Shortage of Engineers

[bentstrider]

Originally Posted by mortimer

Someone on here poo-poo'ed that idea from me once before touting the "need"
to bring in Phillipino nurses due to the "chronic" nursing shortage. - Feh!!

More like turnover.

[X14Freak]

Originally Posted by Guineas

Most of my engineering friends all found decent jobs after graduation and are making six figures right now. So it's definitely not as bleak as some of you say. I had considered engineering myself once, but ended up going into medicine. My friends in engineering are doing far better than me when you factor in the lack of debt and a decade of extra schooling and training for medicine. Sure I'll make $100k more than them when I get out of residency, but I've also lost a decade in opportunity costs. My only consolation is that it has been a horrible decade for any kind of investments anyway.

Engineering is also a field where you really have to be good at what you're doing and where the barrier for entry is not particularly high, so there's an extensive weed out process during school and during the engineer-in-training years. Medicine's weed out process on the other hand is more frontloaded.

Engineers suffer from age discrimination after they are 40. Programmers especially have it bad when it comes to age discrimination. I don't think you will ever have a problem with that once you become a doctor.

[bentstrider]

Originally Posted by X14Freak

Engineers suffer from age discrimination after they are 40. Programmers especially have it bad when it comes to age discrimination. I don't think you will ever have a problem with that once you become a doctor.

So is this discrimination aimed at engineers that just turned 40?
Or are those that decided to make a career switch at 30 or 40 and recently graduated with an engineering degree at a later age in for a raw deal as well?

Not that age yet, but as I said, don't want it to become one of those "all that work for jacks__t" scenarios.

[mortimer]

Originally Posted by highlife2

.... core fundamentals of engineering, math and science are VERY interesting. ...

I liked the math and especially the chemistry and physics.

Almost all my engineering courses were wastes of time. I was taught
'lines-on-paper' that when applied to a real circuit, didn't have any more
value than just swapping out components and taking measurements.

Of course, the school I went to was basically formed to train people to
go on to a PhD and work in the national labs. I know now that there are
better schools with more "hands-on" lab stuff.

If I had it to do over again, I would have just gotten a physics degree.
I loved my physics courses because of all the "So that's why that is that way ... " moments.

Originally Posted by X14Freak

Engineers suffer from age discrimination ...

On the age discrimination thing, if you are constantly working on the stuff
that is in demand, you can get a job at any age. If your specialty has died
by being bypassed by another technology and you think you can go and take
some more classes and start all over, you are going to be disappointed.

You might get a job interview, but the interviewer will excuse themselves and
go and chew out HR for 'letting someone like you' in there for an interview.

I saw lots of smart, frustrated, bitter, and now useless eager people in my
C++, java, SQL .... courses. It's really sad because it didn't use to be this way.
What a waste of smarts.

[Jesse69]

I interviewed at one company in Houston and the engineer and Eng Supervisor who interviewed me were younger than me. I didn't get the job but it seems there was some age discrimination when they figured out I was 40 [but I look 28 or so].

I always thought that Mechanical Engineering does not suffer from age discrimination. I've worked at places were there were a few older Mech Engineers. I think they will value you for your skills, knowledge, and experience that you gained over the years. It's often tough to find a well qualified Eng that fits a job match so I think they don't look at age. You just gotta know that Six Sigma, DFM, FMEA, tolerance stackups, and GD & T and they will hire you.

But I'm 3.4 years unemployed Mech Eng and I don't think there's a shortage of engineers when I try to have the many skills needed for a job and then I don't even get an interview or get hired after an interview.

[slackjaw]

Originally Posted by JetJockey

There is a shortage of engineers, however... or rather a shortage of engineers who have 10+ years experience that are willing to work for $10 an hour and have no benefits. Why would I take a job with the same pay as the photo developing job I had in high school?

I'd be curious to see an engineer working for $10/hour without benefits in the US. And I mean a certified engineer doing engineering work.

Originally Posted by jobaba

I don't know any engineers who are not on the management side who make six figures. And this is about 10 years out of school. And just about every company I've worked for has been an engineering company.

Well you could introduce yourself to the ones who have responded to this thread, then you'd know some. I believe just about every software dev at my company makes 90k+, probably several are over six figures.

Take a look at median salaries, making six figures as an engineer certainly isn't some rare thing.

[andywire]

Didn't Obama say there is no engineering shortage, but young people should consider perusing it? Kind of a hard sell, pursue one of the most difficult studies with a moderate chance of never having the opportunity to apply what you've put all that effort towards learning. On average, the salaries of engineers have not kept pace with inflation from what I understand, but that can be said for many professions.