Working in Consumer Electronics as a Mechanical Engineer

[Cy-Fy]

Hi everyone, I'm currently studying mechanical engineering and I'm thinking about what sort of industries to apply for jobs when I graduate. There are a lot of typical engineering opportunities like construction, manufacturing, consulting, oil, etc. but to be honest with you I feel like those jobs seem boring (maybe I have the wrong idea), maybe with the exception of oil which seems pretty good with pretty good perks too. On the other hand I feel like consumer electronics, in particular computers and smartphones and cameras, are a very interesting field because of how, especially nowadays, you have new products coming out very quickly and there is a lot of competition. So I guess my question is if there are any mechanical engineers here who have managed to go into the consumer electronics industry and also what their experience has been like.

 

I think the biggest thing I feel envious of is when I look at all the tech youtubers and how they get to get their hands on the latest tech, and I know that you don't have to be an engineer to do that but in any case I'd like to know if any of you know of any fields where I could get these sort of experiences given that I am a mechanical engineer and not a journalist or tech youtuber.

 

Thanks!

[wasab]

You need to move to Alaska or Texas for oil. You willing relocate. 

[FlatMM]

I would look at what interests you, and then try to figure out in what field you would get to do that, rather than solely looking at what industry you wanna be in. The older I've gotten the more I've realised how important that is. Have you done something in school that you truly enjoyed? That excited you?

Also, wherever you end up, one company is not like other. Don't be too quick obviously, but you might hate being in one company and love being in another in the same field. But this is starting to drift off topic

[TopDollar]

I'm a mechanical engineer in the naval/marine industry. There are certainly job opportunities out there for mechanical engineers in consumer electronics, although they might be harder to find than computer science or electrical, computer, and software engineering jobs. I do know however that a handful of Aero/Mechanical engineers from my graduating class got jobs at Global Foundries.

 

My best advice is to start gaining professional engineering experience now by applying for all the summer internships or semester long coops you can. Not only will doing that make it significantly easier to get a job right out of college, but it will also help you figure out what you like to do. I have a feeling a lot of mechanical engineering jobs in the consumer electronics industry are related to manufacturing processes.

[bimmerman]

I'm a mech e and do a lot of work with the consumer electronics industry.

 

Basically, apply to the big companies-- apple, microsoft, google, etc. If you're partway through school, apply for internships. If you're close to done, apply for jobs. You'll need to relocate unless you live in a company's backyard.

 

If you're not close to graduating yet, I would highly suggest doing everything you can to be a competitive applicant-- the big companies only hire the best, so make sure you are one. Excellent grades, documented team project work, interdisciplinary everything, solid internships, excellent verbal and written communication skills, etc. You may also want to consider some amount of grad school-- if your school offers a BS/MS degree option, I'd jump on that wholeheartedly. Interdisciplinary is not a buzzword to you any more, it's a way of thinking.

 

Mech Es in consumer electronics are everywhere, and not as much in manufacturing as you'd expect-- that's the primary, though non-exclusive, domain of industrial and manufacturing engineers. Mech Es are everywhere from materials to reliability to failure analysis to design to packaging to thermals to simulation to.......you get the point-- we're generalists by definition. What classwork areas do you enjoy? You will figure out what parts you do/don't have a knack for, but painting with a very broad brush, you'll want to have good working knowledge of stress/strain and solid mechanics, materials science, fatigue analysis, thermals and heat transfer, design for manufacturing and assembly, and more. Basically every class you take as an ME, with the possible exception of Fluids, is important to working as an ME on teams in the consumer electronics industry. At least that's been my experience w/r/t curriculum applicability. Also-- learn Solidworks (or whatever professional CAD package your school uses), learn to code Matlab and Labview, and familiarize yourself with FEA. If you know other software packages, great! If you don't know those at a minimum, you aren't that competitive. Finally-- I know it's hip to not use MS Office, but you must know how to use Excel, Powerpoint, and Word, fluently. Industry does not run on google docs or open office for professional work.

 

The advice from other posters is also excellent. Apply to all sorts of companies that sound interesting, not just in specific industries unless you know you want to work in them (in other words, do internships! they're paid for engineers, so do them!)

 

As for my experience working in the industry....to be honest, it's awesome BUT exhausting. The work is quite interesting, but you aren't playing with products like techtubers are. You're working on stuff that's in prototype mode, figuring out how to improve XYZ to meet target requirement ABC, running tests, iterating...y'know, engineering. You don't really deal with released product because it's been released-- not much mechanical engineering to be done that isn't QA/Reliability. If that excites you, then great! Hours can be long, deadlines are short and very inflexible, but the work is really cool and you can see the results of your work within a couple years (vs a few years for medical devices or decades for aerospace)

[Guest]

All I know is there’s a shortage of you guys so you’ll be finding a job like nothing. 

 

Someone i know works on strengthening military materials. (Lotta classified products) just hope you’re republican because a lot of engineers are far right political leaning. (Don’t want to start a political debate. Just a warning for what my friend’s work environment is like. He loves it.) 

[Cy-Fy]

On 4/28/2019 at 6:54 PM, FlatMM said:

I would look at what interests you, and then try to figure out in what field you would get to do that, rather than solely looking at what industry you wanna be in. The older I've gotten the more I've realised how important that is. Have you done something in school that you truly enjoyed? That excited you?

Also, wherever you end up, one company is not like other. Don't be too quick obviously, but you might hate being in one company and love being in another in the same field. But this is starting to drift off topic

Yes I understand what you mean, thank you. I guess the best way to know for sure about a particular industry is to try it out myself maybe doing some internships. The reason I'm thinking a lot about this is also because I've got to pick some optional modules soon which would be a little easier if I already knew what industry I'd like to get into.

[Cy-Fy]

On 4/29/2019 at 1:29 PM, TopDollar said:

I'm a mechanical engineer in the naval/marine industry. There are certainly job opportunities out there for mechanical engineers in consumer electronics, although they might be harder to find than computer science or electrical, computer, and software engineering jobs. I do know however that a handful of Aero/Mechanical engineers from my graduating class got jobs at Global Foundries.

 

My best advice is to start gaining professional engineering experience now by applying for all the summer internships or semester long coops you can. Not only will doing that make it significantly easier to get a job right out of college, but it will also help you figure out what you like to do. I have a feeling a lot of mechanical engineering jobs in the consumer electronics industry are related to manufacturing processes.

Yes that sounds like a good idea. To be honest, right now I don't feel like manufacturing processes would be my first choice for a job. I enjoy much more the process of design and development to create an idea from scratch so I guess I should focus on industries where this is possible. Thanks for the reply!

[Cy-Fy]

On 4/29/2019 at 11:05 PM, bimmerman said:

I'm a mech e and do a lot of work with the consumer electronics industry.

 

Basically, apply to the big companies-- apple, microsoft, google, etc. If you're partway through school, apply for internships. If you're close to done, apply for jobs. You'll need to relocate unless you live in a company's backyard.

 

If you're not close to graduating yet, I would highly suggest doing everything you can to be a competitive applicant-- the big companies only hire the best, so make sure you are one. Excellent grades, documented team project work, interdisciplinary everything, solid internships, excellent verbal and written communication skills, etc. You may also want to consider some amount of grad school-- if your school offers a BS/MS degree option, I'd jump on that wholeheartedly. Interdisciplinary is not a buzzword to you any more, it's a way of thinking.

 

Mech Es in consumer electronics are everywhere, and not as much in manufacturing as you'd expect-- that's the primary, though non-exclusive, domain of industrial and manufacturing engineers. Mech Es are everywhere from materials to reliability to failure analysis to design to packaging to thermals to simulation to.......you get the point-- we're generalists by definition. What classwork areas do you enjoy? You will figure out what parts you do/don't have a knack for, but painting with a very broad brush, you'll want to have good working knowledge of stress/strain and solid mechanics, materials science, fatigue analysis, thermals and heat transfer, design for manufacturing and assembly, and more. Basically every class you take as an ME, with the possible exception of Fluids, is important to working as an ME on teams in the consumer electronics industry. At least that's been my experience w/r/t curriculum applicability. Also-- learn Solidworks (or whatever professional CAD package your school uses), learn to code Matlab and Labview, and familiarize yourself with FEA. If you know other software packages, great! If you don't know those at a minimum, you aren't that competitive. Finally-- I know it's hip to not use MS Office, but you must know how to use Excel, Powerpoint, and Word, fluently. Industry does not run on google docs or open office for professional work.

 

The advice from other posters is also excellent. Apply to all sorts of companies that sound interesting, not just in specific industries unless you know you want to work in them (in other words, do internships! they're paid for engineers, so do them!)

 

As for my experience working in the industry....to be honest, it's awesome BUT exhausting. The work is quite interesting, but you aren't playing with products like techtubers are. You're working on stuff that's in prototype mode, figuring out how to improve XYZ to meet target requirement ABC, running tests, iterating...y'know, engineering. You don't really deal with released product because it's been released-- not much mechanical engineering to be done that isn't QA/Reliability. If that excites you, then great! Hours can be long, deadlines are short and very inflexible, but the work is really cool and you can see the results of your work within a couple years (vs a few years for medical devices or decades for aerospace)

Hey I really appreciate your response. In terms of the things you mentioned that I should be experienced with in terms of classes and software I believe I am in a pretty good position. All of what you mentioned we have covered in one way or another. In terms of what I found interesting, it's precisely the times we've had to develop an idea into a product, prototyping and improving it as much as we can. That is what I think I have enjoyed the most as it also involves design which I like. So I guess the best thing to do for me would be to find internships or opportunities where I know I can apply mechanical design and development, even in other industries too.

Thanks a lot!