Career change. ____ engineering technician

Futbalfantic

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2006
Location
Charlotte
I’ve been working on an ambulance for the better part of the past 13 years. It’s time for a change. Unfortunately don’t see myself retiring from it.

I’ve been looking at two year degree and possible job options associated. I had the dream years ago to become some form an engineering degree so engineering technician has caught my eye.

So, with that said, what is an engineering technician, and what do they do? I’ve read a bit about it but no real information I could find, very vague. What is the salary range for entry and 5 years in? What is the job market like in the Charlotte area?
 
What type of engineering? Mechanical, electrical, Civil etc? Every community college should have a 2 year program for an associates degree in engineering in all of those fields. I got my associates degree in mechanical engineering technology from GTCC before going on to get my BSME. Someone with a 2 year degree in mechanical engineering technology would typical become a designer at the place I work, and use Pro-E software to design parts and create part drawings. You don't have to be limited to just doing that work though. There are guys here at my work with 2 yr engineering degrees who started as designers, but moved up into project management because they have the right skills for that job and were motivated.
 
I’m still up in the air for that at the moment. I’m thinking mechanical or electrical. Trying to wrap my head around it and making sure if I end up getting an assoc. that I’m not taking a pay cut
 
Let me reverse the question.
Stop and close your eyes for a moment. If you could control all variables, what would you like to see yourself doing daily for the next 30 years?

Do you want to work on a computer 8-5 M-F, do you want to work with your hands, etc. Answer this very basic question first.
Figure out what job you want. Then figure out what degree you need to get that job.
 
Oh man. That I don't know. I thought it was going to be working on an ambulance for 30. But 7 in that's not going to happen. More and more displeased with the job every year.

I love problem solving and fixing things. Therefore my thinking was engineering. 4 year school is not in the books for me. Never was. It will probably take my 5 years to get a 2 year degree now anyway. Based on what I could find engineering tech seems to be a good bridge between the two but I have been limited on what I could find on the actual job. That's why I am reaching out to see what it is actually about.
 
I know a lot of people in the technical field without a 4 year degree doing just fine. Get into machine learning and mechatronics and you'll be doing better than most of the engineers out there.
 
@Ron is on the money here. It's worth taking some time to really think and explore about what you want to do, then figure out the pathway to get there.
I get it, it's hard to know what the right "job" is, but at least focus on the types of things you enjoy doing - do you like physically building/fabricating things? Or the more open-ended challenge of designing something, where you may not be the guy actually building it but it's based on your ideas? Do you like being given a specific task and set to do it, as instructed, or more of asked to solve a problem however necessary within certain limits?

Or, start here - what is it you DON'T like about the current work? Is it the stress, or always being on the go, or something about the people, etc? Pin down what elements you'd like to remove, and what you'd like to replace it with. THEN figure out what kind of career would have your daily life like that.
 
I was an engineering tech before I got my engineering degree, and I didn't have a degree to be a technician. It was a different world in the '90s though, before all these schools popped up and convinced companies that a degree or certificate was somehow necessary for hiring. I grew up around mechanical and electrical engineering stuff, so my background was likely not common.
What you get paid and what you do is totally dependant on the company and the specific job. I was completely hands on at the companies I worked for. It's a big, diverse field.
 
Last edited:
@Ron is right, figure out what you want to do. Maybe think up 5-10 keywords and do a job search using those terms.

I was a mechanical engineer in the manufacturing field for a little over a decade....it had very little to do with the keywords I would have chosen. The engineering field for lots of positions has boiled down to a very computer/meeting/bean counter position. It has very little to do with problem solving and coming up with the best solution to a design problem.
Just my $0.02 if I had to do it all over again and was looking for a standard 9-5 I would look into the R&D side of engineering at a smaller firm/company (less then 50 people).

The days of engineers stuffing g big blocks into mid-sized sedans and drag racing down Woodward is done....a tech may stuff something cool into a mule, and a manager may break it doing a burnout leaving the local bar.....but that is about it.
 
Ron said:
Let me reverse the question.
Stop and close your eyes for a moment. If you could control all variables, what would you like to see yourself doing daily for the next 30 years?

Do you want to work on a computer 8-5 M-F, do you want to work with your hands, etc. Answer this very basic question first.
Figure out what job you want. Then figure out what degree you need to get that job.
Click to expand...
Playing the devils advocate here but how many are gonna do the same job for 30 years??? I betting not near as many now as there have been in the past.
 
1-tonmudder said:
Playing the devils advocate here but how many are gonna do the same job for 30 years??? I betting not near as many now as there have been in the past.
Click to expand...
Oh i agree. But if you want to do it for 30 years today, you should really want to do it for 5 or so. If you want to do it for 5 years, you are probably going to get sick of it in 2
 
shelby27604 said:
The engineering field for lots of positions has boiled down to a very computer/meeting/bean counter position. It has very little to do with problem solving and coming up with the best solution to a design problem.
Click to expand...
Quoted for truth!
 
RatLabGuy said:
Or, start here - what is it you DON'T like about the current work? Is it the stress, or always being on the go, or something about the people, etc? Pin down what elements you'd like to remove, and what you'd like to replace it with. THEN figure out what kind of career would have your daily life like that.
Click to expand...

This is what I was going to ask. I know and have known several career EMS people, and I also know many who have left for various reasons. Some of of them simply went from one organization to a neighboring one and love the job again. Some went on to careers in medicine but in a non-mobile setting such as nursing. Some said F it all and completely changed fields. In my experience if you've made it 13 years it's probably not the same things that cause 5 year or less EMS people to leave.

1-tonmudder said:
Playing the devils advocate here but how many are gonna do the same job for 30 years??? I betting not near as many now as there have been in the past.
Click to expand...

Same job for 30 years? I'd bet that number is still decent. For the same company? Now that is a much smaller group.

Duane
 
Lots of good advice in this thread!

In my limited experience, an associate degree in ME can get you in the door for an entry level designer/drafter job at a smallish company. If you work hard, any sane company will let you take on more responsibility and let you expand your knowledge and experience. After getting a few years of experience under your belt, your degree won’t carry nearly as much weight. You’ll be able to become a senior engineer after x years of experience, regardless of degree. One data point: Some of the old timer engineers at my company have associates degrees, but they started requiring BS degrees for engineers a while back.
 
shelby27604 said:
@Ron The engineering field for lots of positions has boiled down to a very computer/meeting/bean counter position. It has very little to do with problem solving and coming up with the best solution to a design problem.
Just my $0.02 if I had to do it all over again and was looking for a standard 9-5 I would look into the R&D side of engineering at a smaller firm/company (less then 50 people).
Click to expand...
jeepinmatt said:
Quoted for truth!
Click to expand...
That's why people need to come work with me. R&D FTW. All of our engineers are problem solvers and very little bean counting. Rare and unusual problems. Rarely two similar days in a row and we all hate meetings. Very few people spend all day in front of a computer. We're always hiring ;-).
 
shelby27604 said:
@RonThe engineering field for lots of positions has boiled down to a very computer/meeting/bean counter position. It has very little to do with problem solving and coming up with the best solution to a design problem.
Click to expand...

In the worlds of big companies and high volume manufacturing, that's very true. Compartmentalization is the norm, with lots of job specialization by necessity. Not the best things for hands-on problem solving, or diversity of job tasks.


I work in R&D, for small-ish company, and am still half engineer and half technician. That's the way I like it.
 
Andy J. said:
Lots of good advice in this thread!

In my limited experience, an associate degree in ME can get you in the door for an entry level designer/drafter job at a smallish company. If you work hard, any sane company will let you take on more responsibility and let you expand your knowledge and experience. After getting a few years of experience under your belt, your degree won’t carry nearly as much weight. You’ll be able to become a senior engineer after x years of experience, regardless of degree. One data point: Some of the old timer engineers at my company have associates degrees, but they started requiring BS degrees for engineers a while back.
Click to expand...


This is what I did. Got a "mechanical engineering technology" associates and most of an EE at the same time. Got a job with a great company, did well and they took care of me. If you're going to do it hurry up while the economy is still doing well and everyone is hiring.
 
braxton357 said:
If you're going to do it hurry up while the economy is still doing well and everyone is hiring.
Click to expand...
... and before tuition continues climbing from "unaffordable" to "impossible".

Although, there is a growing imitative for community college classes to be free/State paid for residents... like in MD they just put this into law... but then they f*cked it up by requiring you have to be within 2 years of graduating High school/GED so it leaves all the people who really need it - adults going back for a new career - out in the cold. Facepalm.
 
Chuckman said:
mechatronics seems to be the field to be in if you want to spin wrenches and solve problems
Click to expand...
Definitely true.
Andy J. said:
Is this the field to go into if you want to build attack robots? I always wanted to do a robot battle competition!
Click to expand...
Well, the Army Futures Command is a real thing now. They may or may not be literally designing fighting robots right now. And they're hiring...
 
Andy J. said:
Is this the field to go into if you want to build attack robots? I always wanted to do a robot battle competition!
Click to expand...
My son is taking this.....I am really jealous of some of the topics he's learning. He didn't like the idea of Dad as a classmate. I'm secretly considering enrolling if I can get the hours worked out. But after he's done. I hope they use his text books and nobody makes an association, he's setting a damn high bar.
 
Back
Top