[Slow Play Ray]

What do you do? I am a mechanical product design engineer for a Fortune 50 company. Currently the bulk of my work centers around explosion protection components.

Do you like it? Sometimes. I work closely with a really cool group of people, and I live very close, so that helps the bad days along.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'd say seven years of engineering school, but the fact is passing those 'fundamentals' really get you nowhere in the real world. They provide a decent foundation, of course, but what suits me to my job is simply my logical nature and my natural tendency to wonder how things work and how they can be better. There's no substitue for experience either. What makes me ill-suited is laziness.

What kind of people do best in your work? People like me, but less lazy.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? A BS in mechanical engineering should do the trick. An MS never hurts either, and an MBA can move you up the ladder quicker. A PhD will hurt you more than help you though.

What is a typical day like? Arrive 15 minutes late, check email, read news/sports. Get coffee and toast, 2+2, more news/sports, etc. When I actually get cracking at working it can vary widely from day-to-day. I may spend all day on solid modeling or analysis software, running small tests in the lab, running explosion tests off-site, chasing a paperwork trail all day, putting out fires in manufacturing, or any combination of those and countless other tasks. That is the best part about my job - the variety; since we are a relatively small engineering group, we are pretty much responsible for everything. I generally try to leave on time every day.

What kind of problems do you encounter? General idiocy and unexpected results.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Frustration: general idiocy (particularly among non-engineering project team members) and unexpected results. Elation: when major tests go as planned, and when projects are finally completed.

How much do you make? Enough to live comfortably and support my many vices while still creating a nest egg for the future.

How much can one expect to make in your position? In my current position, it's presently pretty tough to get north of $120k but with some business smarts it's a pretty straightforward climb to an executive position, and then the sky's the limit.