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    #76
    I just hit my 12 year anniversary - wow, time flies.

    Needless to say, I like my job or I wouldn't have stayed so long. That, and there's really nothing comparable in my area that will pay anywhere nearly as much. Not having to clock in/out, flexible schedules, and pretty much being fully autonomous are huge benefits. And if I need to stay home with the kids, I can just log in and work remotely.
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      #77
      Originally posted by nando View Post
      I just hit my 12 year anniversary - wow, time flies. Needless to say, I like my job or I wouldn't have stayed so long. That, and there's really nothing comparable in my area that will pay anywhere nearly as much. Not having to clock in/out, flexible schedules, and pretty much being fully autonomous are huge benefits. And if I need to stay home with the kids, I can just log in and work remotely.
      May have put this higher up in the thread, but what is your line of work? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
      Current flame: E30 318iS Alpinweiss II slicktop / LSD - Joanne
      The old man: 1970 2002 Polaris(ish) slicktop / rat rod - Wallace
      The ex: E92 335i 6MT M-Sport - Betty
      The heavy: 2001 4Runner SR5 Sport (3rd Gen) - Fred

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        #78
        Just saw this thread, so my career has been pretty eclectic, and at the beginning I thought that I was a mess, not sure what I wanted to be when I grew up! Whoever is going through that and trying to do different things, its not a bad thing as long as you learn how to apply it later. I was a computer engineer by trade coming out of school, worked for Oracle, didn't like it, went over to finance for a huge fortune 100 after that. That wasn't my path either, went back to tech but in sales and an engineer for a startup. Super fun but not a ton of growth there, then I ended up where I am now, been here for 15 years.

        I am currently at an executive level in a fortune 100, and the only reason I got there is that I took all those experiences and connected how to run an overall business vs just an individual skillset. If anything I would say no matter what you do, just continue to learn from experiences and be able to change and grow. My dad told me once, if you think you know it all and don't want to learn or evolve you should probably retire because you are useless at that point.
        Euro Delivery Thread///E30 Project Klaus///COTM August 2021

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          #79
          This is a very cool thread, nice idea! Already making mental notes of a couple of you guys I may PM in the near future

          My profession is supply chain management, specifically procurement.

          Started mowing lawns in the neighborhood at 11yrs old, did this every season until I went to college at 19. Still, to this day I wonder what could've happened if I skipped college or did college locally and grew this business. Took another summer job cleaning microscopes, and another working for a GC renovating houses during summer of later highschool years and college - wanted to learn more about building houses, be outside, and build some muscle (while getting paid) to impress the ladies - it worked During college I was a facilities manager and also interned with Airbus procurement dept.

          Got a B.S. degree in supply chain management

          Started real working life by moving to CA (because I could work on my car hobby all year round) and starting as a paid intern for a cement/construction company. Got dropped off at one of their cement plants in the Mojave desert with the mission to modernize their spare parts warehouse and stop the inventory bleeding of 40k write offs per month. Took a year but got it done. Then the company acquired another cement plant out in another desert and I did it again. Got tired of living out of hotels for months on end and was "promoted" to regional buyer overseeing procurement for a few batch plants in southern CA. This slowly sucked the life out of me as the central procurement organization deteriorated and I became a glorified AP trouble shooter. Then my boss/mentor left but hired me on to the company he moved to (a big infrastructure construction company) and we all got laid off 6 weeks later when that company decided that they didn't need centralized supply chain at all.

          Sigh.

          That sucked, but lead me to where I am now. Picked up a cool position as the purchasing manager for West Coast Customs which was a lot of fun but didn't pay well. Unfortunately a very poorly ran business with frequent cashflow problems. Stayed only for 8 months until I moved on to aerospace manufacturing as a procurement supervisor. Feels like my real career began here. This company makes a lot of money, but is very fast paced and high pressure. Publically owned (two layers deep) so it's all about the bottom line. Inside of the first six months the GM was fired, supply chain director quit, supply chain manager quit, procurement manager was hired and also quit, leaving me to keep it all together. I learned a lot fast because of it. Also learned that procurement as a strategic part of manufacturing is still mostly neglected - which is not necessarily a bad thing because there are loads of opportunities to cut cost and improve processes and not just here at this company but aerospace and manufacturing in general. Aerospace, as I understand, is also very strong right now and probably will be for a long time to come. The forecast is a doubling of air travelers over the next 20 years from 4b to 8b yearly. The aerospace manufacturing industry does not currently have the production capacity to support that. Next ten years will be interesting. I think I'll stay within aerospace for a while, or at least manufacturing. It keeps me on my toes. I'm now the manager of strategic sourcing with the whole procurement organization under me. My days zip by and are rarely boring. The facility houses something like 60 cnc lathes/mills inside of 4 buildings as well as their own forging shop. I work with loads of local machine shops and plating shops most of whom also have interests with cars, so they do me favors
          '89 325i OBD2 S52 BUILD THREAD
          Shadetree30

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            #80
            Originally posted by majdomo View Post
            May have put this higher up in the thread, but what is your line of work? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
            I'm a structural designer. Basically I work with the engineers to make sure their ideas actually work. :p It's sort of a niche within the energy industry.

            Click image for larger version

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            Actually I do way more beyond just 3D modeling and CAD. I do a lot of programming of tools and utilities that everyone uses (mostly in LISP and Perl), I set up and maintain all of our software, and I do training classes for the rest of the company.

            It's fun because I wear so many hats and can use other skills/hobbies beyond my job title. We still have a lot of people who are basically just drafters, and that's fine - but I'd have left long ago if that's all I ever did. Also, those people are the most easily replaced by unskilled laborers in certain 3rd world countries.

            I've also had opportunities to work on site, helping resolve field construction and fabrication issues (nothing cooler than seeing hundreds of workers building something you spent years designing). I was fortunate enough to work with an older (now retired) structural engineer, who not only did I understand "his head" if you know what I mean, he entrusted me to handle a lot of things an engineer would normally have done.

            Basically I just got lucky and got in at the right time and place. I never even finished my 4 year degree, but that honestly would have been a waste of time and money in my case. Marine, Rail, commercial, industrial - I've done it all. Marine projects are my favorite, but those come along rarely - like once every 25 years or so.
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              #81
              I feel like I should explain my story to help those on here who might need it.
              I grew up at the drag strip watching my father race a 9 second late second gen Camaro. I’ve always known that one way or another I was going to be involved in the automotive industry in one way or another. He always told me, it’s fine if you want to work on cars your entire career but just know that your body is going to show it by the time you’re 40 and my mother always told me she didn’t care what I did as long as I got a degree for it. Growing up through the 90’s and being one of the children of the internet generation I’ve always been fascinated by technology.
              I delivered pizza in high school in a small country town, honing my driving skills on the back roads of southwest Michigan in a lowly J body cavalier.
              After graduating high school, I started college for computer science but after one semester I realized that as much as I loved computers, programming just wasn’t for me. Those who do it live and breathe code, which is fine but I just couldn’t do it. I then got my associates degree in automotive technology from Kalamazoo Valley Community College (they have a wonderful program by the way and some of the best instructors I’ve ever had). While at KVCC I found the E30 that I still have to this day, an 88 325is. I’m in the middle of restoring it with a 5 lug E36 M3/318ti coil-over suspension, M54B30 with M50 intake and Megasquirt MS3X on E85 (prepping for a turbo, you’ll see why later…). I’ll make a thread for it once it’s worth showing off.
              Following that I completed the bachelors program in Automotive Engineering Technology from Ferris State University (yes it really is a B.S.) There are only a handful of universities that offer the ABET accredited degree. Think of it as a B.S.M.E but with more automotive specific classes instead of as much math. They actually have courses in engine airflow, dyno operation, and engine mechanical design.
              I interned at FEV in Auburn Hills learning the ins and outs of OBD certification and calibration. We basically took the diesel Euro 6 FIAT Ducato and made it comply with US OBD regulations to be sold as the RAM ProMaster.
              This all brings me to where I am today. I just passed my 5 year anniversary at ROUSH Performance in Livonia. I am privileged enough to oversee all engine calibrations for 15-20 Mustang, including 2.3L and 5.0L performance pacs and supercharged applications. Basically, we sell tuned versions of the stock engines as well as supercharging the V8. Not only do we have to make 700+ horsepower but they all have to pass emissions as well as durability requirements. It’s interesting to be in the middle of a blend of OE calibration as well as competing with all the other companies in the aftermarket in that space. I’ve even gone to California to tune the race engine for our D1 formula drift Mustang to 1000hp with the same supercharger hardware we sell every day. I never know what I’m going to get day to day, some days I spend all my time sitting at my computer releasing new calibrations to our flashing software or in meetings talking federal regulations, other times they ask me to go to the drag strip or road course to test things or fix problems (it helps when you have a competition drag racing license). Sometimes it’s spending 14 hours straight on the dyno making dozens of power pulls to make sure everything works the way it should.
              If anyone needs tuning advice or someone to look at their car for them in southeast Michigan let me know, I’ll do what I can to help.

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                #82
                this dude.... i subscribe to his channel because there are some interesting vids on machine shop/ welding topics. for some reason, he decided to to make a self-help video. lol. in my opinion, this thing is awesome.

                i think everyone could benefit from taking a few minutes to watch it.






                edit:

                aaaaaannnnd.....i see the youtube imbed function still doesn't work even with the new and improved r3v... :(
                sigpic
                Gigitty Gigitty!!!!

                88 cabrio becoming alpina b6 3.5s transplanted s62
                92 Mtech 2 cabrio alpinweiss 770 code
                88 325ix coupe manual lachsilber/cardinal
                88 325ix coupe manual diamondschwartz/natur
                87 e30 m3 for parts lachsilber/cardinal(serial number 7)
                12 135i M sport cabrio grey/black

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                  #83
                  Originally posted by flyboyx View Post
                  aaaaaannnnd.....i see the youtube imbed function still doesn't work even with the new and improved r3v... :(
                  Yeah, thought that was a big thing that was being fixed with the update, but noooooo.

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                    #84
                    Originally posted by flyboyx View Post
                    this dude.... i subscribe to his channel because there are some interesting vids on machine shop/ welding topics. for some reason, he decided to to make a self-help video. lol. in my opinion, this thing is awesome.

                    i think everyone could benefit from taking a few minutes to watch it.






                    edit:

                    aaaaaannnnd.....i see the youtube imbed function still doesn't work even with the new and improved r3v... :(
                    I dont have many subscriptions on youtube (3 actually) , but AVE has been there for a long long time...... and its one of the few things on social media I look forward too
                    Originally posted by Fusion
                    If a car is the epitome of freedom, than an electric car is house arrest with your wife titty fucking your next door neighbor.
                    The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -Alexis de Tocqueville


                    The Desire to Save Humanity is Always a False Front for the Urge to Rule it- H. L. Mencken

                    Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants.
                    William Pitt-

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                      #85
                      I'm sorta in the same line of work as Nando and Melon, energy (mostly oil & gas) cad designer. As far as designer jobs, as an industry it's pretty well paid. Moving laterally to any other industry (or even discipline) would equal substantially lower salary ranges. I sort of just fell into O&G Piping Design about 8 years ago after doing a series of other design-related work in different industries, but will likely make a healthy long term career out of it unless I get pulled toward more and more management responsibilities.

                      Specifically I do Oil and Gas Piping Design, with a preference for CADWorx on Autocad, (other piping design programs are inferior.) Writing LISP programs and utilities to automate stuff comes up regularly. Ancillary work as well with piping and material specifications, engineering and municipal codes, and various critical systems database work. I enjoy giving Mechanical Engineers research to do, telling Structural Engineers what needs to be done, and showing Process Engineers what common sense looks like. If it wasn't for the piping there'd be no reason for structural designers to design anything. Looking at you Nando.

                      Currently I am designing a compressor station. The company I work for is small on the scale for being an EPC(M) but we are known for being nimble, designing cryogenic gas processing plants as well as working with the mining industry, which really helps average out the boom and bust business cycles of O&G. Overall it's one of the most reputable, award winning firms in the greater Denver area, based in DTC and has been a great place to work, company culture is top notch, benefits are great, work is challenging and always changing, risk level is low, occasionally get out of the office, we do projects across the country and occasionally abroad. Get to dabble with ever evolving software and the technologies are always adapting. Having been able to do 3d laser scanning at facility scales, design multimillion dollar (project engineering budget) plants from the napkin sketch stage till standing in the middle of a final completed as-built plant is a humbling experience, sort of like summiting a 14er.

                      Right now we actually have an opening for a senior level civil/structural designer... If either Nando or Melon would be interested in moving to Colorado...? Haha, PM me.
                      Last edited by LEANE30; 09-18-2019, 08:55 PM.
                      ...what hasn’t been done to an m20 yet?

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                        #86
                        ^
                        As someone that actually builds the shit you put on paper, Common sense is far more rare that you seem to allude to.....
                        Originally posted by Fusion
                        If a car is the epitome of freedom, than an electric car is house arrest with your wife titty fucking your next door neighbor.
                        The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -Alexis de Tocqueville


                        The Desire to Save Humanity is Always a False Front for the Urge to Rule it- H. L. Mencken

                        Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants.
                        William Pitt-

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                          #87
                          This is painfully true ^. So many engineers were just kids with good grades from successful families, had minimal childhood work experiences, when straight from high school to college then went directly to engineering things. It is amazing how few engineers know how to use their hands, yet they are liable if something fails. I fondly refer to my engineers as my "meat-calculators." -no offense to any engineers here, but your jobs will be easier to automate with AI than my job is. Piping designers (with usually just an associate degree) typically make more than engineers until the later senior years when they have their PE and have climbed the ladder a few rungs.

                          Honestly I really do enjoy my job, especially when I get to actually stay put and am left alone to do cad. Its very much like getting paid to play with legos and draw all day. Sadly tho this week it’s been a solid 75% having to sit in meetings and talking to other people. Next week should be better, it's not a career for extroverts...
                          ...what hasn’t been done to an m20 yet?

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                            #88
                            Originally posted by LEANE30 View Post
                            This is painfully true ^. So many engineers were just kids with good grades from successful families, had minimal childhood work experiences, when straight from high school to college then went directly to engineering things. It is amazing how few engineers know how to use their hands, yet they are liable if something fails. I fondly refer to my engineers as my "meat-calculators." -no offense to any engineers here, but your jobs will be easier to automate with AI than my job is. Piping designers (with usually just an associate degree) typically make more than engineers until the later senior years when they have their PE and have climbed the ladder a few rungs.

                            Honestly I really do enjoy my job, especially when I get to actually stay put and am left alone to do cad. Its very much like getting paid to play with legos and draw all day. Sadly tho this week it’s been a solid 75% having to sit in meetings and talking to other people. Next week should be better, it's not a career for extroverts...
                            HAHAHAHAHA This is the funniest thing I have read on R3v in a long, long time.

                            I will agree with you that it is truly laughable how many of my college engineering classmates had never swung a hammer, or framed a jack rafter into a door header, or even disassembled an old VCR. I'll also admit that I have very limited exposure to the oil and gas industry. Maybe my weaker classmates end up in positions in that field and truly make a mess of things that you have to fix. I don't know.

                            I had an old employee, who is still a great friend, who was a cocky sunofagun (like yourself) when it came to truss design. He had worked through programs that helped determine the efficacy of an engineers design. In a lot of situations he was right about member sizes, truss layouts, etc. That was, until off the wall non-standard situations arose, and then it was all too clear that he was out of his element. His experience had reached its limit, and he was unable to properly correct the situation.

                            Remember, you are paid in direct relation to the difficulty of the problems you solve. Jobs that mostly revolve around drawing, and not sophisticated problem solving, have their cap. I've created LISP routines in CAD, over the course of single afternoon, that can create complex foundation details, rebar and foundation key included. Or entire roof and floor framing plans based on ~45 or so inputs that will literally draw me an entire house in a matter of minutes. Yet I have never found a way, or even come close to finding a way, to automate acute problem solving.

                            Do you have a professional license, and the responsibility that is associated with that, that is recognized by the authority having jurisdiction? No? Then you do not 'tell people what to do'. Perhaps this is a crucial lesson for you to keep in mind.
                            My previous build (currently E30-less)
                            http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=170390

                            A 2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD 4x4 Offroad in Inferno is my newest obsession

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                              #89
                              Haha. Engineers cannot help but take that ^ bait. And you callin me cocky? Who else here is an engineer? Surely we can flush a few more out of the woodwork with just a couple more posts. All joking aside, giving engineers a hard time is one of the favorite pastimes of designers. ;)

                              Honestly tho we both have some valid points. I'm one of the type that looks at automating his own job daily. Much of my above comments were very tongue in cheek.

                              Another favorite is "what do you call a productive engineer? An inventor." ... Both of my brother in laws' are engineers, I've got a stock pile.

                              Seriously tho, designers and engineers are fundamentally two halves of a whole. Architecture and product design are inverse fields where you see that cross over of over-educated people doing the everyday work of the other half via automation, simply because some of those tasks can be done consistently or have comprehensive codes or standards that must be utilized. Only the subjective parts of thought work will remain the domain of humans over the next decade or two.
                              ...what hasn’t been done to an m20 yet?

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                                #90
                                We actually have an office in Denver. They are more or less run separately from us. But nah, if I ever change jobs it would be to a different industry - I have it pretty good here. I got to choose (and implement) new structural modeling software to replace Bentley's crap with. I'd probably have to use Cadworx Structural if I went anywhere else, which unlike the piping module, is pretty much useless. It works for cartoon steel but that's about it.

                                I've been fortunate to work on many projects (or parts of projects) where the primary input was actually civil or structural rather than piping. But we don't tend to have so much friction there, our piping and structural departments work well together, and we have very competent and experienced engineers. The electrical/controls guys though... yeesh. :p

                                I hear you on the endless meetings. Luckily I have avoided that for much of the past year.

                                The engineer argument is kind of funny. The thing is, somebody has to be licensed in the jurisdiction that the project is being built in, in order to get the plans stamped and approved. I can do quite a bit on my own without the engineer's input; I mean if you design the same things over and over again you know what elements are required and how they go together. But I'm not responsible for that (and I don't want to be).

                                But often we're faced with totally out of the box stuff, and even if I come up with a good idea, the engineer still has to verify that it will work. I'm not comfortable myself having something built that nobody has checked - probably I made it stronger than it needed to be, but the risks are too high especially in our industry.
                                Last edited by nando; 09-19-2019, 01:28 PM.
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