is a job in controls engineering for a full service automotive engineering firm worth it or should I look to other opportunities? Is this a high stress job? What is the day to day like anons? I'm thinking of switching into this. the pay seems good at 35/hr starting with no travel
>Engineer
>Hourly
That doesn't answer anything
>prefers salary
enjoy working 20 hours of overtime with zero pay
Enjoy being closely supervised.
I've had plenty of hourly jobs where I was barely supervised. All in the 70k+ range
I was making $110k as a yardmaster and did whatever I wanted. I only told my bosses things if they'd have to explain it to their bosses. Shit, I cursed my boss like a dog and slammed the phone on the hook and had him apologize to me afterwards.
When you're good(and unionized) you are untouchable.
>supervising my timecards
not a thing when you have a real job
just leave after you fulfill the hours defined in your employee manual. boss meanmugs you? vaguely threatens you? grow some balls and be good at your job and you can just ignore the gaslighting from management. I fulfill my contract so fire me for refusing unpaid overtime. Ill file for unemployment and get another eng job that pays 10%-20% more than my old salary.
>leaves 8 hours into commissioning
yea have fun with that, it's called professionalism and maintaining a reputation to stay until a job is done. if you're being paid salary then you're doing it for free.
I get why some Americans call salaried people wageslaves. I’ll happily make extra hours when needed and my employer is happy to pay those hours at 140%+ for my flexibility.
lmao...if i was paid my hourly rate as salary i'd be making half the money...and half of my work time is being paid to sit in a hotel because trades/facilities are not ready
>Engineer
>No travel
you'll be working a lot of weekends
it's not super stressful as industries go but it can be pretty demanding of your time
It didn't seem like there were many weekends involved other than a few crunch times during commissioning? Isn't this the standard in most industries? I'm in the IT sector, but thought it would be a good switch. Is it common to do 7 day workweeks?
yea for commissioning since mon to Friday is production and you'll rarely ever see them shutdown during the week
it's not really standard as other industries will have downtime during the week planned quarterly for example
I've only done projects for Japanese manufacturers though, not sure what domestic would be like but I assume less organized
>t. automation engineer for 15 years
Thanks any advice? I figured it would've been a decent start but I have no idea about the industry. Its for an automotive supplier in the midwest. Only travel I was told was about going to a few local plants near me (furthest is about 30 mins). Other days are in the office right down the road
bonuses are also a huge part as well although typically discretionary they can be a decent chunk of your yearly income
Thanks. From what I understand its more along the lines of Controls Software Engineer as well since I have a programming background. Can you give me an idea of what to expect on a day to day? Right now, I spend a lot of days programming or integrating new software, would this be similar (I do know it would be plant floor based so not as much coding, but how much exactly?)
It really depends on the company and what they look for. I know controls engineers that do electrician stuff 95% of the time, others get to design and build the controls for a machine from start to finish. Officially I’m a CE too but for the past 3 years I’ve mostly been doing control design, software standardisation and maintaining software libraries and documentation
When I had a similar position, about 1/3 actually programming, 1/3 fault finding and 1/3 reading the schematics and figuring out how something should work because the specs weren’t clear. They say that in automotive specifications are better though (I’m in fmcg). Expect the coding part to be relatively easy if you have a software background, there are just way more exceptions and edge cases you have to cover to make a machine or line run 24/7
Thanks anon. The project manager told me coding is the easy part, its everything else that comes before. I could tend to agree with that. I think they are a system integrator / machine builder. For instance, I was briefed on keyence and photoneo for bin picking
system integrator/full service engineering firm for automotive
>Controls Software Engineer as well since I have a programming background
i hope youre good with hardware/datasheets or youre going to be breaking lots of expensive stuff
>$35/hr
Is this really what I have to look forward to with my engineering degree? I make $54/hr now and I'm guaranteed 50 hours of pay a week even though I normally only work 30-35.
most engineers go into project management or other executive positions
actual engineering doesn't pay extremely well
that rate would be starting or for intermediate positions but definitely isn't near the cap
I can live with $35 starting out, but that's still pretty lousy. Thankfully I already have a lot of quasi management experience, so maybe that skill set will transfer.
you need to understand in this type of service industry the people who make real money are the ones making the business profitable
a company paying everyone a high rate isn't going to be competitive in bidding on projects
you start out in the engineering and work your way up into managing a team or going into sales
It would transfer from what I've seen, but with no engineering management experience, you'd have to learn from the ground up a bit like I am I think. It still isn't hard to get to the 100k mark
No. In my area its higher for more senior positions. This one is junior controls engineer with training to go into a vision role. Vision engineer is around 50/hour plus. I don't do salary work ever