I am a mechanical engineer.

I have a university degree in mechanical engineering (5 years of hard work).

The amount of time required to become educated at any job varies a great deal. The better you are at the core engineering discipline the easier it is to pick up the details of a new job.

I started out running a department that manufactured heavy duty cables for military applications. It took me about a year to be comfortable in this job.

I next worked for a company designing the electronics used in the cockpits of aircraft. The design process/learning is a never ending process but in 2-3 years I was very good at it. However that didn’t stop them from laying off most of the department when our program got canceled.

I now am designing equipment for robots. This is basically the same as the aircraft job. I’m putting electronics in modules that must withstand vibration, moisture and be easily serviced.

As for expectations: get the job done… on time and under budget. I’m responsible for talking to the customer and finding out what they “really” want and need and designing the equipment to do this.

Down sides of the job can be customers who don’t know what they want or need and don’t have much money to get it done. Management can be a problem too, sometimes they don’t understand what the job entails or are focusing on the wrong things or want to climb the ladder to more important jobs and higher pay.

I’ve been doing this for 23 years, have 3 patents and lost my job once when our program got canceled. I’ve enjoyed most of it, the pay is fairly good and I would do it all again.