Reason #39: The Party Line Says Everything Is Fine

You will hear the same speech in three places: the open house, the senior design showcase, and the plant floor. Mechanical engineering is broad, resilient, full of options. The chorus is confident. The facts are not. Readers of this site, some of you seasoned professionals, might be reading criticisms of the ME field for the very first time. That is not an accident; it is how the pipeline keeps itself tidy.

Denial has a payroll. Administrators need full sections, so the brochure highlights “strong placement” and “industry partnerships.” Faculty need enrollments, so the curriculum gets framed as the perfect launchpad. Managers need headcount justified, so the requisition praises “great opportunities for growth.” Meanwhile you meet the actual market: “entry level” postings that demand prior internships (see Reason #5 and Reason #12) co-ops that vanish when budgets tighten, and long queues of applicants whose titles say engineer while their duties say technician. The line between willful ignorance and salesmanship blurs because everyone in the pipeline is paid to keep it moving.

Listen to how veterans defend the field. They showcase an outlier role, a lucky niche, a year when their plant was hiring. They skip the rest: DV/PV hiccups that swallow quarters, GD&T conflicts that bounce between teams, packaging drop tests that fail at hour seventy-two, polymer creep that ruins a fixture, UL and CE quirks that hold your shipment at the dock. You get told this is “just part of the job” and to keep a good attitude. That advice costs them nothing and costs you years (see Reason #26).

On campus you are told you will design. In practice you will validate, document, and apologize for lead times you did not pick. The product that ships has your work inside it, but what gets you measured is the packet that proves it. See Reason #33.

The gap between the promise and the calendar is where denial flourishes. It says the paperwork is “ownership,” the drop test is “innovation,” the shim is “architecture.” You nod because the room wants nodding.

Is this ignorance or performance? It hardly matters. The party line keeps you optimistic while the structure keeps you replaceable. Very, very often it rewards timing, geography, and someone else’s purchasing decision.

Reason #38: The Other Engineers (and Techs) are Happier

Feeling the pinch from underpayment, see Reason #27, you look up your job title and see 3.69 out of 5 for job satisfaction. Then you check the neighbors: electrical, civil, chemical, software, even aerospace. They all sit around 3.9 to 4.0. Why is ME the outlier? The daily reality helps explain it. The report is the product, the meeting is the milestone, and the drawing is the deliverable, see Reason #33. 

On PayScale’s own five-point scale, mechanical engineers rate job satisfaction at 3.69. Electrical engineers sit at 3.90, civil at 3.93, chemical at 3.92, software at 3.96, and aerospace at 3.98. Taken together, that non-ME cluster averages about 3.94. ME trails it by roughly 6 percent. Directional, yes, but same method across pages and large enough to notice (PayScale, n.d.-a, n.d.-b, n.d.-c, n.d.-d, n.d.-e, n.d.-f).

Even the technologist variant edges you out. Mechanical engineering technologist shows 4.00. The sample is tiny, so I should keep my asterisk handy, but that stat still sting because it matches what you feel on the floor. The technologist stands the rig up (see Reason #16). You shepherd the ECO, massage the BOM, and close the CAPA log so production can move (see Reason #26). Satisfaction tends to follow ownership of the thing that moves the needle, not the slide that explains why it did not, see Reason #32. (PayScale, n.d.-g)

The roots go back to school and the pipeline you were sold. You were told the math would open the doors, then you watched doors open for people who could make the fixtures repeat by Friday (see Reason #31). That mismatch between syllabus and shop feeds the quiet drag you see in the ratings. It also explains why the longer program and the detour semesters feel wasteful when you land in a role that is mostly validation and status updates (see Reason #2) 

You will not hate it. You will just like it less.

References:

PayScale. (n.d.-a). Mechanical Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Mechanical_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-b). Electrical Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Electrical_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-c). Civil Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Civil_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-d). Chemical Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chemical_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-e). Software Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-f). Aerospace Engineer salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Aerospace_Engineer/Salary

PayScale. (n.d.-g). Mechanical Engineering Technologist salary. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Mechanical_Engineering_Technologist/Salary

Reason #37: The Vendor Writes Your Design

Your “new product” kickoff starts with a parts list you didn’t write. The motor comes as a package with the gearbox, the controller, and the exact bolt pattern the vendor’s catalog has had for twenty years. Your CAD opens on their STEP, not yours. The meeting ends with assignments to confirm hole clearances and draw a bracket for someone else’s box, see Reason #33. 

This is how mechanical work narrows. Procurement wants NEMA or IEC frames because the shop stocks them. Compliance wants UL-listed assemblies because the test plan is shorter. Quality wants suppliers with PPAP history. All of that is sensible, and all of it moves the lever arm away from you, see Reason #26. The compressor is a vendor skid. The battery is a module with a sealed BMS and a CAN spec you cannot see. The hydraulic power unit is a catalog manifold with port patterns you will not change. You integrate, you shim, you reroute hoses, and you call the outline “architecture.”

Even the analysis comes pre-baked. The vendor FEA drives the wall thickness. Their performance map decides your operating points. Their harness length sets your enclosure and your thermal path. Your drawing says “per supplier print” in more places than it says anything else. When a tolerance stack fails, you revise your plate, not their casting, because their tooling is amortized and your plate is cheap, see Reason #21.

Academia sells first-principles freedom. Industry sells parts that already exist. In the gap (see Reason #32), your creativity turns into constraint management: REACH certificates in the portal, CE clauses on the nameplate, ERP/BOM numbers that make the ECO route clean. You can call this “systems thinking.” It often feels like shopping with paperwork. See Reason #2 if you want to remember how many semesters you paid to be here: 

Glut writes the spec. When ten COTS products queue for one project, managers pick what they can defend: catalog modules with warranties and part numbers already living in ERP. Risk shifts to the vendor, and most choices go with it. You weren’t out-engineered. You were out-supplied by lead times and a price list, see Reason #23.

You will learn a lot about vendor portals. You will learn less about making something from zero, see Reason #14.

Reason #36: Testing Is The Job

Your first “design” assignment is a spreadsheet. You inherit a DV/PV matrix with a hundred rows, a vibration rig queue that runs longer than your project, and a release date that only moves one way. You thought the model came first. The fixtures come first. The plan comes first. The report gets written before anything breaks (see Reason #33). 

This is not an accident. Mechanical work is judged by what survives. So you learn to schedule shaker time, thermal soak cycles, and drop tests before you learn to explore. You machine coupons for fatigue because certification asks for numbers older than your plant. You write acceptance criteria that trace to UL and CE clauses. You buy more thermocouples. You design fixtures that will never be sold and debug chambers that will never leave the lab. The fun part is a sprint. Verification is the marathon.

The language shifts under you. “Design review” means the test plan. “Prototype” means a bundle of fixtures and a work instruction. “Root cause” means fill the DFMEA column that says detection. You manage polymer creep in a clamp, not a new mechanism. You chase a tolerance stack because the metrology says the fixture moved, not the part. None of this reads like the brochure. All of it reads like your calendar.

Oversupply makes the pattern stick. When there are ten résumés for every seat (see Reason #24), the safest task wins the headcount. The safest task is proving the last thing works one more time. You can call that quality. You can also call it the cheapest way to keep a line running while the new ideas live somewhere else (see Reason #21 and Reason #7).

Management loves testing because testing is visible. Schedules track green boxes that say complete. Finance loves it because the spend is traceable to requirements (see Reason #23). You will love it on the days when the fixtures repeat and the plots behave. What part of that sounds like design?

If you picture yourself drawing the future, prepare to spend most days measuring the present and filing it.

Reason #35: Timeless Core, Stalled Field

You study what your great-grandfather studied. Statics, dynamics, materials, thermo, fluids, machine design. The pillars are the same and the proofs are the same, only hidden by newer notation and nicer figures. A century ago you could have earned this degree with different fonts and a stack of physical textbooks. Today you do it with software and spreadsheets.

Mechanical engineering hardened its theory in the horse-and-buggy age and never truly moved the fence. Classical dynamics still begins with Newton and ends with the same small vibrations and rigid bodies your predecessors solved for carts and linkages. Thermo still marches through Carnot, Rankine, Otto, Brayton, property tables that were already old when the first steam turbines turned. Fluids still pivots on Reynolds and the same laminar to turbulent stories. Modern wrappers arrive, but the center hardly moves. You learn timeless laws and then watch them wear new GUIs.

Meanwhile next door the ground keeps shifting, sometimes literally. Electrical grew whole new pillars: solid-state physics, digital logic, information theory, signal processing, control as software, learning systems. Chemical tunneled from unit ops to molecular design, catalysis, polymers, and bio-process as normal coursework. Aero pushed wind-tunnel intuition into high-order CFD, composite structures, fly-by-wire, GN&C, and hypersonics. Even Civil keeps adding layers because reality forced it to: climate change pushes performance-based design and coastal resilience; thawing permafrost and subsidence rewrite geotechnical assumptions; environmentalism and sustainability drag life-cycle carbon and durability science into the core; BIM turns drawings into living models. Their syllabi changed because the discipline did.

ME updates the lab rather than the laws. Control might offer a taste of state-space before returning to Bode plots. Mechatronics shows up so you can speak to the controller someone else owns. Senior design adds process and teamwork because the content does not add a new law. You can call that timeless. You can also call it stuck (see Reason #7). What new pillar did ME add that you can point to without flinching?

If you want tools that last forever, ME will give you a very, very solid set. If you want to stand where the frontier is moving, you will spend most days watching it pass your classroom on its way to other departments.

Reason #34: Two and a Half MEs

For every mechanical-engineering opening, there are about two and a half of you. Call it Two and a Half MEs. No laugh track, no Malibu beach house, just arithmetic you cannot out-argue (see Reason #24 and Reason #1).

Here are the numbers you live under. Openings run about 18,100 per year in mechanical engineering (BLS, 2025). In a recent year, 36,224 new ME bachelor’s degrees were awarded (NCES, 2022). Initial H-1B entrants in mechanical-engineering occupations added another 2,714 fresh competitors (USCIS, 2025). About 5,300 already-qualified MEs were unemployed at any moment using a 1.8% proxy for the broader architecture and engineering group, applied to 286,760 employed MEs (BLS CPS & OEWS, 2025). Mechanical Engineering Technology graduates add roughly 1,455 more who often apply to the same requisitions (ASEE, 2024). Add that up and you get roughly 45,700 people for 18,100 seats, or about 2.5 applicants per opening. The flow is steady, not a one-off spike (USCIS, 2025; NCES, 2022).

What does two and a half per seat do to “entry-level”? Well, you already know if you read Reason #12, but if not. It turns “preferred” into required. It turns “nice to have” into the first screen. It makes internships the gate you were told to use, then it removes the gate for your field (see Reason #5) or replaces it with seasonal technician work that does not carry over. In a crowd, hiring favors the person who already lived inside the fixtures and calendars you will inherit (see Reason #10) not the person who could learn them quickly (see Reason #14). What do you think “preferred experience” means in a market like that?

It stays crowded because the pipeline keeps refilling. ME is the default major for undecided engineers, so the inflow never slows even when the roles narrow (see Reason #4). Your pool is not just your class; it is global, it is last year’s class, and it is incumbents who never left the queue (again, see Reason #24). There is no guild to thicken the shield when budgets tighten or when titles blur between engineer and technologist without changing the work (see Reason #13).

Geography gets a vote. Physical tests, line stops, supplier trials, and pilot builds happen in places, not in browsers. When the opening finally picks a name, it often picks the person within driving distance of the plant (see Reason #20). The arithmetic that crowded you into the funnel is the same arithmetic that either keep you near the fixtures after you get through (see Reason #25) or in greener pastures (see Reason #22) if you don't.

References

American Society for Engineering Education. (2024). Engineering & Engineering Technology by the Numbers, 2023. https://ira.asee.org/by-the-numbers/

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Mechanical engineers, Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mechanical-engineers.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Unemployed persons by occupation and sex (Annual averages). https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat25.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Data tables for the overview of May 2024 occupational employment and wages. https://www.bls.gov/oes/2024/may/featured_data.htm

National Center for Education Statistics. (2022). Table 325.47: Degrees in … mechanical engineering … 1959–60 through 2020–21. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_325.47.asp

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. (2025). Characteristics of H-1B specialty occupation workers: FY 2024. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/ola_signed_h1b_characteristics_congressional_report_FY24.pdf

Reason #33: The Report Is the Product

You thought the product was the machine. Most days in mechanical engineering, the product is the report that lets someone else ship the machine. The core decisions are upstream; you arrive to prove diligence after the fact, see Reason #14.

It shows up as small chores that multiply. A retailer clause tweaks a drop sequence, so you rewrite the plan, rerun the test, and compress a week into a memo that will be skimmed for one bullet. A casting tolerance drifts and the DFMEA churn begins because the signatures must match the new risk math. The vibration rig is booked, so you consolidate DV/PV results while your milestone slips. The decision at the gate was made yesterday; your deck is evidence, not a lever. This is how oversupply plays out on paper: when too many applicants crowd the funnel, the visible work becomes paperwork because it is the easiest work to hand down, see Reason #1.

Compliance tightens the vise. UL or CE wants the label redrawn. RoHS or REACH certs expire on a Friday and the supplier portal rejects the old format. An IP rating nudge ripples into gasket choices you did not buy. You gather documents, publish a summary, and the build proceeds as if the summary were the contribution. In a narrow sense it is. The plant runs on proof, and your calendar bends to where the fixtures and chambers live, see Reason #20: 

Your portfolio turns into a binder wall. An EE can show traces. A SWE can show a repo. You show PPAP packets, FAIRs, CAPA closures, ECO histories, and tidy DV matrices. Hiring reads that as support. Promotion reads that as hygiene. The announcement arrives with “Product Team” on the slide and three initials in small type. Your name sits at the bottom of a PDF that will be archived by Monday. It is hard to compete for recognition when everyone around you is measured by the same checkboxes and the same queues, see Reason #6:

None of this is fake work. Field returns stop because someone scheduled thermal soak at the right temperatures and fixed a corner case no one wanted to own. But in ME, visible impact is a group noun while accountability is personal. You inherit the paper that proves the work happened, then learn how quickly paper gets forgotten. You wanted authorship. You will get a reference number.

Reason #32: You Live in the Gap

Your first week explains the org chart without saying it. The technician knows the machine because he built it. The manager knows the roadmap because he sold it. You stand between them with a clipboard and a CAD window, translating one into the other. You are not allowed to touch the fix, and you are not invited to set the strategy. You own the space in the middle, the gap no one else wants, see Reason #14.

The gap has a schedule. A PPAP slips two days, the thermal soak runs long, the vibration rig is booked by another program. You rewrite the plan of record and herd signatures through an ECO gate that times out whenever Procurement sneezes. The hands that cut metal are busy, the minds that cut budgets are elsewhere, and you explain to both why a RoHS certificate is still missing, see Reason #9.

Your authority is borrowed and conditional. On Monday you mediate a GD&T conflict between a casting vendor and an in-house fixture that crept out of square. On Tuesday you chase a packaging drop test failure that cracked the corner you asked to radius last month. On Wednesday you discover the ERP thinks a superseded part number still lives in the BOM, so the line stops while everyone wonders who owns the spreadsheet. It is always you, until the moment a decision matters, when it is never you.

The gap is where credit evaporates. A technician improvises a shim that keeps a thermal interface alive through DV. The manager slides the green checkmark into a deck and calls it “teamwork.” You collect the redlines and promise to update the drawing before PV. When the CE mark review finds a labeling quirk you could not have known about, the fix is “urgent” and the pre-read is already on someone else’s calendar.

Even your calendar belongs to the gap. You commute because the product is here, not because your judgment matters more in person, see Reason #20. You sit near the test bays so you can be fetched. You write up the failure report in language Legal can live with, then watch the corrective action land above your pay grade. The only thing that is truly yours is the inbox.

People say mechanical engineering is flexible. It is. You bend.

Reason #31: Your Arch-Nemesis Finishes First

You meet your rival in the same hallway: the Mechanical Engineering Technologist (MET). Their degree is ABET accredited too. They graduate sooner because the plan of study asks for fewer abstract prerequisites and more time in the lab. The catalog sells your path as rigorous. Hiring managers describe theirs as ready. The clock matters because the four-year ME tries to be five or six once prerequisites chain and bottlenecks appear, see Reason #2.

In an oversupplied market, see Reason #1, the person who can stand up a rig today wins tomorrow’s phone call. That mismatch was baked in from the start, see Reason #25.

Mechanical Engineering piles the math high. Calculus I and II, then multivariable, then linear algebra and differential equations, sometimes a numerical methods elective for good measure. You spend whole terms operating on symbols, because the theory expects it and the exams enforce it. Mechanical Engineering Technology trims that tower to applied calculus and statistics, then sends you to measure something that can break. You will not prove a lemma about stability. You will tune a parameter until the chart says the fixtures repeat.

The core classes prove the split better than any brochure. In ME you take Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat and Mass Transfer, and Mechanics of Materials with an experiment tacked on to validate the model. In MET you walk into Materials and Processes I and II while you are still learning names, then into Manufacturing Systems with routings and CMM reports, then into Industrial Controls where a cabinet is open and you are responsible for what comes out of it. A fluids lecture can be beautiful, and it is also a long way from a hydraulic bench where a proportional valve hunts unless you learn how to calm it. You can memorize the Navier–Stokes assumptions, or you can size a pump and plumb hose guards that survive review. Guess which one a supervisor will ask about at 6 a.m.

Controls is the cleanest head-to-head. ME gives you dynamics, modeling, and feedback design, often across mechanical, thermal, and electrical domains. You will draw block diagrams and pass a lab checkout that proves a transfer function behaved. MET teaches ladder logic, safety relays, and why a VFD trips under load. One path explains the loop. The other path keeps the line from stopping. When the cabinet faults, you learn what is valuable in that moment.

Manufacturing shows the same pattern. ME gets an introduction to processes for design and a capstone where production finally appears as a constraint among many. MET threads production through the middle years. You learn to read a capability slide without squinting. You know what a change in a datum scheme will do to a supplier’s process window. You can smell an ERP and BOM mismatch before the build.

This is not an insult to theory. It is the layout of the work. The day to day is custodial more than creative, see Reason #14. You will reconcile GD&T with a casting that shifted tolerance after a die refurb. You will rerun a packaging drop test that fails on a corner nobody picked, and then you will update the DFMEA so the signatures clear. You will sit through UL and CE clarifications that move a label and a fastener, then route an ECO through gates. MET trains for this reality on purpose. 

The person who speaks in cycle time, clamp load, and fixture repeatability sounds like the owner of the problem. That person tends to stand closer to the plant and address it's needs.

The split also shows up where students first earn their stripes. Internships are scarce, see Reason #5. The ones that count go to portfolios with shop-time, fixtures, PLCs, and fluid power on the page, not page-long derivations.

Licensing boards don’t draw a hard wall between ME and MET either. In many states, graduates of ABET-accredited Engineering Technology (ETAC) programs can pursue licensure on the same exam pathway (FE → PE). As if you needed further dissuasion from professional licensure, see Reason #17.

You can insist the well of theory feeds practice. It may, it may not. But you can also watch your nemesis set up the rig while you search your memory for a formula you have not needed since the final. One of you will go home early. It will not feel like victory when the badge still opens the same door, see Reason #16.

Reason #30: Remote-Proof Work

Everyone else learned to work from home. You learned where the badge reader is. In 2020 the world moved to laptops and stayed there. Mechanical engineering kept its seat in the plant, see Reason #20

Remote opportunities in ME are rare for a simple reason: the work hugs hardware. Tests live in labs. Builds live on floors. Compliance lives in rooms with clipboards and stickers. Hybrid promises drift back to on site because gates, audits, and signoffs exist in places without Zoom. Your calendar follows equipment, not your preferences, see Reason #14.

The pandemic proved entire industries can function at a distance. Software did. Finance did. Even parts of medicine did. Mechanical did not. You can move a CAD file from a couch, but you cannot run a thermal cycle, chase a vibration, or witness a UL pre-scan from there. Suppliers still want eyes on parts, not emails about them. When timing gets tight, the question is not “Can you log in.” It is “Can you be here.”

Oversupply keeps it that way. Employers can insist on butts in bays and still fill the role. If you cannot make second shift for a retest, someone else will, see Reason #1.

What does “remote optional” mean when the chamber is in the building. It means optional for someone else.

The century moved on. Mechanical did not.

Reason #29: The Prereq Trap Starts Before ME

You slip before mechanical engineering even starts. One placement. One missing trig identity. Then a year slides away. See Reason #2.

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the gatekeeping begins with the ALEKS math exam. Your score decides whether you start in algebra, precalc, or calculus (University of Illinois Department of Mathematics, n.d.). Chemistry has its own gate. Students below the line are routed to CHEM 101 before they can touch General Chemistry I, and CHEM 102 itself expects at least credit in or exemption from MATH 112 plus prior chemistry (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2025; University of Illinois Academic Catalog, 2025). 

Here is the worst case that costs a full year before you reach the spine that unlocks ME. Fall, you land below the calculus cutoff and take MATH 112. Spring, you take MATH 115. Your chemistry placement put you in CHEM 101 first, then CHEM 102/103 later. The following fall, you finally reach Calc I (MATH 220 or 221). You still cannot start Physics I for engineers because PHYS 211 requires credit or concurrent registration in Calculus II (MATH 231) (Department of Physics, n.d.). Statics (TAM 211) then waits again because it requires PHYS 211 and credit or concurrent registration in MATH 241 or 257 (University of Illinois Academic Catalog, n.d.). The ladder keeps moving right while the brochure keeps smiling.

Even the “easy win” courses are slotted. ME 170 has no prereq, but the official map pairs it with RHET 105 across first year based on your UIN, and any early slip nudges ME 270 and the design sequence farther out (Grainger College of Engineering, 2025). The schedule is a ladder, not a lattice. If your ladder starts on the ground floor, you climb longer.

And when you finally reach the ME spine, the market does not meet you at the door. UIUC’s Illini Success shows Mechanical Engineering with 58% employed and 40% in continuing education for 2023–2024; Grainger overall is 52% employed (Illini Success, 2025). At a top-ranked program, “about half employed” is the reality reported when the survey closes, see Reason #1 and Reason #12.

You are told this is grit. It is paperwork dressed as progress. Before you reach “mechanical engineering,” the prerequisites have quietly eaten your first two years. The bill arrives in time, not glory.

References:

Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning. (2025). Cutoff scores, credit policies, and course placement messages (Chemistry 2025–2026). https://citl.illinois.edu/citl-101/measurement-evaluation/placement-proficiency/cutoffs-2025-2026/2024-cutoff-scores-chemistry

Department of Physics, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. (n.d.). PHYS 211: University Physics—Mechanics. https://physics.illinois.edu/academics/courses/phys211

Grainger College of Engineering. (2025). Mechanical Engineering curriculum map: Fall 2022 and beyond. https://grainger.illinois.edu/academics/undergraduate/majors-and-minors/mechanical-map

Illini Success. (2025). 23–24 vertical report: Graduate outcomes by major (Mechanical Engineering). https://illinisuccess.illinois.edu/23-24-vertical-report

University of Illinois Academic Catalog. (2025). CHEM—Chemistry (CHEM 101, CHEM 102 notes). https://chemistry.illinois.edu/academics/course-schedule

University of Illinois Academic Catalog. (n.d.). TAM—Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM 211 prerequisites). https://catalog.illinois.edu/courses-of-instruction/tam/

University of Illinois Department of Mathematics. (n.d.). ALEKS PPL mathematics assessment exam: Course placement cutoffs. https://math.illinois.edu/academics/undergraduate-program/aleks-ppl-mathematics-assessment-exam

Reason #28: Promotion Means Leaving Mechanical Engineering

The raise that actually changes your life comes with a new badge. It moves you away from mechanical engineering. By year seven you are smoothing supplier drama, shepherding ECO gates, and babysitting packaging drop tests so a DV/PV pack can crawl through approval. You spend more time in status decks than in design, see Reason #9.

The organization pays for what protects revenue and schedule, not for the quiet correctness of a tolerance stack. So the ladder tilts toward roles that own customers, calendars, and headcount. Program management finds you because you already run the shaker queue and the UL retest calendar. Product management is the same move with a market attached: requirements, tradeoffs, launch dates. Operations pulls you because you live on the floor and can translate a polymer creep hiccup into throughput. Technical marketing hires you to turn specs into positioning and to make a demo survive a sales call. Business development likes that you can read a drawing, price a BOM, and still carry a room. Consulting wants the same skills with a savings guarantee on a slide. None of that is mechanical engineering, see Reason #14 and Reason #16.

Geography helps the drift. Plants pick zip codes; customers pick the map. Operations, product, and program roles can sit nearer headquarters or the market and farther from the cell that needs your badge to clear an ECN. If you want a different city or a ceiling that finally moves, you follow the jobs that live off the floor. See Reason #20.

You will tell yourself you still “use your engineering every day.” In truth you move numbers, not metal. You negotiate lab time you no longer need, promise dates you do not control, and translate testing noise for people who will never see the rig. Is that flexibility or an exit?

You rise, the metal recedes, and the title that made you an engineer becomes a line in your bio, see Reason #15.

Reason #27: Your Salary Plateaus Early

Your first real raise feels like oxygen. The second is smaller. By year five you are the dependable mechanical engineer who closes DFMEA gaps, babysits packaging drop tests, and herds signatures through ECO gates. The number on your pay stub stops moving like a career and starts moving like inflation, see Reason #18.

The public data tell you why. The median annual wage for mechanical engineers was $102,320 in May 2024, with the top tenth clearing about $161,000 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2025). Electrical engineers report a $111,910 median, electronics engineers $127,590, and chemical engineers $121,860 in the same period. Software developers live on a different curve entirely: a $133,080 median with a 90th percentile above $211,000 (BLS, 2025). The spread matters. For mechanical engineering, the 75th percentile sits around $127,000, which reads like a ceiling you can touch (BLS, 2024). Your raise potential compresses just when your peers’ curves start to pull away.

The structure of the work keeps the lid tight. You are hired into cost centers, not profit centers, so your value is framed as overhead, see Reason #23. When a casting tolerance shifts, a technician shims the fixture to keep the cell alive; you rewrite the validation plan so the data survives review. The vibration rig queue dictates your calendar; your authority extends to the test slot you begged for, not the design decision you would change. See Reason #20 at https://100reasonstoavoidme.blogspot.com/2025/08/reason-20-plant-picks-your-zip-code.html.

Oversupply flattens raises too, see Reason #1 and Reason #24. When new graduates can slot into your seat, managers feel little pressure to bid up your compensation. NACE’s latest update shows engineering starting offers essentially flat for the Class of 2024, up less than one percent, while computer and information sciences remain the top-paid category despite a small dip (National Association of Colleges and Employers [NACE], 2025). That is how a plateau begins.

Early optimism fades in the pipeline. Year after year you push REACH certificates, chase ERP/BOM mismatches, and schedule thermal soaks so a unit can limp through review. Promotions track paperwork ownership, not design authority. If you want real headroom, you often leave mechanical engineering.

You will work harder for smaller increments, and the market will call it normal.

References

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Mechanical engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mechanical-engineers.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Electrical and electronics engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Chemical engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/chemical-engineers.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024). Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2023: Mechanical engineers (percentiles). https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes172141.htm

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2025). Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm

National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2025). Average starting salary for Class of 2024 shows mild gain. https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/average-starting-salary-for-class-of-2024-shows-mild-gain

Reason #26: The Work Is Mind-Numbingly Tedious

You learn it in week one, although people try to hide it. The day to day is not grand design, it is caretaking, see Reason #14. The work moves when forms move. You will spend hours shepherding documents through gates that look small and feel endless, and you will do it again tomorrow because the gates reset every build. We call this engineering so it goes down easier, but most of it reads like clerical work in steel-toed shoes. The novelty wears off quietly. The repetition stays.

What does it look like, up close. You rinse and repeat DFMEA updates after a casting tolerance shifts. You convert that to PFMEA edits so Quality can sleep. You book time on a vibration rig, then rebook it when the fixture creeps a millimeter under load. You inventory a compliance binder, chase RoHS and REACH supplier declarations, nudge a UL file number through a retest window, and paste screenshots into a CAPA. You fix an ERP effectivity date so the right revision ships. You discover the BOM that Purchasing sees is not the BOM you released, so you export, compare, and reconcile in a spreadsheet with too many columns. Then you do a gage R&R and write up the 8D because someone will ask later. 

You trained on thermodynamics, controls, dynamics, all the hard stuff with Greek letters. The job rewards patience with portals. Supplier portals. Lab portals. Corrective-action portals that time out while you hunt for a photo with metadata intact. Meetings exist to produce minutes that justify signatures that let the change travel. The line does not care how elegant your derivation was, it cares whether the paperwork unlocked the test cell by Thursday. You will write more than you solve, then you will write about what you solved so someone else can reopen it.

Is this why you stayed up with PDEs and control poles. The system says yes. A crowded pipeline, see Reason #1 turns engineers into traffic managers. Cost-down seasons make it worse, see Reason #21. You are measured on risk reduction, not ideas. If a polymer latch sags in thermal soak, you schedule another soak with a shim that buys a week. If a packaging drop fails, you rerun with a corner orientation matrix and a fresh tape recipe. You leave the architecture untouched and declare victory in the margin.

The tedium makes sense once you accept your role. You are there to keep the machine from stalling, not to make a new machine, see Reason #7. It is tedious because it is supposed to be. The title does not change that.