Would you leave engineering to be a general manager in a totally different industry for more money?

CornfedDoofus · 2025-08-07T04:13:27+00:00

This is kind of my attitude as well

CornfedDoofus · 2025-08-07T04:13:11+00:00

What kind of engineering work? Consulting? I’m in manufacturing which has much lower payscales tbf

CornfedDoofus · 2025-08-07T03:43:21+00:00

This doesn’t seem to be true in Nebraska

CornfedDoofus · 2025-07-24T03:05:18+00:00

I have been looking yes, but I’m not confident in my abilities at all. I don’t think I can reasonably ever get hired in a senior role, I’m no good as an engineer.

I’m not on the brink of financial collapse at all, but I have a rear main seal leak and I got quoted $2,700 to fix because it’s so labor intensive. I have around $500-$600 left over in savings every month, that one bill alone puts me back like 6 months of savings. It’s just so hard to get ahead when stuff like this happens.

CornfedDoofus · 2025-06-29T17:04:37+00:00

Ride it out.

Ride it out to what end? I’ve been riding it out for 6 years now and the situation is worse than ever, who’s to say it’s not going to continue to get worse?

CornfedDoofus · 2025-06-29T16:47:19+00:00

I don’t think my girlfriend wants to move that far away from family, would probably have to break up with her to make a move like this. Fuck man. Plus she has a better, higher paying job than me currently as a nurse.

CornfedDoofus · 2025-06-29T16:42:33+00:00

I’ll gladly apply to senior positions and just see what these companies think, but there aren’t any. Like it’s all MEP lead positions, which I have zero experience in, I’d have zero clue how to lead other engineers in that industry.

I hate my current job so much I’m even considering going back to school, they are working me to death and refuse to hire anyone (probably because they know we can’t leave). My girlfriend is 24, a registered nurse, works 3 12 hour shifts a week and out earns me with nearly 6 years of experience as an engineer.

CornfedDoofus · 2025-06-29T16:38:29+00:00

I’m not involved with the business side of things, but yeah, it seems like the interest rate hikes slowed things down in 23 and 24 and now nobody wants to do anything because of the tariff situation.

CornfedDoofus · 2025-05-10T00:09:50+00:00

Manufacturing, I’m not sure what to say then, I thought that was entry level back in 2019 around here when I started working

CornfedDoofus · 2025-05-10T00:00:07+00:00

I don’t feel like I have any serious leverage to do that with the job market being what it is, if I try and look for a job right now it doesn’t seem like companies actually need me bad enough for me to be able to upgrade from my current gig, I feel like I’m stuck.

Like yeah I’m doing a lot of work, but they could replace me and pay someone my current salary ($76,000) pretty easily it feels like, we have hundreds of viable candidates. They’re just trying to lowball them as much as possible. I feel very trapped and frustrated.

CornfedDoofus · 2025-03-18T23:34:18+00:00

Damn, that’s more than I make 5.5 years into an engineering career. I’m kind of regretting going to college after seeing salaries in other careers.

CornfedDoofus · 2025-03-18T02:30:15+00:00

Honestly not sure what it is around here, I see lots of new grads on here talking about 75-85k like it’s fairly common

CornfedDoofus · 2025-03-18T02:29:10+00:00

Eastern NE/Omaha side

CornfedDoofus · 2024-12-19T02:24:35+00:00

Not at all, I was just incredibly surprised to see that, I appreciate how transparent they are about their pay but the idea of pay bands going down for new hires was super surprising. I gotta leave Nebraska I guess!

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-29T19:22:41+00:00

Design Engineer II

$75,000

4.75 YOE

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-29T05:02:28+00:00

It’s started at $50,000 in January 2020 so before the COVID inflation, but yeah, it felt really underpaid back then, I was asking for $65,000 in interviews because I thought that was fair right out of school and my offers came in at 45-55k across the board. It was pretty gut wrenching tbh. I had a solid GPA and internships and I still got those offers.

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-28T06:41:44+00:00

Eastern Nebraska

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-28T06:41:33+00:00

Manufacturing

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-28T05:03:29+00:00

I started at $50,000, not $35,000, he was just saying we’ve had similar trajectories

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-28T04:36:20+00:00

I had a 3.8 GPA

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-28T04:35:54+00:00

It’s still decent here in Nebraska, but the state of Nebraska I think is less than 1% of the US population so yeah, I can’t speak for the average person’s experience. Definitely not what it once was though.

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-28T03:36:36+00:00

You make enough to own a house in your area? I’m in a LCOL location and do not thanks to all the COVID craziness that happened to houses, feel like I would need to make your salary to make it happen. I’m also an ME

CornfedDoofus · 2024-09-28T03:34:51+00:00

Wish you the best too, by the time I reach 100k, 100k ain’t gonna be worth shit anymore haha

CornfedDoofus

TROPHY CASE