I’ve been an automation engineer for my whole career. Transitioned to software engineering at a big company. That lasted like a year. I hated it the entire time. The stupid scrum/agile workflow shit, the politics, the drama. It was very very cushy, pay and hours wise. Very low responsibility and truly if I was good I could do my work quickly and then just fuck around. Long lunch breaks, early days, etc.
But I was totally miserable. I’m back to automation now :)
I have a question for you actually, so I am looking at potentially doing a apprenticeship at a place that does precision machining and they would basically pay for college (assuming I get the role) because I would be working and doing school on and off for a bit of time each but I’m not sure about it.
I would be learning plc stuff mostly i think and is an automation degree and I’m interested in it because it is all under the umbrella of mechatronics.
I basically have 3d printing as a hobby on a custom 3d printer i built that I like and I have spent a lot of time helping my dad and brother work on cars and house repairs and know a small amount of some electrical things but not much and I know some engineering things but not much, so its like I have the interest but I don’t yet have the skills, I’m sure I could learn them but its a question for me to know if I want to head that direction or not.
I guess I’m curious what things you like about automation, I don’t know anyone in it and it was unexpected to see someone randomly in a comments section here doing it.
The other thing I would do is after or in the middle of the apprenticeship I wanted to also start a computer science degree at a online school called western governors university and it seems about as ideal of a school as I could imagine without the downsides of typical online schools and to me it still seems worth it to learn more computer science things even though people say the area is saturated, as long as I chose the right niche to go into, I think there are plenty of niches available that still skill benefit from these things for a long time as well as probably some unexpected future ones.
I’d say that was a lot of what I was interested before I got into this. Car work, house stuff, fixing small appliances and machines. It really piqued my interest from a young age and that’s still by and large true today.
Without getting on too high a soapbox here, I’ll say that job opportunities for me have been plentiful in this career path, and I’ve gotten to work in a lot of different places. We even moved permanently from the US to the EU because of it.
I feel automation is more stable and more hands on than comp sci or software, but that comes with more in-office or field/plant work and less working from home or the beach. The actual work is a lot of PLC/SCADA/HMI stuff, lots of importance in understanding complex electromechanical systems and how they need to work. Of course, like any field, there’s good and bad jobs in it. It does fit the way I like to think and work quite well though.
I think comp sci could be a good field too, like you said: depends on the niche. But it, like many other things, will be around in some capacities for a long time
That’s pretty awesome that you were able to move to the eu, its good that you mention its the way you like to think because that’s how I was thinking about it too lol.
Well, I guess I sort of have?
I’ve been an automation engineer for my whole career. Transitioned to software engineering at a big company. That lasted like a year. I hated it the entire time. The stupid scrum/agile workflow shit, the politics, the drama. It was very very cushy, pay and hours wise. Very low responsibility and truly if I was good I could do my work quickly and then just fuck around. Long lunch breaks, early days, etc.
But I was totally miserable. I’m back to automation now :)
I have a question for you actually, so I am looking at potentially doing a apprenticeship at a place that does precision machining and they would basically pay for college (assuming I get the role) because I would be working and doing school on and off for a bit of time each but I’m not sure about it.
I would be learning plc stuff mostly i think and is an automation degree and I’m interested in it because it is all under the umbrella of mechatronics.
I basically have 3d printing as a hobby on a custom 3d printer i built that I like and I have spent a lot of time helping my dad and brother work on cars and house repairs and know a small amount of some electrical things but not much and I know some engineering things but not much, so its like I have the interest but I don’t yet have the skills, I’m sure I could learn them but its a question for me to know if I want to head that direction or not.
I guess I’m curious what things you like about automation, I don’t know anyone in it and it was unexpected to see someone randomly in a comments section here doing it.
The other thing I would do is after or in the middle of the apprenticeship I wanted to also start a computer science degree at a online school called western governors university and it seems about as ideal of a school as I could imagine without the downsides of typical online schools and to me it still seems worth it to learn more computer science things even though people say the area is saturated, as long as I chose the right niche to go into, I think there are plenty of niches available that still skill benefit from these things for a long time as well as probably some unexpected future ones.
I’d say that was a lot of what I was interested before I got into this. Car work, house stuff, fixing small appliances and machines. It really piqued my interest from a young age and that’s still by and large true today.
Without getting on too high a soapbox here, I’ll say that job opportunities for me have been plentiful in this career path, and I’ve gotten to work in a lot of different places. We even moved permanently from the US to the EU because of it.
I feel automation is more stable and more hands on than comp sci or software, but that comes with more in-office or field/plant work and less working from home or the beach. The actual work is a lot of PLC/SCADA/HMI stuff, lots of importance in understanding complex electromechanical systems and how they need to work. Of course, like any field, there’s good and bad jobs in it. It does fit the way I like to think and work quite well though.
I think comp sci could be a good field too, like you said: depends on the niche. But it, like many other things, will be around in some capacities for a long time
That’s pretty awesome that you were able to move to the eu, its good that you mention its the way you like to think because that’s how I was thinking about it too lol.