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Ask HN: Where are all the mechanical engineers?

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

#21

Post by randytandy »

iancmceachern wrote: post #16
randytandy wrote: post #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 earn…

I've made a career as a mechanical engineer. My experience has been the opposite of yours, actually, it's been similar. I've worked at companies that had positions and work cultures like you describe. I've also worked at amazing positions with extraordinary cultures and compensation. I've been told multiple times, by multiple people that "your smart, you should go into finance". Each time it was right before a big cr…

Thats great to hear iancmceachern.

"I'm a mechanical engineer, I've designed a ton of cool things, I do it every day. I deeply love it, and get better at it every day because I want to."

is a perfect example to as why anyone should pursue mechanical engineering. It's because you love it and managed to be compensated well.

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

#22

Post by nutjob1234 »

Mechanical Engineer - loved startups - was introduced to HN by CS nerd friend - loved the community - read an article on Energy Storage problem - founded company building solution to that - have raised millions - still hang out here and love it. The communities dialogue on a lot of things outside of CS (Energy and Dynamics I have noticed) is pretty sub par though especially when mixed with a bit of excessive cocksureness. Thanks for everything.

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

#23

Post by throw4566 »

buildsjets wrote: post #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.)

Aviation is a though nut to crack without large money bags, especially civil aviation..

That being said, there is some cool stuff being done (lilium, boom, etc).

Time will tell if one should ditch the software dev hat and put on the engineer hat I guess? :-)

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

#24

Post by NoPicklez »

randytandy wrote: post #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 earn…

I think the first part of your post is mostly true of most people who go to University.

But it's similar to IT, there are many IT and engineering jobs that pay well, but some of us simply don't get up in them for whatever reason. You could be a mining engineer working in the mines and get paid a staggering amount and not working any overtime.

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

#26

Post by b20000 »

randytandy wrote: post #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 earn…

sounds exactly like software engineering / compsci

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

#27

Post by Chilko »

nutjob1234 wrote: post #22

Mechanical Engineer - loved startups - was introduced to HN by CS nerd friend - loved the community - read an article on Energy Storage problem - founded company building solution to that - have raised millions - still hang out here and love it. The communities dialogue on a lot of things outside of CS (Energy and Dynamics I have noticed) is pretty sub par though especially when mixed with a bit of excessive cocksure…

Any chance you could share what your company is? I'm in the energy space and always interested to see what Energy Storage solutions are getting funded.

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

#28

Post by cosmodisk »

randytandy wrote: post #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 earn…

I dropped out from mechatronics studies. I don't think I was mature enough to study at that age. The course was designed to take in about 100 people each year with about 20% eventually expected to graduate. I don't think I remember anyone who could say they made it in the field. A friend became a director in a manufacturing company but the stuff they make would require no more than half a year of mechanics studies.. Potentially very interesting field with very few ending up doing something exciting.

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

#29

Post by cosmodisk »

NoPicklez wrote: post #24
randytandy wrote: post #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 earn…

I think the first part of your post is mostly true of most people who go to University. But it's similar to IT, there are many IT and engineering jobs that pay well, but some of us simply don't get up in them for whatever reason. You could be a mining engineer working in the mines and get paid a staggering amount and not working any overtime.

I think the problem is not just the quality of jobs, but the number too. Even in advanced economies like Germany, where they make tons of stuff, the need for mechanical engineering isn't nowhere as high as it is for software developers. You get a small number of really talented people and other just do CAD or some assembly line stuff.

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

#30

Post by Ginge91 »

Well I started out as a Mechanical Engineering Technology student, but definitely didn’t feel challenged mentally by my junior year, so I switched to Mechanical Engineering, which lost me a couple years of credits. Then when I was a junior in Mechanical Engineering, I realized that I was theoretically more intelligent in understanding how and why things work, but I noticed that I only looked smarter on paper and it wasn’t as much applied knowledge. Then I kinda met in the middle with a Manufacturing Engineering Technology degree where I already knew all of the physics side of things, and learned more about Automation and Robotics, and how to make things more efficiently and increasing the ROI on the project from a Business perspective. But I’ll also agree that sometimes it takes quite a bit of hunting for work that’s equitable to your knowledge and skills. In most cases, if you find some work that pays well, there’s a good chance that the work is definitely needed, but it isn’t very challenging and becomes more like doing paperwork. That’s where I’m at now where I make enough money to be above the poverty line, but all I do is regurgitate paperwork without having much input on the design of the CADs that I’m making. I feel like there isn’t an abundant amount of opportunities for work along Mechanical Engineering that entices the engineer with equitable pay for doing something that they’re passionate about and still challenges them.
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