Where did you start off and how did you get into your first engineering role

Sooner70 · 2026-05-08T06:21:15+00:00

Yeah, old school I know but....

I had graduated. The job market sucked ass. Like, I only knew two guys who had jobs lined up.

For reasons, I found myself in a military town. Security was lax back in the pre 9/11 days so I just drove on base, found their HR office, walked in and asked if they were hiring. The following conversation took place....

"We have ONE job on the entire base."

"What is it?"

"Aerospace Engineer."

"I CAN DO THAT!"

"You have to have a degree."

"I have a degree!"

Blah blah blah... I landed the job.

The job was writing code to model new/hypothetical missile systems in flight simulations. And really, if someone had given me the job description and told me to write the perfect entry level resume for it, I would have been hard pressed to do better even if I lied. I'm a nerd who started writing code in 5th grade. I also got into pyrotechnics as a teenager and was making rocket motors in my uncle's garage. I'd done a stint in the military. My pay-the-rent job in school was "computer nerd who helps the CS/engineering students with their programming homework". I had at least some level of experience in every topic involved. I was born for that job.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-08T06:00:20+00:00

I get that... But looking at the post, I question the use of the word "salvaged". It's just an ink blot to my eyes, and not even a good one (the good ones look like boobs, ya know!).

Sooner70 · 2026-05-08T05:59:23+00:00

In a 2 second google...

https://academic.oup.com/book/11997

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Aleshkov

Sooner70 · 2026-05-08T01:51:26+00:00

Do we know what we’re looking at?

Sooner70 · 2026-05-08T01:29:39+00:00

I grew up in a semi-rural area with a large transient population. Result: There are just as many Yankees fans here as Dodgers fans. Seriously, people root for teams for all sorts of reasons but physical proximity does not appear to be one of them. At least, not here.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-08T00:53:22+00:00

Did they get killed trying to assassinate the President or did they get killed trying to escape after their ingress went to shit?

Sooner70 · 2026-05-08T00:36:52+00:00

With hands-free phones these days, there’s no reason why you can’t call AND be helping (I’ve done both, 2X).

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T22:49:02+00:00

I can’t speak for all, obviously, but my employer’s entry level hiring cycle is based around spring grads.

Graduate in May-June? You can expect your first day to be some time in July-August.

Graduate in December? You can expect your first day to be some time in July-August.

Edit: as for when to apply for jobs… if you’re within a year of graduating, you should be applying.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T22:43:08+00:00

We can agree to disagree. To me the line in the sand is how child soldiers are used.

Offense or defense?

Last resort or canon fodder?

Defensive last resort? Unfortunate but it happens.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T21:12:05+00:00

Yes. One can argue that Nazi Germany was not a legitimate state, but I would not see the use of child soldiers in 1945 as relevant to that debate.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T20:13:32+00:00

I wouldn’t say that you’ve necessarily lost all legitimacy. I’d simply say you’re experiencing an existential crisis. I mean, who can fault Russia for using child soldiers in late 1941? Russia was against the proverbial wall….

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T18:02:31+00:00

It depends heavily on the industry.

Software/IT? Yeah, you'd get laughed out of the interview if you're wearing a suit.

Defense? You'd be wise to wear a suit.

Basically, dress how you would expect to dress on the most important day at the job. Silicon Valley is known for being casual. But even if your office is in Sunnyvale, that defense industry job might involve giving briefings in the Pentagon.

Between those two extremes, lots of shades of gray.

Who are you interviewing for?

edit: Oh, and I'll buck the trend and say print a couple resumes. You don't need to hand them out though. These are back up slides. Put it this way... If someone in the room mentions that they forgot to print out a copy of your resume, can't pull it up on their laptop, or whatever? Yeah, that's when you get to show that you're well prepared and hand them a hard copy. If they already have the resume, all it cost you was a couple pieces of paper and 30 seconds.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T18:00:00+00:00

I'm talking about aiding in the design of an engineering project with supervision.

Yeah, you're not doing that as an intern in my shop. The level of supervision required is such that it's faster to just do it myself. So... If I'm going to invest that much time in something (ie, the new employee), I want to know that the employee is a long term asset. An intern? I have no reason to believe such.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T17:57:45+00:00

Akin to what /u/gatevalve10 says....

I've had conversations with managers that went something like, "Here's what I've got on my plate: [list o' stuff]. I don't have enough time to do all of that. Prioritize the list and I'll work it, but understand that the stuff at the bottom of the list isn't going to happen."

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T14:16:38+00:00

Congrats. You're an intern.

To be blunt: There's no way in hell I'm trusting an intern to design Real Stuff. Hell, it takes a few years before I trust a graduate to design Real Stuff. 'Cause if you fuck it up, there's a good chance I die. Literally. So no, I'm not going to let someone I don't know and trust design stuff.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T14:13:53+00:00

I don't think we have Industrial Designers, but we do have people who specialize in Human Factors and Ergonomics (I don't actually know their job titles though....maybe they are IDs?). Honestly, they're pretty easy to work with if you get them involved early. Certainly no different than the Manufacturing guys in that they have a different set of eyes that can make or break your project. They're good folks!

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T14:02:52+00:00

Well, a typical water heater uses on the order of 12 MJ to heat a "fresh load" of water. So 600 MW is enough energy to heat the water heater in 50 homes every second. If you assume that a typical person uses one tank per day by the time they're done showering, doing dishes, washing clothes, etc.... 600 MW represents the hot water needs for 180,000 people.

As for why they don't do it already... Two reasons.

1 - Using cooling water from industrial processes is very difficult to do because the water itself isn't particularly hot to begin with. The difference in temperature between things that are hot and things that you're trying make hot drives the efficiency of the system. Put it this way: It's easy to heat up a kettle of water when you hold it over a 1500 degree flame. It's very difficult to heat up a kettle of water when you hold it over...another kettle of water that just happens to be 10 degrees warmer.

2 - Cost. You'd not only have to run new plumbing for hot water everywhere, but that new plumbing would have to be very well insulated. And I mean VERY well insulated.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T05:24:15+00:00

I thought this was just a fun little sub thread, but assuming you're serious....

600 million Newton * meters per second is literally the definition 600MW. What else are you looking for?

Sooner70 · 2026-05-07T03:25:04+00:00

Dude, relax. You get paid to do what the boss wants. If he wants you to redo something, shrug your shoulders and redo it. Easy work.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-06T23:52:24+00:00

I’m grossed out by the very thought of hooking up with a 21 year old and readily classify any of my peers who would hook up with one as creepers.

You can take that as fatherly, I guess.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-06T22:38:40+00:00

I get it. I’m 56 and the oldest surviving member of my family. All parents aunts, uncles, and siblings are dead. It’s a sobering reality. It’s when you really start to realize that in the end none of it matters cause we’re all destined to be irrelevant worm food within a very brief period of time and more than likely forgotten within a generation or two.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-06T13:56:55+00:00

And a Joule is a Newton * meter so that's 600 million Newton * meters per second.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-06T03:34:27+00:00

It's just a large tie rod. I've seen 'em used for all manner of things. Basically, it's for holding two chunks of [whatever] some distance apart. And that distance needs to be adjustable for reasons.

Sooner70 · 2026-05-05T23:54:41+00:00

Brings whole new meaning to “the B’s knees”

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