• Question: how many different jobs are there in engineering and how do they differ

    Asked by Tyranosaurus Dex to Aislinn, Fiona, Nathan, Padraic, Sinead on 10 Feb 2015.
    • Photo: Padraic Morrissey

      Padraic Morrissey answered on 10 Feb 2015:

      Hey Tyranosaurus
      Engineering is a really huge research area with thousands of different jobs you could do. Even in this event, there are 5 engineers doing completely different work that have very little overlap between them! The main difference between engineering jobs is whether they are industrial or research. Where I work it is mainly research, so we get a bit of time to think about things that we need to invent for the next couple of years. In more industrial engineering, its important to get products out quickly and ensure that they work safely.

    • Photo: Nathan Quinlan

      Nathan Quinlan answered on 10 Feb 2015:

      Many, many, many. The five of us do utterly different things, for starters. Off the top of my head, just a few other things you could end up doing – designing spaceships, designing buildings, laying out production lines, managing the construction of a building, developing materials for artificial bones, writing software, designing traffic layouts, designing car parts…

    • Photo: Sinead Quirke

      Sinead Quirke answered on 10 Feb 2015:

      Hi

      The sky is the limit – you will find engineers in all walks of life. Some using their technical expertise that they studied in and some adpating their skills to be successful in other areas such as finance. Many CEOs are engineers.

    • Photo: Aislinn Coghlan

      Aislinn Coghlan answered on 11 Feb 2015:

      Hi Dex,

      An engineer can do almost any job in the world – even non-engineering ones!

      I personally have worked refining crude oil into petrol, making chocolate and manufacturing cancer drugs. And that is juts over 2 years!

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