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What's an average day like for an engineer?

One of the most common questions asked by people looking into a career in engineering is, "What do engineers actually do?" or, "What's an average day like for an engineer?" While these questions may appear simple, they're a gateway to a vast amount of information. Much of the info available on the net is too vague or abstract to be helpful, and often fails to describe anything specific about engineering work.

To offer practical and actionable info, AskEngineers hosts this annual Work Experience Thread where engineers can talk about their daily job activities and career in general. This series has been successful in guiding students towards the best major for them, and helping engineers better understand what their counterparts in other disciplines do.

Today's thread is for engineers who want to share their stories, advice, and collective knowledge with our community. The responses here will be archived in the AskEngineers wiki and made available as a public resource.

[Archive of past threads]

How to participate

A template is provided for you which includes standard questions that are frequently asked by students. You don't have to answer every question, and how detailed your answers are is up to you. Feel free to come up with your own writing prompts and provide any info you think is helpful or interesting!

  1. Copy the template in the gray codebox below.

  2. Look in the comments section for the engineering discipline that your job/industry falls under, and reply to the top-level AutoModerator comment.


I work for a small company as a mechanical engineer. A while ago, my boss told me he wanted me to build a machine X that could do Y. My boss has little mechanical knowledge so it was up to me to figure out how to make this machine (if it is even possible). Fast forward to now, I have made the machine that is capable of Y through processes of my own design and took liberties with making improvements that were not requested by my boss (keeping him in the loop throughout). The machine turned out very well and works great and I mentioned that it may be patentable, figuring that I would at the very least be mentioned as a co-inventor. So my boss has me write up a legal description of the machine as well as provide detailed and marked up drawings for a patent. A little less than a year later, my boss sends me a file of the patent application and wants me to read over it and make sure all the information is correct (because he barely knows how it works). The first thing I see is "Inventor: BOSS'S NAME" and noting else..

My boss thinks that because it was his idea for me to make the machine, that he is the inventor. Function Y (that he requested) is a part of the patent, but many of my own personal upgrades to the machine are also part of the patent. Do I have any legitimate claim to be included on the patent?


So i’m planning to major in mechanical engineering next year but I’ve heard that there’s not a lot of women in engineering and that they’re surrounded by a lot of guys which makes me nervous because i’m afraid of some men being sexist towards me when i start working. I’m not afraid to tell someone off if they make any comments but i don’t want to deal with negative things while doing the job i’ve always wanted. Are there any women on here that have experience with this? How did you deal with it? How is your school experience?How is your work experience? Help would be appreciated since I don’t know anyone personally to ask!:)


long shot, but worth a try. We are slated to go test densities on a cement stabilized base test track. Has anyone done this? I'm assuming the base will be too difficult to hand-bore a hole (cement content up to 8%) for the gauge to use like usual. do we bring a big drill? this seems kind of excessive. I was thinking we would just use the back-scatter method, but it would be nice to get some better readings. thoughts or resources on this? most things ive read say nuclear density testing is common on this stuff, but I cant find how it is done.


I found two ABET accredited ME BS at Alabama and Minnesota, but I cant find any ABET accredited Design Engineering programs that offer online BS. Does anyone know of any? I can find a non ABET at National University but I have not been convinced that is a good idea.


I'm going to be starting a 4 year bachelors degree in civil engineering next year, and at the end of that degree i'll obviously be qualified as an engineer.

In Australia, where I live, it's possible for me to do a engineering drafting course lasting about 9 months. The course is pretty much free, and involves 6 hours of class time each week.

My question is, would it be a good idea to do this drafting course during my 1st/2nd year of uni? Would having a couple of years experience in drafting be a significant help in applying for an engineering job after I graduate uni?

Edit: One crucial question I forgot to ask. To any engineers in Australia, do you think a Cert III in drafting would be enough to land a job?


Is San Francisco's on-land trolley system efficient, and if not, should they invest in a subway system? It appears to me that the on-land system simply competes with automobile traffic. They could have used a system of buses, and this would have been cheaper since tracks aren't needed for buses.

Why can't the people of SF, with all their billionaires, come up with an underground system?

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I am trying to figure out how to put together a switch with either on/off lever, or consisting of two separate switches where one is for on, other for off.

I would like to do it with just a metal plate or something. Maybe with some electronic trick with a capacitor or whatnot.

Off the top of my head, the switch could totally work with a metal plate, but in the best case scenario, I was thinking of something fancy - maybe even a switch that does on/off alternately.

I'm hoping for some cool simple electronic scheme that could be emploayed to simulate a switch and stop and release DC 1,5V electricity when needed.

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