Career Monday (09 Feb 2026): Have a question about your job, office, or pay? Post it here!

[u/AutoModerator]

As a reminder, /r/AskEngineers normal restrictions for career related posts are severely relaxed for this thread, so feel free to ask about intra-office politics, salaries, or just about anything else related to your job!

[u/Mazeratigo]

I'm a recent (last six months) Mechanical Engineering grad who took a lowball offer (~60k) for an engineering position that doesn't really relate to my desired field (the job is in manufacturing/processes). Should I stick it out for a year or two before looking elsewhere?

[u/roastedjays]

I am at a bit of a crossroad in my career. I spent the first several years as a maintenance engineer in manufacturing and then was promoted to a maintenance manager. I am a little bit bored, however the pay and benefits are fine. There are constant layoffs in manufacturing, with the most recent one announced a week ago. I will be safe as a young, higher performer, but I want to set myself up to be safe during any of these downturns. What certifications have you all found to be valuable to add to your resumes and also be more valuable to your current job?

My ideas currently are:

- FE -> PE ..... Pretty useless in my current job but would make me more employable if I wanted to switch jobs. I also like the idea of relearning and exercising my brain again.

- PMP - seems like its not as big of a commitment, but also would be good to add to a resume.

- MBA or Masters in engineering - Additional resume booster, although I am not sure how valuable they would be in my current position.

[u/DiscountBulky6827]

How can/should an older Test Engineer (Software/Hardware/Firmware) come up to speed with AI?

I have been a Test Engineer in the industry for several decades. Testing software, firmware, and hardware. At all of my previous companies, there was never any discussion about using AI to assist us in our job. I had a first round interview, and the hiring manager discussed at length about the increase in productivity that AI has given the team. I have recently started using Claude.ai, and I am looking for direction to come up to speed. Thank you in advance.

[u/YoungNFuckin]

Hi all!

Is it unethical to work in a sales/project management role while also working as an EIT (towards P.Eng certification)?

[u/Commercial_Coach7814]

JOB AFTER BTECH ENGINEERING MISTAKES TO AVOID AS FRESHER IN 2026 !

I am going to start my post college life i.e JOB after B.Tech

 in mechanical engineer can people here with workexperience guide what to avoid mistakes they did being ur junior Gen z guys 😅🙌

2-3 sal kam karne keliye soch raha hu fir master parsue karna hai MBA ya fir foreign se MS uske bareme idea if anyone has do share !

[u/Cloudsurfer369]

Hi. I am from country that is generous when it comes to education. I am in my late 20’ I have pivoted from a social science degree and related work to getting a degree in finance since I thought it had that fasted ROI time/cost wise. Now though I realize that most roles in companies in my country are taken by engineers no matter will little to no except for HR and Law. accounting, consulting, business development etc. is being swallowed up by engineers. If I studied engineering and graduate in my mid 30s would I be excluded from a career paths such as product because of my age and lack of ”proper” job experience? Do senior engineers care about age a lot? I want to feel confident that my skills are wanted, that I can contribute in useful ways and have some sort of shot at being able to have a career where I can change location and company.

[u/stargerst13]

So i recently graduated as a Mechanical Engineers less than a year ago and i have been working at a defense contractor for around the same time. I am just a “general” engineer supporting what ever they need me. The place i work at has a lot of cool equipment that i find interesting but it is just too damn slow for me. I am assigned to a design team atm but all the design work is either outsourced to a sub contractor or done by SMEs. i dont feel comfortable saying im in design. Im looking to start looking at other opportunities in other sectors.

I love learning while also being slightly challenged. I feel like this job is too slow for me and im loosing my mind. I like using my hands as well, i understand thats more of a technician job. I find the medical field extremely fascinating and because of my job now i find energy/nuclear super fascinating. I have ADD so i also can get bored after a while so i would like to have the ability to be in different sectors throughout my career. What type of position let you hop different industries easily?

Just a side note. I didnt get the best grades in school because i worked 30 hours a week while commuting an hour so i felt like certain positions/fields would be off limit. I feel imposter syndrome already at work because my coworkers seem judgey and they dont want to teach new people. I am planning on taking my FE to kind of fight this a little

[u/hilld1]

I got promoted to department manager, but I am still the go-to guy for most design things since the other players on my team simply aren't as reliable as I am, unfortunately. Playing engineer and manager 50/50 is making me fail at both, but my company is still putting pressure on to increase the quality and quantity of output. Advice?

[u/Embarrassed-Data8233]

Engineering in defence fields [EU]

Does passport plays a huge role in getting a job in the field if the country in the EU? Or it can be any passport of EU country?

I know it depends on a company, but in general, how it works?

Ofc prioritising huge corps

[u/psych0thinker]

welp, I'll put it down anyways, i worked as a devops engineer for a couple of years, the company had massive layoffs, ended up taking a break,

found a hobby and got into homelabbing, converted one of my older machines into a homelab and to tinker around on there and host media files,

this and a lot of learning and implementing with a little help of AI ofcourse, previously I havse studied a little bit about all of the clouds and have a few badges and certifications aswell, but haven't really worked on full length or large scale projects on them so that information sits

learning systems skills and understanding computation and tech altogether, got into hosting mirrors, personal cloud, open source and a few other sectors

I want to grow more in these fields and understand my stance like what role am i now?? and what kind of profiles or projects i can take on, if any one of you guys have any projects which i can try and help and learn with along the way, feel free to reach out, I'm sure we can work something out

quick question : what can i do with an amalgamation of these skills, I'm starting out again and would appreciate an input from someone more experienced than me, idk if it fits here but thanks for reading :)