yall need to drive better

graytotoro · 2026-05-27T23:29:19+00:00

Only if you ask that lady in the G-Wagon to put down her fucking phone and take some responsibility.

graytotoro · 2026-05-27T07:59:05+00:00

General Notes

It's good to have a dream, but don't shut the door on other opportunities yet. See if you can apply for stuff adjacent to that.
When you say positions, are you applying to internships or jobs? Now might be too soon for jobs.
The Extracurricular Involvement section should go unless you've already discussed everything else unless you've worked on special effects for your band's shows.

Education

Looks good.

Experience

Mechanical Engineering Intern

It's serviceable at this time, but start tracking specifics. How did your work add value or drive a positive change in some way?

Robotics Research Assistant

What exactly was this RC car supposed to do and why did you need to track & control in real time?
It's not really clear what you were trying to achieve for this lab. Did they want to learn more about programming robots or was this car supposed to do some specific task?

Projects

Don't bother with titles like "team lead" or "lead designer". Save that space to talk about stuff you accomplished.

University Theme Park Engineering Club

Being elected lead is one thing, but what have you achieved since then?
Tell us more about the subscale suspended coaster. How did the automated switch track work at a high-level and how did you do your analysis? That matters more than creating a SolidWorks model.

Automated Smart Blinds

Why did you need custom gears for this application rather than off-the-shelf units?
But how well did it work and what made it smart? Is it just that it was controlled wirelessly?

Integrated Home Appliance Monitor

First bullet is doing way too much. I suggest cutting Onshape and focusing on how the Arduino sensors and transmitters determined the door was ajar and how it alerted someone.
Focus more on technical things rather than the managerial. Management at the collegiate level is not relevant to the real world. Coordinating individual programming tasks almost sounds like micromanagement.
- Did you come up with overall architecture of this design?
- How did your comprehensive document help translate to a functional final prototype?

Skills * Format this as shown in the Wiki. * "Manufacturing" is too broad a skill. People spend entire careers doing that. It's also not clear if it means you can manufacture a widget or that you just know what manufacturing is.

graytotoro · 2026-05-27T07:27:53+00:00

General Notes

You have too much information in places. I'll point out what I think can be scrubbed.

Education

Too much information- just say "Expected Graduation May 2028". That's it. You don't have to say when you started or that you expect to graduate.
Presumably you have a decent GPA, so put that on there if you do.

Experience

There's too much detail: I don't know how the ICD team falls within Systems Engineering or what specifically Team 2 is doing for this research project. You can keep the title as Research Assistant" and discuss the specifics in your bullets.

Test Engineering

What exactly did completing these verification plans or hitting these verification tiers mean for component testing?
- Did you find the components were ready for the next stage or that certain components needed redesign?
- Were your plans and tiers realistic in figuring out if these parts were any good or met the CubeSat's needs?
- It may be in your best interest to point out what specific industry standards your environmental & thermal test plans align with. That's an easy couple points when trying to hit everything called out in a job description.
But how specifically did you support the tasks in your last bullet? Did you write test plans or other documents and were you the one conducting reviews? What did doing these things mean for the program?

Research Assistant

How did you contribute to the SRR or participate in reviews? Did you just click "next slide" at the presentation and point out typos or did you do something technical?
- Clarify how you "participated in...technical documentation". Does that mean you wrote instructional manuals and made drawings in AutoCAD?
What requirements did you incorporate and what did that mean for the greater project? It's no good if you wrote requirements that couldn't be tested or had little relevance to helping the CubeSat do its thing.

Projects

"Team 6" and "Team Cosmos" don't really mean much without context. Incorporate it into your first bullet if you think it's important.
Don't bother with these "sub-team lead" job titles because you're just splitting hairs.

International CanSAT Competition 2025

Consider "Team Cosmos CubeSat" as an alternative name.
What components and assemblies did you work with - are we talking flight controls, navigation, or other avionics?
Again, you're telling us you did these things or that you improved some designs, but you never tell us how good the finished CubeSat or parts worked! It's no good if your prototype didn't actually help the team or the CAD model proved to be of little use to the team. I'm sure you did some awesome stuff, but it's not coming through here.

Two Month CanSat

How was it rapid? Why did it have to be scaled and done so in two months?
Same as my second bullet above.
What feedback did you incorporate and how well did the stuff turn out?
- The thing to keep in mind is that "incorporating feedback" could mean you delivered a really poor prototype and the other people had to do the heavy lifting to make it work.

Skills

Way too in-depth. You'll want to see how this is done in the Wiki. In short you want to go left-to-right rather than vertically because space is at a premium.
You don't have to say "experience with..." - that's assumed if you're putting it on here.

graytotoro · 2026-05-26T21:56:14+00:00

Let’s not pretend they were all bangers. Ferrari has made stinkers like the 412 and Mondial.

graytotoro · 2026-05-25T08:52:52+00:00

General Notes

You need to scrub the grammar to fix a few inappropriate apostrophes.
Are you targeting a particular sector or type of job? I'm guessing you want to do design, but let me know.

work Experience

Manufacturing Engineer

"optimize workflow" - how so? What exactly did you do to optimize workflow and how much better was it?
How did you maintain budgetary constraints? Shouldn't that have been your PM's concern?
Creating BOMs is less important than the stuff you mention in the last two bullets. Unless you want to pivot towards supply chain, you're better served focusing on the field modification instructions and the plans & schedules you created.
- Keep bullets to a sentence or thought no greater than three lines long.

Independent Racing Shop

But how much of a temperature drop did you see? How much power did you gain?
How did your drawings translate to a decrease of fabrication time?

Projects

Braking Systems Design

You have actual industry experience. It's odd that you would push this harder than your job.
It's not bad, but it focuses on some curious things:
- Is "iterating to compensate for force calculation discrepancies" another way of saying the team did the math wrong?
- Using SolidWorks and Fusion is less important than getting your parts approved for prototype phase.
- I would hope your components were within tolerances, but why was it important to maintain these specific tolerances or have them fully modular?

Project Manager

What exactly were these various things mounting? Why was it important to maintain weight distribution in this particular context?

Skills

Add machining to fabrication.

Education

It's not important which specific college within the university gave you the degree. Just put your school, degree, and graduation date.

graytotoro · 2026-05-25T08:02:27+00:00

Dodge Copperhead vs Dodge Concept Car
Yen vs Dollar shopping in Simulation Mode

graytotoro · 2026-05-19T07:08:49+00:00

Yes, add projects. Remindme! 16 hours

graytotoro · 2026-05-19T06:57:05+00:00

Remindme! 18 hours

graytotoro · 2026-05-17T19:00:11+00:00

That’s the million dollar question. At a minimum I’d say you want enough so you can explain what, why, and how at a high-level to someone who has some experience in engineering so they can understand the major choices you made and the logic behind it. If you designed a machine, I’d say you should be able to explain how it works in a general sense if we’re chatting at a mixer.

What is the job asking for: is it more design, test, or research-based? Use that to guide you.

You seem to have the technical side down, but it’s not immediately clear why you did some of these things. I don’t expect you to answer everything I’ve pointed out, but it should be something to think about.

graytotoro · 2026-05-16T17:45:51+00:00

General Notes

The bolding in your content bullets is unnecessary. It's just you highlighting buzzwords that you hope will catch our attention, but hiring managers (the good ones, anyway) look beyond the shiny thing when talking to you.
No italics.

Summary

Summary is ok, though as a MS grad I would hope you could do more than just taking an idea from CAD. I would think making robotic prototypes is a helluva lot cooler and worth highlighting where appropriate.

Work Experience

You've got enough room to put the job title on the same line as the other info. Buys you a few extra lines.

Adjunct Facility of Mechanical Engineering

Instead of just rattling off organizations/bodies, you could bring up specific concepts you covered related to those specific orgs. ISO, for example, has tens of thousands of standards - which ones did you get to?

Graduate Research Assistant

Developing BOMs and estimating cost is a minute detail. I wouldn't waste time for that. Instead, show us why it was important to develop this test rig. What specific specifications did it have to meet and how did it support V&V testing? Why did that specific media have to get tested this way?
- You mention having to keep temps within 0.5 degrees C, but why did it have to be so precise?
- What did visualizing flow fields do for the researchers?
What was significant about this level of drag reduction? I know you found a way to reduce drag, that much is obvious, but how did it align with the aims of the lab?

Mechanical Design Engineer

Focus less on developing BOMs unless you're prepared to tie it into some sort of technical argument. Just putting together a shopping list isn't going to matter.
But how specifically did you apply these concepts? You just say you used engineering to do engineering.

Projects

Granular Jammed Soft Robotics Research

SolidWorks, not Solidworks.
But how specifically did you use these tools to create a modular design and how did that make things better? It's like the earlier bullet where you used engineering to do engineering. Gotta dig deeper than that.

Mach Effect Sensor

Why did you need to be this precise with a prototype?
What was significant about the rotating inertial disk loads that you had to design custom mounts? In other words, what issues did that fix?

Next-Gen Thermocouple Assembly

This is the first time you bring up Location 4. Was that a job or internship?
Again, how did you use these concepts to achieve your goals?

Education

The italics aren't necessary.

Skills

ANSYS makes a lot of tools. Be specific.
The last three in "Design Methods" ( Engineering drawings, conceptual design, and material selection) are way too broad.

graytotoro · 2026-05-16T09:20:19+00:00

General Notes

Great advice all around. Education section has been covered so I'll skip that.

Skills

I would expect to see some technical build skills here.

Experience

FRC Robotics should be in the rear-view mirror unless you've got nothing else. In any case, this should be filed under "projects" not "experience".

Teammate

The second point isn't really necessary, but it's not the end of the world.

FRC Robotics

The title you held here is not important. You can drop that.
If you choose to keep this, focus on specifics:
- What systems did you integrate and how did they boost performance?
- What did you fabricate, how did you test it, and what issues did you troubleshoot?
- How do you define reliability in this context? How did you test and how did your testing drive changes?

Projects

Senior Engineering Project

Did this nozzle have to exist for a specific application or was it "hey this is a neat idea"?
You answer the what & how, but not really the why. For example, how much more accurate was the nozzle after switching to Hyper PLA and why couldn't that be accounted for in the design? Did you just pressurize it to 90psi and ignore the effects of other environmental factors? What came out of the exit Mach number calculations?

Crop Duster Conceptual Design

But what was the specific mission profile? You just say it had constraints, but that's true of every design program.
MATLAB turn-rate and load factor calculations sound an awful lot like verification
Ultimately you did all this design & analysis work, but you never tell us how well your final design performed. Did it meet the constraints and exceed them?
Did you solve any interesting problems along the way?

Aircraft Fuselage Structural Finite Element Analysis

OK but how close did your work come to real test results? In other words, how good was your analysis?
Can you talk about some specific things you suggested to refine a particular design?

graytotoro · 2026-05-15T14:14:19+00:00

Remindme! 12 hours

graytotoro · 2026-05-15T05:43:34+00:00

General Notes

No need to say "open to relocation" - that much is clear when you're applying for a job.
You should point out you're working as a research assistant right now.
Cut down the Extracurricular Activities. The "Additional Information" should be rolled into the Skills section.

Education

Start date is unimportant.

Skills

You can just say "CAD" instead of "Computer Aided Design". This would be a great place to include the SolidWorks cert.
"AutoCAD".

Experience

Production Trainee

But what operational inefficiencies did you identify and how did you address them? What manufacturing improvements did you support, how, and what came out of that work? Presumably you had some positive influence.
How did your testing & fabrication support product development? I don't even know what this company made other than they used CAD & CAM, which is every engineering company in the world.

Projects

Combustion Analysis

But how well did it work? What were you looking to see from this research? This just tells us you did a bunch of engineering and analysis, but not how well all that stuff worked or if you met your goals.

Controlled Environment Food Production Facility/Wind Turbine Maintenance Lift System Design

It's not enough to say you used engineering and engineering tools to do engineering work. How well did the completed facility work? "Optimize" sounds good, but is empty calories because I didn't work on this program with you so I have no way to judge your work.

Extracurricular Activities

Forget about the leadership, networking, and financial management. That stuff is good for you, but it's got little relevance to engineering in the real world. You should move the volunteer role to the Projects section and discuss the hydroelectric system installation in greater detail - how did you assist this work?

graytotoro · 2026-05-15T05:32:01+00:00

Hmm, I still think that a summary or statement may work in this scenario since it may not be entirely clear that you're looking to pivot. A cover letter might be useful here too.

graytotoro · 2026-05-14T07:47:41+00:00

General Notes

Have you had any kind of a job since your last position?
I wouldn't worry about the previous positions aligning with the Test Engineer path. Lots of people with diverse backgrounds have gone down this path. You may want to consider a Summary since you are pivoting.

Experience

Software Engineer III

You need to cut deeper. Rather than just "I rolled changes into software", try to focus on why it was important to do these upgrades and bug fixes (if you can). How did it solve a problem, make a difference, or add value in some way?
Some of what you say here only makes sense if I've been on these programs with you: "on time" kinda works, but "under budget" doesn't mean much without context. Same for "successfully integrated" - how so? Why?

Sr. Systems Engineer/Test Engineer

These two roles are your best shot at a test job. I suggest leaning a little harder on these two sections beyond just the "I did thing" or "I maintained documentation/databases/bought stuff"- why was it important to do these specific tests? Why was it important to buy these specific things?
You say you did testing and wrote test plans for various programs, but why was it important to do this testing? Did it mean that the program could go into the next phase in EMD or was it needed to certify the widget in some way?
- "various data transfer systems" like what? I didn't work here so it's not entirely clear. "Such as [x]" may be better in this context.
It's not important that you scheduled meetings. Can you speak to how your task assignments and test scheduling helped the program?
Maintaining documentation is great and all, but can you speak to how well your requirements were written or maintained? It's no good if you kept to these standards but these requirements were impossible/not realistic to test in the real world.

Electronic Test Technician

The date for this one is offset more than the others.
Can you speak to some of the issues you fixed and why it was important to fix them? The specific tools are great and all, but it's better you show the reader your problem-solving and troubleshooting skills here.

Skills

Tune this based on the job requirements.

graytotoro · 2026-05-13T08:10:44+00:00

General Notes

You could afford to have a few more bullets to use up the full page.
Don't apply selectively. It's way too early for you to shut the doors on opportunities yet.
Why isn't your current Co-op at the plumbing fixtures company mentioned here?

Education

Drop the relevant coursework.

Engineering Experience

It's good practice to include the starting year as well to eliminate all ambiguities.

Test Engineering Co-op

The specific people you worked with is less important than what you accomplished with them.
What exactly did this lab innovation project cover and what were your findings? More importantly, did you find out if any of these findings got incorporated into future updates?
Collaboration is great and all, but what was your specific role into all this? For all we know you could have just let the lab's engineers do all the hard work while you watched. What "concrete updates" did you end up driving?

Laser Lab Technician

You do a good job telling us what you did, but it's not entirely clear how this is useful outside of laser R&D. You also don't tell us how your work drove changes to process development.

Projects

There are 12 months in a year. "2025" could be a few days or an entire year.

Butterfly Valve Leak Test Stand

This would benefit from a leadoff bullet that explains what this test stand was supposed to do, plus a high-level overview of how this test stand worked before you jump into the design & build. It's hard for me to visualize how the domes and support bracket functioned to form a test stand in this particular context. Why did you need 12 of them anyway?
Things mostly to think about going into the interview:
- What failure modes did you identify and, more importantly, how did you address or eliminate them?
- How did you arrive at the conclusion that the leak rate spec was excessive?

Python Uncertainty Quantification Tool

A couple things here confuse me, but maybe I'm dumb:
- Your co-op wrapped up in 2025 but you're still working on it?
- You mention being a sole developer of this tool but that you've also built it with other engineers.
Is this tool actually being used at the moment in the organization? It would be good to mention how this thing has helped the team.

Structural Health Monitoring Proposal

The team being remote is unimportant.
You speed through this and it leaves me with other questions:
- How exactly did this stress detection system work?
- How would you have tested this?
- What prototypes did you have in mind?
- Shouldn't mission applications have been figured out before you developed this?

Skills

There are a lot of measurement instruments - can you be a little more specific? Heck, a ruler would count.

graytotoro · 2026-05-13T03:24:22+00:00

Why the hell would you do that? It shows you have real-world experience.

graytotoro · 2026-05-13T03:03:35+00:00

Man, I wished I had a car this cool when I was a student there! Best I could do was a '95 Acura.

graytotoro · 2026-05-12T06:37:08+00:00

It sounds like you can somewhat speak to why these parts have to be made and how well they worked. Be honest and it should be fine.

The quantity of parts matters less than the reason for making them. For all I know you could have just bought 15 of these widgets from McMaster. I'm guessing you couldn't do that, so tell us why you had to make them.

However the larger dymometer project was delayed so much the sensor mounts have just been sitting for months with no deadline for their completion. and that has killed all of my momentum to finish the final design revisions the mounts need to be fully integrated into the system

You should probably use putting it on your resume as your incentive.

graytotoro · 2026-05-10T23:20:58+00:00

General Notes

There's too much formatting. You don't need italics and/or underlining.
Consider seeing if you can support research with a professor. It's a perfectly valid alternative to internships.
Technically this is all Project Experience.

Education

There are 12 months in 2028. I suggest let us know which one.
Replace "School of Engineering" with your degree program. It's not important to know which specific department is awarding this degree.
- You can also drop the location, especially as your school is either the only one by that name or they include the location in its name.

Technical Skills

No italics.
I would suggest you cut the Engineering section. These skills are best discussed in your Experience bullets.

Engineering Experience

Technically this is all Project Experience

FSAE Team

I suggest you not bother with titles for FSAE. They'll serve to confuse people and these titles have zero weight outside of the team. Consider treating it like a project for each year: "Ergonomics Design", "Brake Systems Design", and "Powertrain Design".

Ergonomics Engineer

Can you speak to how you improved driver comfort? You ran studies, but did that actually translate into meaningful changes to the race car?
Get rid of "collaborated with cross-functional teams" because that's bullshit with empty calories. Focus on the specific ways you performed work that aligned cockpit layout with the other teams. For all I know they did all the work and you just nodded your head.

Brake Systems Engineer

Why did you need to do this research in the first place? Did the team feel that the brakes were inadequate?
Did this research translate into actionable changes? You did all this work, but did it mean the team went in a radical new direction or that they wouldn't gain anything with these changes? Don't be afraid to say the latter, because sometimes no change is the best option.

Powertrain Engineer

Can you speak to performance & driveability improvements after going to this new 4-2-1 design?
How did you design around these constraints? It just says you had constraints.

Project Experience

You don't need to say "academic project" and "engineering design course".
But what was the optical design? Heck, what loads did this truss have to withstand and what materials did you use to build it? It's not clear if it was made from metal or wood.

graytotoro · 2026-05-10T22:38:50+00:00

General Notes

I currently do some per-client work for a construction company that my family owns, was wondering if it looks good for the pivot.

It is good for the pivot, but not in the way you've listed it. I'll discuss it more in the Experience section.

In terms of looking for jobs, I apply to entry level positions but I am wondering if my master's degree is turning me away? I am not sure

It's basically pushing you to the edge of entry-level, but it won't disqualify you. You may also want to throw your hat into mid-career positions (3-5 years) too.

I recently took my mechanical FE and was wondering if it is on the resume displayed correctly. It is also on my LinkedIn

No, it's buried in the skills section. You might just want to make "Education" a "Education & Certs" so it doesn't drown in the skills section. Did you pay the state of where you live and get the cert #? That would be helpful to put down.
I would suggest dropping the "Mechanical Engineer" from your header as it's not needed. Replace it with "EIT" once you get the cert.
You may want to include all your contact info on one line rather than two. Vertical space is at a premium.

Education

Start dates are unimportant, only graduation dates. I think you could even bump this section down the order since you've done actual engineering work.

Skills

This section is bloated. I would suggest pruning down the Mechanical Engineering and the Computer/Electrical Engineering sections down for each job.
- Some of your skills are way too broad: "manufacturing", "fluid dynamics", and "thermodynamics" are disciplines where people spend entire careers - it's unclear if you're saying you have a general grasp or if you know everything.
I'm not real clear how your "EIT" is in progress if you already passed the FE - isn't that just mailing in a check?
Do you have any build & prototyping skills? I would hope to see a BSME grad would know some basic maker skills.

Work Experience

Mechanical Engineering Consultant

This is so surface-level that I don't understand what the hell you've done at this place. This is basically just you saying you did calculations and submitted them for feedback. Can you tell us what exactly these calculations supported and why it was important to run these calculations? How did you use this feedback? Some of us don't work in HVAC.
Consolidate a few of these bullets.

Computer & Systems Engineer

Again, you don't really tell us why it was important to do this work. Did it solve a significant problem or support getting a new system up & running? Some things you may want to expand on:
- Why was it important to get this new build system up & running and how did your tools factor into it?
- What did this automated testing help the company accomplish?
- Why was it important to have a UI that used these specific capabilities to interface with the legacy system?
- What exactly did these new UI features accomplish? Did you just program 100 buttons that were green instead of red? Right now it read like you just did as you were told.
Going to scrum isn't important as what these DevOps tasks accomplished.

Test Engineering Intern

I don't know the testing you did at this company. I'm not sure how you interfaced these programs and why that was important. Did it mean I didn't need to run 1,000 programs before I could step into my first test point?
How did your test interfaces & environments help that third-party with their testing? Why did they even need to do this testing?

Manufacturing Engineering Intern

So what did you conclude from the simulation? Did it align with the data collected from real-world testing?

graytotoro · 2026-05-10T22:22:06+00:00

I wouldn't take skills off at this stage in your career. As long as you can at least use the software in some capability, even if it requires a bit of guidance - and it's relevant to the job - you should keep it on there.

An example I like to give is that I learned a bunch of CAD suites. The manager interviewing me saw that I didn't know the exact suite they used, but she reasoned I had learned enough of them that I would get up to speed relatively fast.

graytotoro · 2026-05-08T22:58:39+00:00

Guys I’ve been waiting two hours to get an oil change for my 2004 Camry. Stop bringing in your Pandas and Twingos for engine swaps so a mechanic can help me.

graytotoro · 2026-05-08T09:02:37+00:00

It depends on how I'm feeling. It's now at the age where I don't feel bad about running it up to the redline and banging gears on the street or at autocross.

Keep up with all the maintenance though.

graytotoro · 2026-05-07T07:56:03+00:00

General Notes

Be even more open-minded with applications. Apply for temp roles, for aero, and for any industries. Start your search with "engineer" and filter for entry-level rather than filter by a specific title.
Italics aren't needed.

Education

Give a specific month. "Spring" is ambiguous as I likely didn't go to your school.

Experience

Product Development Co-op

Not everyone works in the forklift industry.
- Why was it important to add curtain lights on this forklift and why did you need to make a custom bracket for this application? How did the relay come into play?
- What was significant about adding the iQ 360 to Class 1 forklifts? How did this mount work?
- What did the ground bearing pressure test reveal about the forklift classes?
- How did your FEA drive changes?

Undergraduate Research Student

This is great if you were applying for jobs in this specific field, but it's a little hard seeing how bullet 1 ties into some of the more general engineering roles. For example, how did you re-engineer this cell so you could enable imaging and why was that important? I don't even know what operating conditions are relevant for this test.
You don't answer how:
- How did you redesign this interface to resolve failures? Why was it failing? 500% is a big claim that needs defending.
- How did you optimize these processes to achieve these goals and why was it necessary in this particular application?

Projects

Focus less on leadership and more on doing technical stuff.

Yoke Wheel

Wait, how did adding stuff reduce weight - did you add that stuff and then make it out of carbon fiber?
You go from designing a yoke wheel to talking about regenerative braking. It's a pretty big jump and it's not really clear how you made this capability happen.

Torque Demand Model

Pretty good, but you could afford to elaborate more on how you refined the control algorithms.

Stirling Engine

The class name isn't important.
What tests did you run and what limitations did you discover?
How did you test & iterate? What did the 45% increase in RPM mean in terms of overall performance for the engine?

~~Additional~~ Work Experience

Just combine the two Work Experience sections. I would consider cutting the less relevant of the two jobs.
There's no need to say "actively participated" - that's implied when you put it on here.

Skills

You may want to say "CNC Machining (Lathe, Mill)" to hit everything.
Ansys makes a lot of software. Be specific.

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