to flounder about and figure things out. Imposter syndrome was through the roof. If anyone here can shed some light on what I can expect from this job role in a large, multinational company? Will I basically be doing the same stuff I was before, which consisted of: - Updating old hand drawings to CAD drawings - Creating simple components and putting them together in equally simple assemblies - Writing up BOMs and connecting it with the stock software - Small, monotonous tasks that my boss would hand over to me for grunt work. Something that didn't need any brain power or skill but would save him from wasting time on it Or are things different in a larger company? Family-run business had about 50 employees, the one I'm joining has hundreds. Will I be taken under someone's wing and babysat until I'm competent, or will they throw me in the deep end and see how I handle myself? I'm excited and apprehensive, but I feel like I have an edge and will do okay due to my past experience. The company did a huge intake of fresh graduates, and the Design Engineering department got 3 vacancies, and I managed to fill one of them.
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Aug 7, 2021 11:11
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I think you'll be just fine. Huge corporations tend to have more well defined roles and sets of procedures, which would include on-boarding new-hires and your day-to-day tasks. I think what you'll probably notice is how much red tape there is in doing just about everything compared to being in a smaller company.
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Aug 7, 2021 13:13
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Hey all. I am almost 2 months into my first "proper" engineering job at the age of 31. I'm now an entry level product engineer at a big semiconductor company. First time working private sector and first time actually using my degree, I'm now 9-5 doing things like hunting and pecking binary bits on test patterns for chip-scale IC's. Basically as soon as the silicon wafer gets sliced up, the individual test dies come to us for stringent analysis before the device get ramped to mass production. It's very challenging for me and I have to make sure my mind, body and life are all in order outside of work for my brain to function properly while I'm there, but I'm kind of loving it so far. The pay and benefits are light years beyond anything I've had before or ever expected to have, and there's very little corporate BS in the day-to-day. So far, it essentially feels like a bunch of nerd bros hanging out solving problems all day - I can see myself staying here a long time if things continue this way. Does anyone else here work in the same industry and can offer any advice? My main concern at the moment is making the strongest impression I can in my probation period, and to build my understanding of the scale of this giant global logistic chain I'm now a part of, but any longer term advice, engineering or corporate, would be more than welcome.
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Aug 8, 2021 09:54
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Cookie Cutter posted:build my understanding of the scale of this giant global logistic chain I'm now a part of Do not do this if you value your sanity
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Aug 8, 2021 14:56
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Cookie Cutter posted:Hey all. I am almost 2 months into my first "proper" engineering job at the age of 31. I'm now an entry level product engineer at a big semiconductor company. First time working private sector and first time actually using my degree, I'm now 9-5 doing things like hunting and pecking binary bits on test patterns for chip-scale IC's. Basically as soon as the silicon wafer gets sliced up, the individual test dies come to us for stringent analysis before the device get ramped to mass production. It's very challenging for me and I have to make sure my mind, body and life are all in order outside of work for my brain to function properly while I'm there, but I'm kind of loving it so far. The pay and benefits are light years beyond anything I've had before or ever expected to have, and there's very little corporate BS in the day-to-day. So far, it essentially feels like a bunch of nerd bros hanging out solving problems all day - I can see myself staying here a long time if things continue this way. I don't work in that industry but I do hire engineers. Your first 3-5 years as technical engineer should be spent developing subject matter expertise, go very deep in a subject before you go broad. If you're a supply chain guy, that may be understanding the supply chain. If you're a test engineer thats probably deeply understanding why and how the test process works and was developed, the failure modes, the specifications you're testing to and the equipment.
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Aug 8, 2021 15:10
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Qubee posted:I just got accepted for a job at a company as a Design Engineer. Basically the same job title as my previous employment in the UK. It's an actual company as opposed to a family-run business, so I'm looking forward to having proper guidance, training and being sent on courses. The previous job was very stressful because I constantly felt like I was falling but somehow managing to land on my feet, as I had little direction from my boss, and was left to flounder about and figure things out. Imposter syndrome was through the roof. For future reference those are all questions you should ask in the job interview, but worded a bit nicer. Always ask about the day to day work, what kind of expectations they have on day one, and where they'd like you to be in a few years. Congrats on getting out of a lovely job, hopefully this new one is much better for you.
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Aug 8, 2021 16:22
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dxt posted:For future reference those are all questions you should ask in the job interview, but worded a bit nicer. Always ask about the day to day work, what kind of expectations they have on day one, and where they'd like you to be in a few years. Yeah for sure, but uh it was a bit weird. I think it might be a Middle Eastern thing specific to this country. Lots of false degrees going around so the interview was more of a general knowledge quiz, they didn't seem that interested in me except for what I knew, especially since it was a graduate role and they had thousands of applicants to get through. As soon as I was done answering, they said I'll have an answer within a month regarding whether or not I get the job and sorta shoo'd me out the door. Every interview I go to, I always ask questions like that, but there's a pause or "Do you have any questions" at the tail-end of the interview. Yoinking those questions for future reference. Thank you very much, I'm really eager to get stuck in and see what it's all about. Just sitting waiting for the pre-employment medical check to get a fat tick so I can know the start date.
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Aug 9, 2021 18:53
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I signed up for the electrical power PE exam back in March. I figured august would give me plenty of time to build a study program so I could learn about motors and DC circuits and all that stuff I'd never encountered before. And then my job had my traveling 50% up til I quit in late May. And then I had to help the wife handle her COVID victim mom's estate. And then I wanted to focus more on my new (time intensive) job than study. So in the end I crammed for two nights, using a book literally titled Cram for the Electrical (Power) PE Exam to guide me. At least got to see concepts like slip and half wave rectification. And my new job had me pulling out the NEC a lot. Took the test Wednesday. Didn't like how I did the first half of the exam at all, but the second went decently. Experience doing protective device coordination made about 8 questions complete gimmies. Walked out feeling like I had between a 25-50% chance to pass. Really cool to pass. Saves me the pain in the rear end of studying for three months. This urge to find things around the house to stamp is disquieting, however. Is that normal?
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Aug 13, 2021 07:48
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I think based on your last paragraph that you passed? In that case, congratulations! 
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Aug 13, 2021 14:59
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Pander posted:I signed up for the electrical power PE exam back in March. I figured august would give me plenty of time to build a study program so I could learn about motors and DC circuits and all that stuff I'd never encountered before. It's been about 5 years since I took it (same exam as you) but it is a crammable exam if you have a basis in some of the topics. My understanding is that the test is heavily curved (I think 60-70+% is a pass?) Guess you don't get the souvenir pencil now that the test is computer-based. Must be nice to get the results in 10 days instead of 6 weeks though! If you know enough to be nervous (and you have that vague "oh I might've hosed up" rather than the ruinous "It was all hieroglyphs on those questions") you probably did just fine. quote:Really cool to pass. Saves me the pain in the rear end of studying for three months. This urge to find things around the house to stamp is disquieting, however. Is that normal? Stamping stuff impulsively is a normal side-effect of owning a stamp e: I don't really understand if you're celebrating results or only just took it literally two days ago but either way congrats on taking and/or passing the exam
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Aug 13, 2021 15:21
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I took it last week and found out I passed a night ago. Now all that's left is navigating NCEES to get comity with Oregon. So I'm just gonna boot up the website, click on multi state licensure, and take a big swig of water as I glance to see how painfree this process almost certainly will be.
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Aug 13, 2021 18:50
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Pander posted:I took it last week and found out I passed a night ago. Now all that's left is navigating NCEES to get comity with Oregon. So I'm just gonna boot up the website, click on multi state licensure, and take a big swig of water as I glance to see how painfree this process almost certainly will be. Congrats!
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Aug 13, 2021 19:07
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Pander posted:I took it last week and found out I passed a night ago. Now all that's left is navigating NCEES to get comity with Oregon. So I'm just gonna boot up the website, click on multi state licensure, and take a big swig of water as I glance to see how painfree this process almost certainly will be. Nice. Congrats. Didn't know they were letting people know they passed so quick. You need to go to Oregon's site and apply through them. Then you just send your ncees record to the state, It is 2 or 3 clicks, if Oregon accepts it and doesn't make you file all the same crap separately. At least that is how it has worked in my other states I got reciprocity in.
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Aug 13, 2021 19:14
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I've done comity in a few states now so far using the NCEES Record and the only real hassle is keeping the references up to date, since they expire after a year
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Aug 13, 2021 20:46
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The Chairman posted:I've done comity in a few states now so far using the NCEES Record and the only real hassle is keeping the references up to date, since they expire after a year Yeah I got everything good now except that. My friends are generally good and I don't have a time critical need for it, but for some reason I'm anyway about it and just want it done.
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Aug 14, 2021 06:31
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I had similar experience with the Power PE, but im a protection engineer and so those questions were the easiest... I remember the sound my NEC book made as i opened it the first time in the middle of hall. Then i went back to work and told my boss I failed because i never studied. Then two months later i got notification that I passed….
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Aug 14, 2021 17:42
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I think I still need a year before I can take the Civil Traffic PE, but it seems not very bad when I looked at the practice questions and pass rate.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:58
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Traffic is supposed to be the easiest one, such that I've known water infrastructure PE's who took that instead so that they could pass. Also, in some states, you can take the PE early, so if you don't want to wait, you can for example come to NC to take it right away.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:36
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GordonComstock posted:Traffic is supposed to be the easiest one, such that I've known water infrastructure PE's who took that instead so that they could pass. Also, in some states, you can take the PE early, so if you don't want to wait, you can for example come to NC to take it right away. Yup, Traffic and Construction are about as easy as it gets from everything I know (also those were the easiest Civil classes you could take at Uni.) Def take it early if you can. Personally I think that it is a crappy system to allow that but take advantage if you can. I know it doesn't matter as you get the PE however you pass but man would I feel like a POS by not passing my discipline.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:55
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spwrozek posted:Yup, Traffic and Construction are about as easy as it gets from everything I know (also those were the easiest Civil classes you could take at Uni.) Def take it early if you can. Personally I think that it is a crappy system to allow that but take advantage if you can. I have a friend who's worked construction ever since he graduated ~3 years ago. He failed geotech twice and finally passed environmental. I do not understand his thought process. Anyone who needs to take the PE, take what you know, or at least whatever you have reference manuals for.
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Aug 30, 2021 18:23
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Signed the job contract today, with 7 coworkers (various departments, so I probably won't see them around much). They were such a great group of people, we all just sat in the lobby after signing and spoke about our experiences and how it's such a huge relief and how we're excited to start. There was nothing regarding job roles or what is expected of us, it was just a boilerplate contract about how we shouldn't break rules, probationary period, any inventions belong to the company, etc, also a secrecy contract. We have Health and Safety training in two days so I'll ask HR then when we get given our specific job roles. As a design engineer, I always assumed I'd be glued to a PC, but HR told me I'll be primarily based in the huge oil refinery, so I guess they want me to see the processes in person and get a fundamental understanding of what it is the company does, before pulling me back into an office role to CAD? Or is a design engineer a broad spectrum of potential roles?
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Aug 30, 2021 18:52
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Qubee posted:Signed the job contract today, with 7 coworkers (various departments, so I probably won't see them around much). They were such a great group of people, we all just sat in the lobby after signing and spoke about our experiences and how it's such a huge relief and how we're excited to start. On site engineers are hugely important to infrastructure. Who do you think keeps everything running? You don't have time to wait on some 9-5er from headquarters when a valve breaks or pipe leaks. If you are working at a plant you will be a plant engineer., usually tasked with maintenance and small projects. You might be able to rotate out at some point or apply for a different role. Your posts in general make me confused about your background and skill set but generally a design engineer should be spending almost no time in CAD, that is what a technician or drafter is for.
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Aug 30, 2021 19:42
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