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After months of job searching I've finally been offered a position. The position is a Mechanical Design Engineer. The pay is very good and the work would be very interesting, however there is one issue.
The company is fairly new and the rest of the engineers that are there are also just out of college. In other words the engineering department is made up of only Junior level engineers.
My concern is that the engineering work will be without much guidance, and based mainly college education, and book knowledge; not on actual built-up experience. So, I feel wouldn't be getting very good engineering experience; which I hear is important early on in your career.
Also, there is a possibility the company takes-off in a few years, but also a very good chance that the company will fail in as short as two years. The technology they are working on is fairly new and complex, and I just don't know if a bunch of junior engineers would make the cut.
I am considering whether or not to take the position or hold out a little longer for another position to come along. Again, the position itself is what I was looking for orginally, with good pay that I will most likely not get anywhere else. A friend of mine, who is a mechanical engineer at a very good company, tells me that I shouldn't worry about the company I work for, as long as I will be getting experience of some kind, just "take the money and run," he says.
Now... I'm not completely up on all the specifics, but aren't there regulations in place that say a junior engineer HAS to be working under the supervision of a fully licensed PE?
I am not going to try to discourage you from taking the job, but I think your instincts are good. You want to be mentored early in your career. You want a company which knows how to take in junior employees and makes time to deal with them. Typically, small companies do very poorly in this area, but love hiring juniors because they are cheap. Large companies tend to excel in career pathing, especially for starters.
thank you for your replies. The company is in research and development, and this area of engineering does not require a P.E. license since it does not directly impact public life. So, I believe it's totally legal. Ethical??...not sure.
However, if you're right, and you have a good group of engineers, even if most of you are young, could be quite beneficial to you as a career path.
Some thoughts you might want to think about:
1) Who manages you? Are they an engineer?
2) Who manages the company? Small companies tend to have a business/whatever form of engineering person leading.
What Im trying to have you think about are logistical things. Like, you need new safety equipment for your job, and your team is all out of college. Whats the company's stance going to be? I know that my company is small, and while we're lead by an engineer, he's really frugal. So, if we need something, Steve, my boss goes to bat for us and convinced Brian to get whatever.
And also, its a matter of self-confidence. It sounds like you're unsure of your ability as an engineer, and that of your fellow grads. Be confident. Especially in R&D, its okay to make mistakes. R&D is often 2 steps forward, 1 step back kind of work. Sometimes 2 steps back, 1 step back.
That all being said, you might just take the job, and keep searching. Or take the job and if you find that you're lacking direction, speak up and get the company to hire a senior engineer. Just don't take my boss :P If he's not around, I generally get told to lead things, and I can't handle that just yet.
I agree with Sassberto. If you do not have any senior engineers at the company you will find that it takes a lot longer to get things done properly. You have the potential to learn a heck of a lot since you have to figure out everything yourself, but it will be slow and it will end up costing the company a lot of money.
I have found that when management is hiring exclusively new grads it is because a) they are cheap, and b) they don't know what they are doing.
New grads, in general, do not know jacksh*t. Without competent senior engineers to provide leadership and mentoring, I think you will find that when you are ready to move on, you may not have all the skills that you should have.
I would take the job but keep searching and try to get management to hire someone with good experience. Good luck. This could be a fantastic learning opportunity for you.
After months of job searching I've finally been offered a position. The position is a Mechanical Design Engineer. The pay is very good and the work would be very interesting, however there is one issue.
The company is fairly new and the rest of the engineers that are there are also just out of college. In other words the engineering department is made up of only Junior level engineers.
My concern is that the engineering work will be without much guidance, and based mainly college education, and book knowledge; not on actual built-up experience. So, I feel wouldn't be getting very good engineering experience; which I hear is important early on in your career.
Also, there is a possibility the company takes-off in a few years, but also a very good chance that the company will fail in as short as two years. The technology they are working on is fairly new and complex, and I just don't know if a bunch of junior engineers would make the cut.
I am considering whether or not to take the position or hold out a little longer for another position to come along. Again, the position itself is what I was looking for orginally, with good pay that I will most likely not get anywhere else. A friend of mine, who is a mechanical engineer at a very good company, tells me that I shouldn't worry about the company I work for, as long as I will be getting experience of some kind, just "take the money and run," he says.
Input anyone? Any engineers?
i actually think it isnt so bad to be in ur situation, i mean its a challenge to do stuff on ur own and make important decisions, i would like that
Thank you for your replies. All of you have made some very good points.
Yes I think it would be a very good learning opportunity. I also agree that it would probably be very unstructured and kind of 'trial and error' engineering. But perhaps if the company does well there may be a possibility to hire an experienced engineer.
The company is led by a business/computer science person, very technology savvy, but seems to lack an engineer's problem solving methodology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pge
i actually think it isnt so bad to be in ur situation, i mean its a challenge to do stuff on ur own and make important decisions, i would like that
I agree pge, that is definitely something that attracted me towards the position.
Thank you for your replies. All of you have made some very good points.
Yes I think it would be a very good learning opportunity. I also agree that it would probably be very unstructured and kind of 'trial and error' engineering. But perhaps if the company does well there may be a possibility to hire an experienced engineer.
The company is led by a business/computer science person, very technology savvy, but seems to lack an engineer's problem solving methodology.
I agree pge, that is definitely something that attracted me towards the position.
If they are Computer Science, i.e., a programmer.. then they are very engineering based and methodical. At least, to be a good one they need to be.
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