What is the job outlook/security for an average engineer?

College Majors Engineering Majors
41

<p>I completely forgot about the continuing education requirements licensed engineers need. In my state, you need 36 hours every 3 years, but that number seems to go up every year. To be honest, it seems kind of low to be me since my company requires a minimum of 16 hours of training every year. Those who are PE's in my company have to take those 16 in addition to the 36 required by the state board.</p>

<p>To give you a sense of how extensive the training program is at my firm, on average I get about 2 emails per week about classes from my company.</p>

42

<p>In the month of June alone, I have had SEVEN free lunches provided to me by my company for seven distinct hour-and-a-half continuing education lunch courses, and this is a light month, and it's only half over. Everybody attends, even the president. It's not uncommon to have three or more free lunches/courses per week. So it's not just a course here and there, either.</p>

43

<p>I'm a new hire, ~30+ days of training this year.</p>

44

<p>I am going to say that overall, prospects are likely declining for the simple reason that number of engineers is increasing dramatically and the competition for jobs is really fierce. </p>

<p>That being said, there are excellent opportunities, especially in the US more than Canada. I think the trick is to balance good technical experience with an MBA. </p>

<p>You want some field experience but not too much so you are not labeled a "tech guy" and also, try to work in an MBA along the line. My feeling is that 4 to 6 years is ideal and then get an MBA either pt or ft. Better pt if you are in a good company since many will pay for it can you keep working. Xmba is also an option in some companies.</p>

45

<p>As stated in the BLS site referenced early on in this thread:</p>

<p>"Offshoring of engineering work will likely dampen domestic employment growth to some degree. There are many well-trained, often English-speaking engineers available around the world willing to work at much lower salaries than U.S. engineers. The rise of the Internet has made it relatively easy for part of the engineering work previously done by engineers in this country to be done by engineers in other countries, a factor that will tend to hold down employment growth."</p>

<p>My degree is in Computer Science, and I have seen first hand that this field as a career opportunity will soon be gone in western countries (my company and others like it are shedding US & European employees as quickly as possible and shipping work to India and China). </p>

<p>My son will be a senior in HS next year and is interested in engineering as a field of study in college, but sometimes I wonder that if he wants to do something technical, would he be better off as an electrician or plumber (or anything else that can't be shipped overseas). :-&lt;/p>

46

<p>laxfan, I generally agree about the outsourcing - it's been rough for CS folks. Sometimes I wonder though - is this mostly a fashion that will fade eventually? Management books reflect fads, in my opinion, and I wonder if offshoring is a fad that will lose popularity someday.</p>

<p>Also policy may change. It would help a lot if they would limit H1B visas awarded for economic (greed?) rather than true need reasons.</p>

47

<p>
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My degree is in Computer Science, and I have seen first hand that this field as a career opportunity will soon be gone in western countries (my company and others like it are shedding US & European employees as quickly as possible and shipping work to India and China).

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</p>

<p>Nevertheless, the US keeps adding computer jobs anyway. For example, Google now employs a whopping 20k people, an amazing feat for a company that didn't even exist 10 years ago. Practically all of Google's employees are Americans, as Google's international offices are very minor. Now, obviously, not all of Google's employees are engineers, but nevertheless, the point is that newly founded US high tech firms will continue to employ vast quantities of engineers. </p>

<p>One has to keep in mind that the more jobs are outsourced to China and India, the higher the wages there spiral upwards. In fact, the cost of an experienced Indian software developer are now basically the equal to that of an experienced US developer once you've added in the extra expenses of remote management and oversight. People see the vast numbers of people in India and shudder but overlook the fact that most of them never receive a top-line engineering education. {For example, only 60% of all Indian adults are literate in even their native language, not even talking about being literate in English.} Hence, it's only a tiny percentage of the population in India who are actually competitive for outsourced software jobs. China has a similar problem which is compounded by the fact that of even the well-educated Chinese, most of them don't speak English, which is the tongue of computer science.</p>

48

<p>
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laxfan, I generally agree about the outsourcing - it's been rough for CS folks

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<p>Not to be unsympathetic, but I personally don't think it's actually been that rough for CS guys. What I see is that the froth of the old dotcom boom has been taken away, but that's probably a good thing. For example, I distinctly remember in those days how guys who hadn't even graduated from high school were nevertheless being offered 6-figure salaries plus, more importantly, huge stock options packages by the dotcoms. One of my old friend's cousins who had dropped out of high school was at one point while still in his early 20's, worth over $10 million from his stock options. {However, it should be said that that turned out to be mostly paper wealth as the dotcom bust eviscerated most of those millions. Still he did manage to buy a killer sportscar with cash. Not bad for a high school dropout. Not bad at all. Heck, he still drives that thing today, and frankly, it's better than my car. } Those were truly crazy days that we will probably never see again. </p>

<p>
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Sometimes I wonder though - is this mostly a fashion that will fade eventually? Management books reflect fads, in my opinion, and I wonder if offshoring is a fad that will lose popularity someday.

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</p>

<p>Well, I don't know if it's any more of a fad than free trade is a fad. The outsourcing of labor is just another facet of free trade. You want to move the work to wherever it can be done the most productively. </p>

<p>Note, I didn't say the most cheaply. I said the most productively, of which raw cost is simply one component. Many of the most expensive places in the world are also the most productive. For example, why do tech firms not only get founded, but tend to stay in Silicon Valley? The Valley is one of the most expensive places on Earth to do business. So why does Google stay there? Why do Intel, HP, Cisco, Oracle, Adobe, Yahoo, eBay all stay? Why don't they just all relocate to, say, Arkansas where things are cheap? Are they just being dumb? </p>

<p>In fact, not only do these firms not move out of the Valley, lots of entrepreneurs actually come to the Valley with the express intent of hiring engineers and building companies. For example, Facebook wasn't founded in the Valley. Zuckerberg founded the company in Cambridge Mass (in his Harvard dorm room) and then actually relocated to the Valley where he hired hundreds of engineers. Why did he do that? After all, Facebook is a pure Internet company, so it theoretically could be built from anywhere, right? So why didn't he just move the company to rural Mississippi where things are dirt-cheap? Was he just being dumb? He has 1.5 billion reasons to justify what he did, if his net worth is any indication. </p>

<p>It should be noted that Facebook is offering salaries of over $90k just to start. Why do that? Why not just ship all that work to India? Again, is Facebook being dumb? </p>

<p><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/stanford-computer-science-grads-getting-95k-offers-from-google/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/stanford-computer-science-grads-getting-95k-offers-from-google/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
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Also policy may change. It would help a lot if they would limit H1B visas awarded for economic (greed?) rather than true need reasons.

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</p>

<p>Actually, if anything, I would argue that the H1B problem actually reduces the outsourcing problem (if it is indeed a problem). After all, a guy on a H1B visa is coming to a US location to work, where he will presumably be working on a project with US engineers. If you don't give that guy a visa to come into US, then that guy just stays in his own country, and then it becomes even more likely that the company will simply move the entire project to that other country and then lay off all its US engineers.</p>

49

<p>Perhaps it is because I am a young college student, but every random person, colleague at an internship, advisor, older classmate, professor, company speaker, etc has said that finding a job as an engineer will not be a problem. Again, maybe age discrimination is a problem that is too often not mentioned.</p>

50

<p>I have yet to find convincing research on the pros of outsourcing. I think many companies are starting to realize it was a fad and the amount of problems, that the companies face, are not worth the profit gained.</p>

51

<p>Low-level software jobs may be going overseas, but skilled software engineers are still very much in demand. Students majoring in CS/EECS from my school (admittedly a fairly good one) make on average $5,000-10,000 per year more than students in other engineering majors.</p>

<p>In response to an ill-informed comment Dr.Horse made earlier: Aerospace firms like Lockheed are definitely not telling incoming employees that their prospects are limited. Here's what one firm I interned with told its interns: Because of defense budget cuts and employee layoffs after the end of the Cold War, aerospace/defense companies actually are facing a massive lack of engineers, with > 2/3 of their workforces scheduled to retire in the next decade or so. Considering the security climate for the foreseeable future and the mini-boom in commercial space, engineers joining aerospace/defense companies today have safe employment prospects and potentially a lot of room for advancement.</p>

<p>Perhaps prospective engineers on this forum are overly worried about their employment prospects, and bring out their inner trolls?</p>

52

<p>CS and CE careers are one of the most up and coming career paths in the entire world. this entire thread is fail.</p>

<p>engineering is a major that has possibly the best career outlook and security.</p>

53

<p>
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CS and CE careers are one of the most up and coming career paths in the entire world. this entire thread is fail.

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<p>[url=<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/22/AR2008072202709.html%5Dwashingtonpost.com%5B/url"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/22/AR2008072202709.html]washingtonpost.com[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>I just saw this article in today's Washington Post. Average starting CS salaries are up 13.1% from last year.</p>

54

<p>
[quote]
Because of defense budget cuts and employee layoffs after the end of the Cold War, aerospace/defense companies actually are facing a massive lack of engineers, with > 2/3 of their workforces scheduled to retire in the next decade or so. Considering the security climate for the foreseeable future and the mini-boom in commercial space, engineers joining aerospace/defense companies today have safe employment prospects and potentially a lot of room for advancement.

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</p>

<p>There is definitely truth to this. I read somewhere that Lockheed-Martin has ~140,000 employees and about 2/3s of them will retire by 2010 or 2015. They recruit at my school like crazy now (GaTech) and are offering larger signing bonuses and the like.</p>

55

<p>I think that engineering prospects are very good in this country due to the systemic lack of interest in engineering. Growth depends on the industry, of course. I think engineers in several industries are looking very good.</p>

<p>Defense (although the industry is contracting, the labor market is arguably contracting quicker)
Energy
Tech</p>

56

<p>Just beware. Do not expect to have a life long career in engineering. Think about exit strategies 20-25 years out. Law, management, finance, government and medicine are some areas that seem to respect seniority. </p>

<p>You are fooling yourself if you think you can have a life long career in technical engineering even with the most up to date technical skills.</p>

57

<p>
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You are fooling yourself if you think you can have a life long career in technical engineering even with the most up to date technical skills.

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<p>Why do you think this?</p>

58

<p>
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You are fooling yourself if you think you can have a life long career in technical engineering even with the most up to date technical skills.

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Disagree. Depends on industry.</p>

59

<p>
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You are fooling yourself if you think you can have a life long career in technical engineering even with the most up to date technical skills.

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</p>

<p>Yet another assertion without any evidence to back it up. </p>

<p>With an increasing globalized world there is bound to be more competition, hence stress on employment here at home, but that doesn't mean that being an Engineer/CS spells doom. Remember that not many people major in Engineering and other technical fields so the demand is always there (hence the starting salaries for Engineers going up every year) and we CANNOT outsource everything to India. We will always need Engineers and technical people here, since we are moving closer and closer to a world controlled by technology. And frankly, the level of work that is being outsourced is very low-level and shouldn't pose any threat to Engineers here. </p>

<p>I would say that the job security/outlook for Engineers is very good. Most of my friends got job offers right from school and I have yet to hear of anyone working in Starbucks or Borders after graduating with an Engineering degree (like many of our friends in the Liberal Arts).</p>

60

<p>Engineering fields with more empirical methods generally respect experience more than others. Civil, Construction, Structural and some forms of mechanical are such areas. With EE, CS, CompE and similar areas, at 45-50, there is a good chance that someone with a couple of years of experience is more energetic, probably more eager to learn technical things and most likely costs less to a business.</p>

<p>I'm not disputing the career prospects for fresh grads or anyone under 40. All I'm saying is it wouldn’t be fun losing your job at that age and having to compete with younger people. Besides, you should be in management by that time.</p>

<p>And on an irrelevant note about outsourcing, stuff doesn’t need to be outsourced anywhere. An entire industry could just disappear overnight; kind of like manufacturing.</p>