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 #18: You're Paid Less Than Your Peers

The first thing you notice when you compare offer letters is that your friends in other branches of engineering make more. Electrical, chemical, computer, even civil, their starting salaries pull ahead of yours. You thought mechanical would be “the broadest,” which meant “the safest.” Instead, it meant you were slotted into the lowest-paying tier of the engineering ladder.

This is not an accident. Employers know that mechanical engineering is the most crowded degree pipeline (see Reason #1). They can choose from a glut of résumés, which keeps your wages depressed. As of May 2024, the median annual wage for mechanical engineers stood at $102,320 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024a) whereas Electrical engineers pulled $111,910, and electronics engineers even higher. According to Indeed, in fields like computer science, the gap widens further: mechanical engineers average $85,528, while computer scientists average $108,620.

Meanwhile, software developers, the fucking rock stars of the current economy, average $129,435 a year, with senior roles stretching well beyond that (The Sun, 2024). The difference is not subtle, and it grows as careers progress.

Day to day you will see the gap widen. Electrical engineers at your company sit in fewer meetings and cash bigger checks. Chemical engineers in process industries receive bonuses tied to output, while your role is considered overhead. Software engineers at startups you never heard of jump jobs every two years and double their salaries. You, meanwhile, chase a 3 percent raise that is eaten alive by insurance premiums. By mid-career the discrepancy is glaring. Mechanical engineers plateau while peers in other disciplines keep climbing.

You will find yourself explaining to family members why you are still stuck near the bottom of the engineering pay scale, even after years of experience. And because your title becomes your label (see Reason #15) those same relatives will assume that “engineer” means prestige and prosperity. You will correct them, awkwardly, while your cousin in software drives off in a new car.

It is not that mechanical work has no value. It is that the market has decided it is cheap. And in this field, the market always wins.

You will be an engineer, but you will not be paid like one.

References:

Indeed. (2024). Computer science vs. mechanical engineering: Choosing your career. Retrieved from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/computer-science-vs-mechanical-engineering

The Sun. (2024, April 15). Why are software developers in demand in the USA? Retrieved from https://www.the-sun.com/money/11009009/why-are-software-developers-in-demand-in-the-usa/

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024a, April 17). Mechanical engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mechanical-engineers.htm

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024b, April 17). Electrical and electronics engineers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

Reason #17: Professional Licensure Rarely Pays

You are told the Professional Engineer license is the brass ring, the line that separates you from the crowd. Then you look around mechanical engineering and find there is almost nowhere to use it. Civil has stamps baked into bridges and buildings. Electrical has protection and power systems that require a seal. Doctors cannot practice without a medical license, lawyers cannot practice without a bar card, accountants cannot sign audits without a CPA. Those licenses sit at the center of the work and the pay reflects it. In mechanical, most of the work lives inside product companies and factories where no one asks for a stamp. The credential mostly decorates your HR file while your day stays the same.

The few mechanical niches that truly demand a PE are thin, mostly HVAC and building services, pressure vessels, public sector compliance, and a small slice of consulting. That is not where most MEs are hired. In product design and manufacturing, liability sits with a senior reviewer or an outside firm, and many managers prefer that you never seal anything. You wanted leverage. You got continuing education. Meanwhile you inherit vendor-chosen parts and locked suppliers, then you move holes on drawings, call out threads, argue over a torque table, and tweak fixtures so a test barely passes.

The path does not match the payoff. You pass the FE, hunt for a PE supervisor in an industry where few exist, log the hours, pay the fees, and chase PDHs. Your reward is the same job description and the same PLM clicks. The raise, if it appears, is modest. The work does not change. You still rewrite test plans and route ECOs. You still collect signatures so CAPA can close. The license does not open new rooms, it decorates the one you are already in.

Worse, the supply is upside down. There are far more MEs with or chasing PEs than roles that require stamps, which is why you see licensed MEs applying to jobs that never mention licensure. In a crowded field, credentials become a way to feel less interchangeable, not a way to change what you do.

You hang letters after your name. The job stays the same.

Reason #16: Technicians Do the Real Work, You Do the Paperwork

Your first week on the line, a technician teaches you the machine by sound. He hears the bad bearing before you can find the panel latch. You are in clean PPE with a notebook. He is three steps ahead with a nut driver. Everyone looks at you for the decision anyway, because you are the mechanical engineer. In practice, you are one of the few white-collar people embedded in production, surrounded by folks who run the critical equipment every day. They see you as the fancylad from a hoitytoity engineering college, you see a shop that can fix problems faster than you can define them.

This is the social arrangement the job gives you. Technicians do diagnosis and real hands-on work, you route ECOs, write CAPA rationales, and get signatures. A fixture slips tolerance, a tech shims it and keeps the cell alive. You rewrite the test plan so the unit survives vibration. A vendor swaps a motor, a tech adapts the mounting in an hour, then you chase shaft fits, update the keyway, move holes on drawings, and argue over a torque table in a release meeting. When a build goes sideways, you are asked to sign off on a quick deviation, then you own the paper trail when the field return arrives.

The contempt is quiet but it is there. You are expected to tell people what to do, while they know the machine better than you do. They know it because they were trained and you were not. Sales drags you into calls as the egghead who will save the account, then forgets to give you the parts list or the histograms. Management praises your problem solving in public, then forwards every unsorted issue to you in private because the ME is the safest place to park risk. Companies hire you as a compliance wrapper around work that other people already did.

So who is the engineer here, the person who fixes the problem or the person who documents the fix after the fact?

You wear the title, they do the work, you sign the blame.

Reason #15: It Becomes Your Identity, For Better or Worse

Like it or not, mechanical engineering becomes your label. At home you are the cousin who “knows machines,” the neighbor who “understands HVAC,” the friend who can “fix anything.” At work you are the ME, the default brain on call. The degree does not sit on a shelf, it walks in first and tells people what to expect from you before you open your mouth. See Reason #3.

This plays out most clearly in social interactions at work. Sales treats you like the resident egghead who can rescue any deal, then forgets to train you on the product. You are dropped into a customer call to solve a failure you have never seen, with test data you were not given, while the people who own the relationship go quiet. Support wants instant answers because you are the engineer, yet the ticket lacks photos, serial numbers, or even the right model. Technicians roll their eyes when you hesitate, they know the machine by smell and you know the drawing. Managers praise your “problem solving” in public, then route every petty decision to you in private because it is easier to forward an email to the ME than to fix a broken process.

The same thing happens inside the engineering group. The board is chosen, the software is set, suppliers are locked. Your social role is the closer, the caretaker. You move holes on drawings, call out threads, argue over a torque table, and rewrite test plans so the unit limps through vibration. Everyone thanks the engineer, then they return to their real jobs. Credit travels up, blame sticks sideways.

Outside the office the label keeps working. Relatives bring you lawn equipment. A neighbor asks you to “take a quick look” at a rattling furnace. You explain that engineering is not repair work, and the explanation does not land. Strangers are impressed, people near the work are relieved to hand you their mess. As you learned in Reason #1, a crowded market makes labels do more sorting and less listening, so the social shortcut hardens into your job description.

Try to pivot and the same dynamics show up. You talk about adaptability, they hear mechanical. You ask for ownership, they send you a markup file. Do they want your judgment, or just a mascot that makes the deck look technical?

Either way, the label stays while the person gets smaller.

Reason #14: You're a Custodian, Not an Innovator

Mechanical engineering sells a picture of sketchbooks, prototypes, and breakthroughs. What it delivers is quieter. The core decisions are made somewhere else, then you are invited in to make them fit. By the time you show up, the motor frame is fixed, the impeller diameter is set, the heat exchanger vendor is chosen, and the pipe schedule is locked. You inherit an assembly that needs bolt patterns shifted, thread callouts corrected, clearance cuts added, and a torque table that nobody agrees on. You will spend a week arguing about a gasket while the thing you are gasketing was designed without you.

Even when the company’s business is the product, the interesting work sits upstream with a small group you rarely see. Everyone else tends the margins. You will size fittings on the heat exchanger rather than design the heat exchanger. You will route a cable bundle around a bracket that arrived from a meeting you did not attend. You will write the change order that fixes the label that failed a compliance rule you learned about yesterday.

Packaging becomes the job. You will pick fasteners, juggle IP ratings and cost targets, and make sure the box survives vibration, water, heat, and legal. When a test fails, you will own the calendar and the paperwork, not the authority to fix the part that failed. When production calls, you will redesign for assembly until it feels like the original concept was approved by rumor.

The innovations that used to be mechanical moved elsewhere. Climate work tilts to chemical and civil. The energy transition celebrates electrical. Aerospace headlines belong to guidance and software. Robotics and AI reward code and compute. Mechanical shows up afterward to fasten the battery, quiet the plastic, and keep the fan from wobbling, see Reason 7. The work matters, yes, but it is not where the credit or the prestige lives.

The pipeline stays swollen, so roles get thin. Employers learn they do not need a theorist to move a hole pattern or clean up GD&T. They need someone who will keep the drawings current and the fixtures passable. That is why technician titles expand while engineer sounds more like permission to update the model, see Reason 1 and Reason 10.

If you pictured yourself shaping new machines, prepare to live in the margins of other people’s machines. You will make it fit, you will make it pass, and you will hand it off. Someone else will make the announcement. You will make the slide.

Reason #10: The Technician Learns What You Actually Need

As a mechanical engineering student, you slog through four to six years of coursework (see Reason #2). By your third year you are knee-deep in your third calculus-based physics class, your second chemistry class, and your fourth advanced analytical geometry course. Every semester is another round of abstract theory and endless problem sets, all under the promise that this suffering will someday make you an “engineer.”

Meanwhile, the people in mechanical engineering technology (MET) programs are living in a different world. In their two-year associate’s programs they are studying fluid power, PLC and industrial controls analysis, project management, and professional preparation. In other words, they are learning the actual tools and practices that industry expects.

And here’s the dagger: many of these programs are ABET-accredited too. That means their graduates hold the same “seal of quality” you spent years earning, only they got it faster, cheaper, and with more practical training. Employers know it. Which is why most employers, secretly and not-so-secretly, actually prefer technicians for the kinds of tasks and projects that dominate day-to-day engineering work.

Those tasks don’t look anything like your homework sets. They’re not thermodynamics derivations or finite element proofs. They are tolerance stack-ups, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, reading weld symbols, picking the right bolts and torque specs, and logging everything into ERP software so the next poor soul can trace it later. These are the things you’ll be thrown into cold on your first job, while the technician who came out of a two-year program has already been doing them for years.

If you’re an experienced engineer reading this, you might be fuming right now, remembering how you had to teach yourself GD&T or ladder logic at work while the technician next to you calmly adjusted a PID controller and clocked out on time. You brought the equations, they brought the credibility.

Mechanical engineers are supposed to have the prestige. But technicians have the preparation. And when it comes to getting hired and delivering results, preparation wins every time.

Reason #9: You Will Spend More Time in PowerPoint Than in Design

If you went into mechanical engineering because you imagined yourself sketching machines, building prototypes, and watching your ideas turn into reality, prepare to be disappointed. Your real job is PowerPoint.

The modern mechanical engineer is a project liaison, not an inventor. You will spend your days formatting slides for design reviews, writing emails to “align stakeholders,” and updating status trackers. The fraction of time spent on actual design is tiny, and even that design is usually about minor tweaks: a tolerance here, a bracket there, a material substitution for cost savings.

And here’s the kicker: the presentations matter more than the work itself. Managers and executives will never understand your analysis, but they will absolutely judge your slide deck. You will be told to “make it cleaner” or “add a bullet about risk mitigation.” You will learn to obsess more about fonts, margins, and color coding than about equations or mechanics.

This is not a minor nuisance. It is the job. The engineers who move up are the ones who can “communicate value to leadership,” which is code for make pretty PowerPoints. The ones who cling to technical depth get sidelined. The dirty secret of mechanical engineering is that most of your effort goes into non-technical labor that any mid-level manager could do.

By the time you realize this, you will laugh bitterly at the hours you once spent learning thermodynamics or machine design. You were trained for equations, but you were hired for slides.

Reason #8: Broadness Is a Liability

Mechanical engineering is advertised as the broadest degree. The pitch is that you can work in any industry, doing anything, because “everything is mechanical.” What they don’t tell you is that broadness is a trap. Employers don’t want someone who can do a little bit of everything. They want someone who has already done their very specific thing.

If your first job happens to be finite element analysis in ANSYS Mechanical, running vibration and fatigue loads on rotating equipment for the oil and gas industry, you had better hope your second job also involves ANSYS, vibration and fatigue, and rotating machinery in a heavy industrial setting. If instead the next opening is in Abaqus, analyzing thermal stresses on aerospace composites, your years of “experience” suddenly mean nothing. You are starting over as if you were fresh out of school.

Every career guide will tell you the same thing: the fastest way to advance in pay and seniority is to establish a specialization, to carve out a niche that makes you indispensable. Electrical engineers can spend an entire career mastering high-voltage systems or microchips. Chemical engineers can move from petroleum refining to pharmaceuticals with their process expertise intact. Software engineers who know Ruby on Rails, Python, or JavaScript frameworks can take that skill set to startups, Fortune 500s, finance firms, or tech giants. Their experience compounds.

Mechanical engineers? They fight to explain how their last job using SolidWorks on an HVAC duct system qualifies them to use CATIA on an aircraft bracket. The supposed broadness of their degree means their experience doesn’t transfer neatly, and every career move looks like a reinvention.

This is the bitter reality: broadness means disposability. It makes you look unfocused, even when you are trying to specialize. It forces you to restart with every career move. The “generalist” pitch is a lie. In the real world, the specialists win.

Reason #7: Innovation Is Happening Elsewhere

Mechanical engineering once drove the world forward. The steam engine, the automobile, the jet turbine, and the refrigerator were all mechanical marvels. But those breakthroughs are ancient history now. The mechanical age has already come and gone, and today’s breakthroughs are happening everywhere else.

Climate change? That is chemical and civil. Chemical engineers are designing carbon capture systems and synthetic fuels while civil engineers are rebuilding cities for floods, fires, and storms. The energy transition? Electrical engineers are redesigning power grids and building the batteries and drivetrains that dominate the headlines. Aerospace engineers are perfecting drones, reusable rockets, and hypersonic jets. Software and computer engineers are writing the code that runs robotics and AI.

Mechanical engineers? They design the brackets that hold the battery in place. They make sure the plastic casing does not rattle and the cooling fan does not wobble. The work is necessary, yes, but it is not where the excitement or prestige lives.

The cruel irony is that mechanical engineering still markets itself as “the broadest” discipline, a foundation for innovation. In reality, broadness means irrelevance when the core problems have already been solved. We can already move fluids, rotate shafts, and compress gases. Humanity does not need another redesign of the centrifugal pump.

For many of us who studied mechanical engineering, this is a bitter realization to admit. We went in believing we would shape the future. Instead, we discovered that the future was being built somewhere else, and our role was reduced to fastening, packaging, and supporting the real work.

If you are looking to shape the future, you will not find it in mechanical engineering. The profession clings to its past glories while the real breakthroughs belong to others. What is left for MEs is maintenance, packaging, and support. Everyone else gets to innovate.

Reason #3: Prestige among strangers, pity among engineers

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