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Ask HN: Where are all the mechanical engineers?

news.ycombinator.com

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Ask HN: Where are all the mechanical engineers?

#1
Hey HN! I come from a mostly EECS background, but because I work for a tiny robotics startup, I've been doing a nontrivial amount of mechanical design work at my job recently. We've been hiring some really talented mechanical engineers, but I would love to meet more (and ideally hire more folks way better than me!).

It occurred to me that I have no idea if there is an equivalent to HN for mechanical engineers. Do you all have any ideas on where I could be meeting more people? Are there communities like HN with a more mech-e focused crowd?

(Context: we are working on construction robots that build solar farms, and we had a Launch HN [0] post a few months back.)

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30780455

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the mechanical engineers?

#3
Would love to see a HN for aviation startups.

Unfortunately most every time I see an aviation startup, it’s the same silly hot garbage. If I see one more multicopter based autonomous air taxi service, or magical supersonic transport for savage good boys pitched, I’m gonna scream.

(Context - 20+ years experience in product development engineering and new/derivative product launch at a large airframe manufacturer.)

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the mechanical engineers?

#8
There are always newspaper titles saying "we need more engineers", "where are all the engineers" or something similar.

To answer that. It's simple. The pay is bad.

We study for 4-5 years to get an Mech engineering degree and are promised 80K AUD+ starting salary (by many Australian universities).

The truth is you end up in debt whilst being removed from the work force for 4-5 years while studying. And you end up earning 40K AUD a year maybe a random few might earn 80K a year.

You end up in a position where you are highly trained and educated just to do CAD file translations. Surrounded by people who are not trained or educated who earn just as much or more then you.

Most Mechanical engineers (if smart) leave engineering and go to finance/software. I'd agree that the world needs more engineers to build things and make things more efficient and automated but the world wants and rewards administration and bureaucracy.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the mechanical engineers?

#9
Not related to mechanical engineering, but I always wonder why there is such less discussion of real world product design. It's almost like we take stuff for granted. What type of degree would one need to develop a career designing stuff like lunch tiffin boxes or shoes or the other hundreds of myriad things we use in daily life? So many people seem obsessed with CSS and JS here.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the mechanical engineers?

#10

There are always newspaper titles saying "we need more engineers", "where are all the engineers" or something similar. To answer that. It's simple. The pay is bad. We study for 4-5 years to get an Mech engineering degree and are promised 80K AUD+ starting salary (by many Australian universities). The truth is you end up in debt whilst being removed from the work force for 4-5 years while studying. And you end up earn…

the prompt wasn’t questioning why there aren’t more - it was asking where they hang out online.
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