Sure, you hear the generic terms like “electrical engineer”, “mechanical engineer” or “chemical engineer”. You can even Google “types of engineers” and you’ll find a lot of textbook descriptions.
These descriptions are fantastic if you’re trying to understand the curriculum of an engineering degree. But… not so great if you’re trying to understand what an engineer actually does after they graduate. Where do they work? What do they work on?
That’s what we’ll be launching into today. 🚀
Overview: Starting your engineering journey
Engineering is a broad field that touches nearly every industry. Engineers support all sorts of teams and they perform all kinds of functions. This means there’s no “one size fits all” answer to what engineers do or how you should start your own engineering journey.
However, there’s a bright side.
While this makes it hard to give you an easy answer, this is also the reason that there’s versatility in engineering careers. This career flexibility is one of the reasons I decided to become an engineer in the first place.
Regardless of how tough this question is, let me take a shot at explaining.
My goal is to show you, at least at a high level, how engineers fit into the world and how you can use this information to start your own engineering journey.
We’ll cover this journey in three stages:
- How do you get started as an engineer? We’ll discuss the kinds of engineering degrees you can get and why you can think of your engineering degree as simply your passport to the engineering world.
- Where will you work as an engineer? I’ll introduce you to engineering industries, companies, and teams. This is your “destination”. Your destination can definitely change over time, but you’ll need to start somewhere!
- What will you be working on? In an engineering job, you’ll be supporting specific disciplines, performing certain functions, and constantly building new skills. These experiences are unique to you and your engineering career path. Your experiences define what kind of engineer are today or will be in the future.
1. Your passport: Engineering degrees
In engineering, a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (or Bachelor of Engineering depending on your school or country) is simply a stepping stone. A passport. Your most basic requirement to become an engineer.
If you’re struggling to decide on the type of engineering degree (mechanical, chemical, aerospace, computer, etc.) you want to pursue, start here: how to select the right engineering degree.
Fortunately, you don’t need to overthink it! Many engineering degrees relate to each other, which can give you a lot of flexibility in the engineering job market. If you google some engineering job postings today, you’ll notice that many engineering positions list multiple kinds of engineering degrees in a single posting.
Below, we’ll talk about why it’s more important to focus on the disciplines and functions you want to perform and the skills you’ll need to develop for those roles.
Your passport: Actions you can take now
So, what do you do with this information? Let’s break this down by where you are today:
Still deciding if engineering is right for you – You’ve come to the right site! I hope this page and my other career pages like ‘engineers v. scientists’ and ‘career path exercises’ will help with your decision. An engineering degree can give you a lot of career flexibility, but it ultimately comes down to you and what kind of future you want to create.
About to start your engineering journey – If you’re applying for (or just started) an undergraduate engineering program, I’ve got some good tips for you on how to select the right engineering degree. But, remember not to get too stressed about your decision! Many engineering degrees overlap with each other. You’ve got this!
Engineering students – College is the place to discover what you like (and don’t like) about engineering. Take advantage of all the opportunities your school has to offer and don’t forget to enjoy your college years (even when classes are tough!). We’ll talk about additional actions to set yourself up for success below.
Early career engineers – You’ve already “been there, done that” (congrats!). Go ahead and skip to part 3 below where we’ll talk about continuing to build your engineering skills. I’d also love your feedback via email or LinkedIn! Do you have any advice you’d want to share with other new engineers?
2. Your destination: Engineering industries, companies, and teams
Once you’re ready to work (or intern!), you’ll likely be working on a team that supports a specific industry. However, keep in mind that your destination doesn’t need to stay the same. Over your engineering career, you’ll move teams. You may even support multiple industries or multiple companies.
Engineering industries
Engineers are needed in nearly every industry out there. Air transportation, automotive, marine transportation, food manufacturing, textiles, construction… there are so many options. This U.S. BLS list defines the industries based on the U.S economy. However, this list may vary by country and you’ll often hear about additional industries or sectors that aren’t explicitly listed. For instance, you’ll commonly see references to the aerospace industry, or even just the space industry now that activities in space are rapidly growing.
The industry you’ll support doesn’t necessarily need to align with your degree. Aerospace engineers learn skills in college that are also needed in marine transportation and wind energy. Civil engineers can go wherever structures are being built, from designing highways to building the foundation for rocket launch pads. Broad engineering degrees like mechanical or electrical engineering can be applied in nearly every industry.
Some engineers find their own niche within one of those industries and stay there for an entire career. Other engineers may use their skills to support multiple industries at once or move around to different industries throughout their careers.
The most incredible engineering teams often need experts from multiple industries to achieve amazing engineering feats. Just look at the tremendous amount of engineers with all sorts of backgrounds that are needed to create a new spacecraft, like NASA’s Orion Spacecraft, or to build massive particle accelerators, like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
Engineering companies, government agencies, and academia
Most early career engineers are employed after they graduate either with a company or a government agency. Some engineers remain in academia as educators and researchers. Other engineers may decide to freelance or go into other fields, like law or marketing, where their engineering background can help them succeed.
In general, engineers have quite a bit of flexibility to move around throughout their careers. It’s pretty common to see engineers move to different companies every ~3-5 years to get a better salary and to build new skills. When it comes to academia, some of the best engineering professors I had at Purdue University had a lot of “real-world” engineering experiences before returning to academia as an educator.
How does this relate to industries? Regardless of how you earn your living as an engineer, you’ll still be supporting an industry (or several industries).
In the private sector, you may be employed in a company that focuses on a single industry. Or you may be employed in a large company that supports multiple industries. For example, Honeywell supports many industries. If you’re a biomedical engineer, you may join Honeywell’s health care section. If you’re passionate about sustainable energies, you may join one of their teams focused on the energy industry.
Engineering jobs in the government and academia also tend to support specific industries or a couple of industries. For example, if you work in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, you may be supporting the civil engineering/construction industry by maintaining dams and water reservoirs. Or, if you decide to become an engineering professor, you’ll likely also be conducting research that supports specific industries, like testing new materials that could benefit the aerospace and marine transportation industries.
Engineering teams
Engineering teams differ greatly across industries and across companies. They can even vary greatly within a single company or agency.
Let’s talk through a few common team structures to give you an idea of how some engineering teams are set up. Just keep in mind, that these are just general structures. Another team factor to consider when looking for a job is the work environment. Every team will feel different based on both the company culture and how individuals on a specific team work together.
Project-focused engineering teams
These teams are focused on developing a product or a project. Maybe they’re responsible for launching the next iPhone, building a new Coast Guard cutter, or upgrading a vacuum chamber facility.
Some project (or product) teams have a vertical structure with a clear “line of command”. In large project-focused, vertical teams, there’s usually a hierarchical reporting structure in place, so you may be reporting to a team lead who will then report to the project manager.
On small project teams, everyone on the team may report directly to the project manager, and you may find yourself performing multiple roles.
You may also see teams that are focused on a specific part of a product’s lifecycle. For example, Research and Development (R&D) teams, led by a principal investigator, focus on the feasibility of new technologies or processes. You’ll often see R&D teams in academia or government agencies. Though there are also some companies that invest in their own R&D departments, especially in industries like pharmaceuticals where the profit from making new medical advances can be huge.
Service-focused engineering teams
These engineering teams are focused on providing a specific service. Engineers on a service-focused team often have a direct supervisor and a customer (or a lot of customers).
You’ll often see this in companies that do consulting or maintain large facilities. A company may have a dedicated team that maintains and operates test facilities, like a human-rated vacuum chamber. Customers (like a product team) from either instead or outside that company can request the use of that vacuum chamber. The customer will define what they need and the facility test team will make it happen.
Function-focused engineering teams
Other teams provide specific functions or discipline expertise to project teams as needed. You’ll see this often in matrixed organizations or on agile teams. A leader, like a project manager, will define all the disciplines and functions that are needed to accomplish their project goals. That leader will then pull in the experts she needs from other organizations. For example, you could be on a mechanical design team with a mechanical design supervisor, but you’re matrixed to support a specific project team that needs your CAD modeling skills.
Other engineering teams
Of course, there are many other types of teams out there. You may even work on a team where you’re the only engineer. Maybe you’ll become a freelancer and work for yourself. Or, maybe you’ll decide to go into less traditional jobs for engineers, like sales, law, or theater design. You can make your own unique path.
Your Destination: Actions you can take now
Your engineering degree doesn’t lock you into a specific industry, company, or team! On the contrary, engineers have the flexibility to move between different assignments throughout their careers.
So, how do you know where to start?
Get an engineering internship! I’ve got a lot of great tips to help you find a great internship. Engineering internships are fantastic ways to learn what industries you enjoy working in, what team structures you like, and what work environments will enable you to thrive in your career. Alternatively, if you’re thinking about a career in academia, look at becoming a research assistant or teaching assistant.
Take advantage of any opportunity where you can ‘dip your toes in the water’!
3. Your experiences: Engineering disciplines, functions, and skills
Your work experiences will shape what you’ll actually be doing as an engineer. These are the disciplines you’ll support, functions you’ll perform, and skills you’ll build.
Engineering disciplines
During your engineering studies, you’ll often see engineering “disciplines” listed in one of two ways:
- Discipline = your engineering degree like you see on this engineering site. Examples: aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, etc.
- Discipline = an area of study within your engineering degree. Some colleges refer to this as your major or minor within your engineering degree. For example, when I studied aerospace engineering at Purdue Univerity, I “majored” in aerospace system design and “minored” in aerodynamics.
When you start working in industry, you’ll also start seeing a bunch of additional disciplines depending on where you work. So, there’s a third definition:
- Discipline = your technical area of specialty. This is the field that you’re focused on at work. This may or may not relate to your engineering degree.
For example, I’d consider my discipline to be “Extravehicular Activity” (EVA, aka spacesuits and spacewalking). That’s not a discipline you see often in engineering curriculum!
Discipline definitions can change in different companies or teams. If you’re supporting the development of a new spacecraft, you may see disciplines like thermal, structures, propulsion, life support, robotics, navigation, and radiation environments.
Engineering functions
Your functions are the details of your job. Your roles and responsibilities within your engineering team. The things you do on your team.
Usually, the overarching function you perform at work is the same as your job position or title. Large teams may have more specific positions. Small teams may combine several functions into a single position.
Let’s say you’re in the aerospace industry, working on a team with a focus on spacecraft thermal systems. Your degree might have been in mechanical, aerospace, or chemical engineering, but thermal systems is your discipline, your area of specialty. Your function(s) describes what you do as a thermal engineer. Here are some examples of what this could look like on different teams:
- Large project teams: you may be focused on a specific function related to thermal engineering, so your job title may a thermodynamics analyst, a thermal safety engineer, or a thermal test engineer.
- Small project teams: you may have to perform all thermal-related functions yourself, so your job title may be called something a bit more generic like thermal engineer or, simply, project engineer.
- Service-based teams: if your team owns a thermal test facility and you conduct thermal testing for various project teams, your position may be called something like test engineer, test director, or test coordinator.
I’m an aerospace engineer by degree, but I’ve never actually used that title at work. Instead, I’ve been called an astronaut instructor, spacesuit engineer, system manager, architecture lead, and systems engineer.
The takeaway message here? Your engineering degree doesn’t define what kind of engineer you are, your functions do!
Engineering skills
Skills are what you need to complete your engineering functions. The best engineers are constantly learning and developing new skills. Side note: I could say the same thing for any successful person regardless of their career! Never stop learning new things!
When it comes to the skills you need as an engineer, let’s split them into two main categories: technical skills and soft skills.
Technical skills range from specialized knowledge to the tools and programs you need to complete your job. These are the skills that are critical to performing your engineering functions. You’ll start learning these technical skills in college and will continue to learn even more on-the-job. For example, if you want to be a mechanical design engineer, you’ll need to start by learning the basics of modeling and you can grow your engineering design skills from there. You can learn different CAD programs, like Catia, Creo, or SolidWorks. Or practice building more complex designs. You can discover how to perform tolerance analysis in large systems. It’s possible to spend an entire career building on your engineering design skills!
There are also several “soft” skills that are critical to the success of your engineering career. These include problem-solving, communication, innovation, and being a team player. If you want to be a successful mechanical designer, you need more than pure technical skills. You need to be an innovative, problem-solver to create successful designs and you need to be able to communicate those designs to others.
Your Experiences: Actions you can take now
There are so many disciplines you can learn about, functions you can perform, and skills you can develop. For today, don’t worry about trying to do everything all at once.
Instead, become an explorer. Look for opportunities to explore disciplines and functions that sound interesting to you. Find opportunities to practice new skills. Over time, you’ll discover what you enjoy working on (and what you don’t!). If you adopt this exploration mindset now, it’ll aid you throughout your entire career.
Ideas for engineering students: Take advantage of student opportunities. Take elective engineering classes that sound interesting. Join engineering student clubs. Listen to talks from real engineers. Become a research assistant. Get an internship. Sign up for peer mentoring.
Ideas for early career engineers: Join a professional chapter in an engineering society. Look for volunteer opportunities. Find ways to challenge yourself in your current job. Find mentors at work or through engineering societies who can help you develop new skills or guide you through career decisions.
You’re not bound to just engineering activities either. There are plenty of soft skills you can develop that will aid you in your engineering journey too!
Recap
By now, you’ve hopefully picked up on two common themes: (1) engineers have a lot of different career options, and (2) an engineer’s discipline, functions, and skills describe what they really do at work.
Where do you see yourself going as an engineer? What can you start doing now to help you get there? Explore different opportunities until you find what fits well in your life.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Instead, focus on learning to fail forward. Explore. Be curious. Don’t overanalyze it. Just get out there and experience it!