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What do engineers do

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Jon’s Answer

Hey Saban,

Rick's answer did a good job of summing up engineering however, engineers may often do more than just build things/products across different disciplines.

Engineers at their core are scientists, and use the scientific method to engage in problem solving and day to day activities. These activities may include building/prototyping as Rick said, but can also involve testing, research, brainstorming, design, and communicating with teams to achieve set goals.

If you enjoy solving problems and/or have strong math and science skills, engineering can be a very rewarding career path. If you don't yet have these skills, but are still interested, you can certainly get there with enough hard work and determination - don't be discouraged!

Best of luck!
Jon
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Jon’s Answer

The type of work an engineer does can vary greatly across many discipline, fields, and industries. However, one theme that can be seem throughout Engineers is that they are problem solvers who use critical thinking to solve any issues their company is having. They are very results orientated. Some benefits of becoming an Engineer is that they are always in demand and there is a wide variety of jobs, roles, and opportunities that you can pursue. To be successful as an Engineer, it is important that you develop strong math, science, and critical thinking skills.
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Hassan’s Answer

That very much depends on the type of engineer. Here are some high level categories: Mechanical, Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Management, and Geotechnical, and there are tons of different subcategories under each. https://typesofengineeringdegrees.org/ has a good list of 40 different degree programs.
Thank you comment icon Another good link! Rick Merritt
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John’s Answer

Check this site out as well. www.bls.gov/ooh

Just search for engineering and most will show up and each will provide many details about each type of engineering. Then feel free to ask us more questions.
Thank you comment icon Good link! Rick Merritt
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Leslie’s Answer

Whether or not software development is "engineering" can be controversial, but seeing Computer Science is often included in the Engineering Departments, I'll chime in with my experiences as a Software Engineer.

Software Engineering, of course, consists mainly of programming as your main focus, but the development process also includes many other aspects:
- Design: Nailing down the functional requirements of your product is key to success; who are your customers/users, what are their biggest pain points? After deciding what functionality you need to implement, you need to consider the architecture supporting your system. Researching what technologies are you going to use as well as considering the scale and performance of your software is the foundation upon which your implementation will rest.

- Implementing: Once you have designed your APIs/functionality and decided on your implementation strategy, a large majority of your time will be taken by the actual implementation of the code. This requires you to have a solid understanding of your code base and a strong grasp of basic software development principles, from algorithms to design patterns.

- Testing: This is arguably the most important part of the phase of the cycle, because no matter how careful you are in implementing, bugs and unforeseen circumstances always appear. Testing includes not only making sure your code works when everything goes right, but also how your code behaves when things go wrong (what happens if a server dies? How does your product behave when it receives 1,000 requests all at once? How does your code behave if a malicious user tries to send malformed requests?)
- Deployment: Depending on your team/company, you might also be in charge of the deployment cycle of your code. This includes concepts such as what infrastructure you use, automation tools, etc.

This is just a small sampling of things you might encounter as a software engineer!
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Pritesh’s Answer

Agreed to the answers provided above. An Engineering position is very exciting and challenging at the same time. An Engineering position can vary on the "type" of Engineering responsibilities, for example I have the opportunity to lead a team of Sr. Solutions Engineers for Verizon where my team works closely with the Sales org. and customers to understand the customer telecommunication and business operations to see how we can unify their communications, provide security solutions, and extend their services using cellular technologies in order to conduct business from a mobility perspective. Once my team consults on the solutions, we work with customers and their technical resources to implement and integrate the solution. 
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Taylor’s Answer

This depends on what type of engineering your degree is in! For instance industrial typically works on improving operations from logistics to manufacturing. Anything that has a process or procedure to become more efficient. Mechanical engineering has wide variety of options, there is no a typical path. These can including working in a manufacturing facility, machine shop, an R&D engineer, becoming a product designer, product manager, etc. An electrical engineer also can do a wide variety of jobs. Become an R&D engineer, work on both hardware and software design, embedded systems, product designer, etc.
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Ashford’s Answer

Along with the skills like problems solving and troubleshooting you learn as a engineer, there are many types of jobs you can take with an engineering degree. You don’t always have to physically build stuff. You can do work in software/hardware engineering, manufacturing, R&D, testing, field servicing, technical documentation, sales, teaching, management, etc. Many options that don’t include just building.
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Kevin’s Answer

Well...they over analyze everything...just kidding. As you have probably read by now, they're are many different disciplines in the field of engineering and that list of disciplines is only getting longer. Engineers are involved in anything from building bridges over bays to designing/programming computer software, etc.. The engineers discipline, whether it be electrical, mechanical, chemical, industrial, etc. will ultimately determine what professional fields/careers will be open to them.
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Rajesh’s Answer

Engineers build and solve real customer problems, irrespective which industry vertical that is, the base line engineering training trains you more then the bookish knowledge, it gives thinking and analytical skills and problem solving agility and ability, and that is the key for success, from vision, conceptualization to design to proto type to mass production at scale
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Rick’s Answer

In short, engineers build stuff.

These days that work often happens on the computer using special programs that run simulations.

Depending on the kind of engineer you are you may make computers, buildings, jet engines or whatever you can imagine.

In any of these fields you'll need to know a fair amount of math and science. You'll need to be good with computers. Engineers are often people who like to think about how things work.
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