Tell a stranger you’re a mechanical engineer and you’ll get the familiar reaction: eyes widen, heads nod, someone says, “Wow, you must be smart.” At grocery store lines and family reunions, people imagine rockets or robots and assume you are wealthy or ingenious.
Inside the profession, however, the myth collapses. Among other engineers, mechanical engineering is a fallback, not a flex. One early-career ME summed it up: “write documentation; fix CAD; explain why something is late; write email” (u/wtbengdeg, 2025). That is not glory work, it is office drudgery dressed up with a title.
This is the inverse hierarchy of prestige: the farther you are from actual engineering, the more impressed people are with your degree. Your aunt thinks you are Tony Stark. Your coworkers know you are a glorified drawing updater.
Most mechanical engineers do not design rockets or build the next big thing. They tweak CAD models, chase BOMs, wrangle vendors, and sit through endless meetings. The “creative genius” image lives only in glossy brochures. The daily reality is summed up by one Reddit engineer: “Write documentation, fix CAD” (u/wtbengdeg, 2025).
Respect in this field is not tied to your diploma. It is tied to whether your company logo is recognizable, whether your name is anywhere near real innovation, and whether your role can be simplified into a TED Talk. Most MEs live behind the curtain, not on the stage. You are not building tomorrow. You are updating a drawing that goes from Rev E to Rev F.
The Prestige Ladder:
- Layperson: “Wow, you must be a genius.”
- Engineering student: “Nice, ME is a solid choice.”
- Civil engineer: “So what do you actually design?”
- Electrical engineer: “Mechanical is useful, just not very scalable.”
- Software engineer: “Wait, you still use AutoCAD?”
- ME with 10+ years: hands you a drink and sighs
References
u/wtbengdeg. (2025, April). write documentation; fix CAD; explain why something is late; write email. Reddit. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalEngineering/comments/1k45td6/mechanical_engineers_what_do_you_actually_do_at/
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024, April 17). Architecture and engineering occupations. Occupational Outlook Handbook. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/home.htm
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2023). Science and engineering indicators: Engineering workforce data. National Science Foundation. Retrieved from https://ncses.nsf.gov/indicators
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