is engineering really 9-5?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Funny. When my husband was in the Army, they went to a half-day schedule around Christmas. The guys always joked that they only had to work twelve hours. Probably true for many engineering jobs as well.</p>

<p>Ooops. This was in response to post #15–first page.</p>

22

<p>Time and materials does not necessarily mean less hours. I’ve worked a few 70+ hour weeks before on T&M. In my opinion, the most important factors are how flexible the deadline is and who the client is. </p>

<p>If you’re on a project that gets a lot of press or is high-profile, expect to work a lot. Not sure what aibarr is working on, but my guess is it fits the above description. I’m in a similar boat on the construction end of it, though thankfully I usually don’t get emails or phone calls between 10pm and 5am unless it’s from somebody on the night shift or from our parent company overseas (in which case I set my blackberry to not ring on emails anyway).</p>

23

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<p>Yep, it does.</p>

24

<p>Global…</p>

<p>Yes, all hours worked must be recorded but that doesn’t mean the employee gets paid for those >40. What it really means is a) if you work on projects for more than one client the government gets a lower per hour rate billed b) the company gets to boast about a low average billing rate. Notice that neither of these things benefit the engineer.</p>

25

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<p>You are correct. The engineer may not get paid for hours past 40. I am saying from my experience that an engineer can find out that type of contractual information before starting that project. Depending on how the supply/demand is for your specialty, one can decide to pass up on contacts like those.</p>

<p>I know I do.</p>

26

<p>The place I’m interning at is 10pm-7am… you might reconsider how you view a 9-5.</p>

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<p>(Hey, I work some of those hours, too! What a coincidence…!)</p>

28

<p>gstein, what kind of place is it?</p>

29

<p>It’s a wind tunnel. While there is day shift support, the actual tests run at night for electrical reasons. I actually don’t mind the hours.</p>

30

<p>My husband’s a software engineer for a large, very well known California company. Everyone works at least 10 hours a day, pretty much whatever hours they prefer. The “old guys” like my husband tend to work early…like 6:00am to 4:00 or 5:00 pm. The “kids” works a much later shift.</p>