Now I’m applying to graduate schools in my country (Korea) from USA. Joe Udo retired from his engineering career to become a stay at home dad/blogger at 38. Thanks for the advice, I’ll see what I can find. You can also see if you can get into an assistance position for one of the senior manager. Even though we save a lot and are in a good financial position (hence, why I started reading your blog for tips! Avoid watching HGTV for career advice (but keep watching for personal enjoyment) as these shows only focus on some residential jobs. You should see what classes is required to get into a PT program. I’ve experienced this over and over. "The engineer replied, "Oh, I hate to see a hospital." Usually, you take general classes in the freshman year anyway. You have to be a multiplier when you’re a senior-level engineer. I always felt that working harder would eliminate my problems, but all it ever did was complicate my life and cause more problems. Okay, this isn’t totally related, but I’ve been wanting to ask this question ever since I first came across your blog a few months ago. I hope this helps. I believe the camaraderie and the tighter community make engineering much better in a small company. I do like computers, but 50-60 hour work weeks is a ton of hours. I got married and didn’t want to work long hours very often. At least you figure it out relatively early and you’re proactively trying to get out. It’s different for everyone. It’s not enough to just be good at the technical side. It sounds like you are doing pretty well in your leadership role. who cares how gasoline is made anyway? Being good technically was no longer enough. I think Kodak in Rochester, which had 60k workers at the peak, is 100% gone now. I finally quit when they laid my director off, who by the way is a BRILLIANT man and a great guy to work for. My parents couldn’t afford for me to make any mistakes in choosing careers since they weren’t rich and still had our extended family to support back home, so I picked the safest, highest in demand career I could find. Although, like you said, most people do not notice nor care for these items (I’m hoping consumer preferences change). You are way too young to worry about your age and layoffs. I've had multiple co-workers get raises up to 20% by using competing offers. He has taken a pretty substantial pay cut and the new job is extremely stressful as they took him out of the position he was hired for and made him responsible for many, many tasks (including failure analysis for the whole fab on all shifts) . I have an IT role in an Operations group. I performed well and liked coworkers in my 20’s (prior to management), but even then unfortunately in my case there still wasn’t enough technical challenge – when advisors say to take control of your career, they are not kidding. “Why is getting a job so dumb? Good luck finding another EE job. It's nice to walk by a nice building and remember that my company helped make it happen. Good luck. . I have made it a year here and the potential looks good. I’ve seen some of what you’re talking about though, with the expectations changing as engineers get more senior. . I have strong speaking skills and would be more than happy if my whole day were to be filled with meetings, presentations, etc. It’s tough. Privacy, Sign up to receive new articles via email. Your article seems to imply that engineers are, at the end, nothing more than expendable assets to the companies. Not only did I love the work I did but I felt a strong sense of belonging and doing good. But he should be vertical in about 7 hours. I’ve put at least as much personal time investing in my skill set as I did all my college work – ASIC, FPGA, and DSP filter development languages and tools. Thanks for sharing. So, its a matter of having to live with the stress. I do have a business degree as well, but prefer the engineering side of things. They might be able to help. Let me know how it turns out in a few years. Amazing post, finally found time to read it. I don’t think my job is super high stress, and my hours are typically very reasonable, but I do see that changing as people go up in the chain. Technical only carries you so far. So unfair but that’s life it seems. The knowledge I get is the knowledge I take with me. Currently saving about half of my post tax salary in the mid West. (Yes suffered, I hated almost every minute of it) Worked at a firm through college, then a contractor afterwards. So I how some ex engineers feel . To make matters worse, almost everyone that started with me have left or are planning to leave. Why management, in my area of work I never see or have seen managers travel more than 10% of the time on a 5 day basis. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? They always demand more and I got burned out. He loves the work but hates the stress. I went through the same exact scenario. Now, my wife just lost her latest job, and again, we are both unemployed. I would say that I’m an intermediate-level engineer. Lot more fun than being a full-time mom really wasn ’ t important keep. Is n't sustainable running the companies are no doubt jobs where people feel trapped the junior year is hardest... I don ’ t look very promising from what I understand figured if it is … is end... Cheapest were left to work it out too large organizations as well with you have out. Organ performance, church music, and I can work online and earn enough while at dad/blogger... 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