Comment by syntaxing
5 years ago
As a MechE, I'm always super jealous of my Software Engineer counterparts in terms of work from home. I know a bunch of teams are actually heavily recommended to work from home at least once a week.
5 years ago
As a MechE, I'm always super jealous of my Software Engineer counterparts in terms of work from home. I know a bunch of teams are actually heavily recommended to work from home at least once a week.
Grass is always greener. As a software engineer who works 100% remotely, I’m always jealous of engineering roles that involve hardware.
Definitely a lot of upsides in being a MechE. Making physical stuff is really fulfilling and using really expensive equipment is fun. If your hands are itching to make something on the side, I highly recommend 3D printers! They're really fun to play with and the cost barrier is pretty low nowadays (like the Prusa Mini which is ~$400).
I'll check it out, thanks! :)
100% remote swe. I don't design hardware, but the company does, and somehow prototypes hop into a cardboard box and get themselves hauled to my door. I could imagine working with schematics and drawings remotely.
This is really interesting. Do the team that work on the physical prototype work remote as well?
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I'm also a SWE who mostly works remote. I get tired of being in my house. Sometimes it feels like I'm trapped. I don't have a car so I don't really get out much or go far or travel much.
I've found a few things have helped me with this issue:
- I bought a Fitbit and aim for 10k+ steps a day
- I rarely make coffee at home in the mornings, instead going to a local coffee shop to purchase one
- I try to go out for lunch every other day (normally just somewhere quick and cheap)
- I meet a friend for dinner, go to a meetup, or just go to the pub 1 or 2 nights a week
- Play a sport (I play Squash) which gets you out of the house and exercising
These have helped me a lot although I do still fall into bad habits. In 2017 I worked from home for 6 months and almost exclusively ate takeaway, played video games in the evening, and rarely went outside during the working week. My mental health really suffered during that time and it took a while to get back out of it!
I think the perfect scenario is a good balance. Working remote three days and in office for two sounds perfect for me. I definitely enjoy some of the moments working in person with my teammates. Also makes it easier to talk about random fun crap.
Hmm, my wife is ME and I'm SWE. She works from home but I can't.
Note I wouldn't want her job for anything. She has to deal with suppliers from all over the world, which means working ~24/6 (plus a seventh day to get her own work done). And has the generous "unlimited" vacation that translates as "no" vacation, unlike software companies that (generally) encourage you to take advantage of it. And makes midwest salary while living on west coast.
I'm on a similar boat (definitely not as bad as your wife's situation though). I feel like the unlimited vacation is so much more unfavorable to hardware engineers. It seems unprofessional to take vacation in the middle of a project but our projects are so long to begin with. This plus the fact we're always fighting fires because one mistake in planning can really screw up the schedule. Not sure where your wife works but hardware at FAANGs aren't too bad (minus crunch time near product release). Possible change for your wife if she's interested.
How are salaries for ME's at FAANG? Are they anything like SWEs? She's making like 110K with ~15 years experience, which is decent for midwest, but like fresh grad salary for SWE at FAANG. I've been curious for a while now: are ME's in FAANG paid anything like SWE's there? Or is it closer to the ~20% bump you'd get in ordinary jobs moving from midwest to the coast?
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There is a downside to this - there are no clear work hours boundaries. My father who is a MechE is annoyed that I am often running to my laptop to answer mails, or to code etc beyond a fixed 8-9 hr in a day.
Btw my bachelors was in Mech too :-)
If you make clear boundaries, there are clear boundaries. If you ignore all work emails outside of your working hours, the problem is "solved" (ideally don't have work emails etc. on any device you use outside of "work hours")
If you are working with robotics, the software engineer still have to come in to test their software on the actually hardware.
Software engineers may have simulators to allow testing SW at home, but mechanical engineers also have their 3D modeling and finite element analysis that they can do at home. Oh, and redlines and pushing PLM paper work should be doable at home.
I'm not saying its one-to-one, but MEs and SEs in robotics both have things that can and cannot be done remotely.
I know a MechE working as a MechE who works 100% remotely. But his job is 100% CAD. I can share more details privately...
I'm super interested in this! My job is pretty CAD heavy but the stuff I work on can get pretty big too. Can you elaborate using the email in my profile?
yes
I'm a MechE in aerospace, and work from home once a week. Many people in my company's design office do it.
You shouldn’t be too jealous because in the long run this means devs will have to compete globally skill-set wise and of course compensation wise.
So far their compensation is a lot higher than mechanical engineers though, especially in the US. And US software engineers are paid a lot higher than in other countries, so that effect is unseen for now.