I’m aware that doesn’t make me special, I just want to make sure my job allows me fulfills that need to get excited about problems and make things.
I know I don’t have the chops to take on a full fledged ID role and I think I’d miss some of the engineering R&D type work. I’m unsure where the line would lie between a mechanical engineer and a design engineer position. It seems to me, a design engineer is a subset of mechanical engineering. Where other mechanical engineering jobs within a company making new products would include things like production engineers, material engineers, QA engineers…
I would like my position to be early in the process, being part of the group of people that figure out what the product is going to be: working out possible design solutions, make proofs of concept/prototypes, run simulations and computational design, and finally refine to a final design that solves the design criteria . More than I would want to work on the back end on production or testing duties.
I have some experience in solid modeling but most of my recent work has been in Rhino (not a whole lot of surfacing though), especially with Grasshopper doing computational design work. But I’m not seeing a lot interest from employers in the consumer product world for computational design, I only found a small group at Nike that’s actively seeking that kind of experience. I do need to brush up on my solid modeling work, especially in surfacing.
Luckily I do have a portfolio of personal work in consumer products. I’m willing to relocate, actually looking forward to the adventure of it, but I think I’d need a position to do so first.
I agree cold calling might be worth it in my case. Even if a company isn’t actively looking, if they see me as some kind of fit, they may keep my file around.
My experience with small design firms has been that few keep an ME on staff. But I should get a feel for the type of work that’s happening from their portfolio anyhow. I’d also be interested in a corporate gig as well if the fit is right possibly more for a company then a consultancy. For example the work that seems to be happening in Microsoft design labs would be really appealing to me.
I think I could broaden my scope as far as corporate gigs go. I’ve been shying away from a lot of jobs that require experience in consumer product but I think a lot of my work experience has brought me directly transferable skills, I just need to get through the HR gatekeepers.
You’re also right on my portfolio. I have some projects that I could rework to include nicer surfacing work as well as working out the injection molding details.
