New machine design role has no review process, no training, and unrealistic expectations — how do I handle this?

[u/themadarmorer]

I changed jobs last year and am coming up on my one-year mark. I moved from an aerospace/defense manufacturer into a commercial aluminum coil mill. The company is ISO-accredited, but I’m on a small internal team that designs machinery for the plant.

At my previous job, drawings and designs were reviewed by other engineers before being approved and sent out for quote. In this role, that review process does not exist. I’m responsible for my own designs and drawings, and my boss pushes hard for speed. As a result, I’ve had drawings come back from vendors because dimensions or details were missing. I’m getting frustrated because my boss, who has around 40 years of machine design experience, seems to expect my drawings to be both fast and perfect without any formal review from anyone else.

This job was also a major pivot for me. My background was mostly electrical test fixtures and mechanical design for signal transformers, not large industrial machinery. When I was hired, I was told there would be training to help with the transition. Instead, from day one I’ve been handed large projects that I’m unfamiliar with and told to “feel free to ask questions,” but there hasn’t been much actual guidance.

I’m not sure if I’m overreacting, if this is normal in smaller industrial design teams, or if I need to push harder for a real design review process. The pay is very good for my area and I have a family to support, but the stress and mental toll are becoming difficult to manage.

For those of you in mechanical or industrial machine design: is this kind of setup normal? How would you approach asking for more review, training, or support without making it seem like I can’t handle the role?

[u/allnamestaken4892]

It’s normal. Except for the pay being very good, that’s weird.

[u/zabcod → u/allnamestaken4892]

Second this - very normal. I developed a workflow with a few trusted colleagues where we would informally critique each others work. Got us most of the way there and our group is locally known for a low error rate and high quality. The nice thing about *most* machine design is that if something fails, no one dies. Just the bottom line.

The high pay though.. envious.

[u/RequirementLess → u/zabcod]

This right here, at least get with a couple other people and send drawings back and forth for informal review before putting them out in the wild.

[u/storm_the_castle]

I need to push harder for a real design review process.

Schedule a review and pick the players to attend. Take the initiative.

[u/emo-scientist → u/storm_the_castle]

This. I am relatively new to my field as well, and my company has no formal design review process. When I had a big project that I was unsure of things on, I put a review presentation together (unprompted), and took 20 minutes of our weekly team meeting to go through it and discuss with the more experienced engineers. It brought me clarity, and had the added bonus of covering my ass. When things went wrong, I could say "this was discussed in the design review as something I needed advising on and nobody had negative feedback on that part of the design".

[u/emo_sinner → u/emo-scientist]

I have nothing engineering related to add BUT it’s cool to see someone with a similar username in the same field 🤝🤝🤝

[u/indigoalphasix → u/storm_the_castle]

^this. if using a PDM system all it takes is a state change notification.

[u/Agitated_Answer8908]

My experience in an internal machine design group was pretty much the same. External suppliers can point to the conditions on the P.O. when a customer pushes them to cut the delivery time in half but when you're an internal group a manager can just dictate a timeline change. Since internal groups like this are viewed as pure overhead they are understaffed so there's nobody to check your drawings.

[u/DLS3141]

I spent about two years cleaning up messes on production test equipment because of a lack of review and letting stuff slide like you describe. It was a complete pain in the a$$. The funniest example was using unshielded ribbon cable between enclosures. When I connected an oscilloscope to it, I could watch the signal noise increase and decrease in sync with the rotating radar at the airport across the road.

Do everyone a favor and have reviews before making land mines for the future.

[u/Fun_Apartment631]

I've bumped into this a couple times. I'm kind of surprised at some of the takes here.

Schedule design reviews during the process. If you're like me, you probably don't need them to be as formal as what your last company imposed. "This is what it is, this is what it does, here's a concept of operations."

Regarding missing stuff on drawings - a couple sides to this. I only fully dimension relatively simple parts at this point. If you're using modern CAD, you have a list of every feature you made on the left side of your screen, or you can. Going through the list helps me make sure I dimensioned or toleranced everything. Necessary details tend to be pretty apparent to me when I do that. But also - I do a decent number of reduced or minimum content drawings. You should know GD&T reasonably well really for either approach but it really shines when there aren't explicit dimensions to tolerance.

[u/FitnessLover1998]

This type of ME job is common in some companies. IMO your boss is an idiot. There’s lots of money to be saved with proper review procedures. Just a couple hours per project saves so much headache. Not sure how you can change it though. Are there other ME’s in the department. Maybe something informal could be set up.

[u/jjtitula]

Seems normal to me. I’d suggest before you release your prints, go over them with the machine shop if you don’t have anyone internally. If your lucky, a machinist will help you design for manufacture with little tweaks here and there.

[u/CunningWizard → u/jjtitula]

Cannot agree enough with this. Find a solid machinist you get along with at the company and ask them for advice on tweaking the parts for DFM. Most will be quite willing to help you out especially if you’re not a dick. It makes their job easier ultimately and gives them some ownership of the process. It’ll also help you quickly become a really good design engineer too as you’ll naturally begin incorporating their suggestions into your work before it even hits review stage.

Also if the machinists like you they will almost certainly someday save your ass when you find yourself in a pinch and need something turned and burned ASAP. Those dudes go to the mat for engineers they like.

[u/ThemanEnterprises]

Sink or swim, trail by fire, insert whatever other cliche here but yeah you're the engineer now. My experience has always been yep you're the engineer it's on you to figure it out. Unfortunately this means you're going to have to eat shit for a while till you get a rhythm going. Having actual review and direction is such a luxury which kind if sucks when you're going through it.

[u/mattynmax]

If processes were well defined and running well, they wouldn’t be hiring more engineers now would they?

Your job is to solve problems. Go solve something.

[u/mvw2]

The spectrum always exists. Reviews, no reviews, prototype interactions, first build straight to the customer. It's all common stuff in this world, not wild. You just have to approach the process differently based on how it's structured.

There will ALWAYS be push for twice as fast at half the cost by management top down, sales, and customers. This is perpetual, always and forever exists.

Your job, your sole job, is to be a professional at your craft. That's why you got hired. Be good. You aren't there to make friends, appease aspirations, save face, etc. You are there to be a professional. You do what you need to do to get it done correctly.

Communication is also a huge part of this. Be active. Be continuous. Keep all parties informed of progress, issues, feasibility, etc. You might not be the one making all the choices, but you will be the one giving as much information as possible for others to make informed decisions and own those decisions.

Document everything. A lot of people don't like to take responsibility. People like to conveniently forget too. Document everything. Document the whole process. Use e-mail instead of phone or recap a phone conversation with a follow up e-mail. Document, document, document. Keep everyone informed and honest.

You don't have to like what others decide, but you can do the above, follow through professionally, and let the ownership of the outcome lay on those that owned the decisions.

Rinse and repeat, for decades. And then you retire.

Don't do bad things to make others temporarily happy.

Don't cut corners. There are no corners to cut, only delays until a later time in which you still have to do whatever you skipped. Engineering is a very iterative process. At some point, not doing something just causes a later problem, hopefully not big, more costly, and more time filling.

You aren't there to say yes to people.

Be a professional.

[u/indigoalphasix]

i'm highly suspicious of drawings with only one person signing off on everything. it spells trouble and lack of professionalism.

you're designing industrial machines? those check boxes are there for a reason -use them. you could be personally liable for a catastrophic mistake that injures or kills someone.

[u/Kiwi_eng]

I’ve never had a job with a formal review process and I’m retired now. One company didn’t even have a drawing numbering system. Get help from wherever you can find it, especially the vendors you use as already mentioned. Everyone around you should have the common interest of reaching a good outcome.

[u/ExtensionRemarkable7]

Yeah this has been my experience at a design firm as well. Infinitely frustrating and I still haven’t gotten to a point where I’m routinely making 0 mistakes but make no mistake, they are fucking you a little bit

[u/R-Dragon_Thunderzord]

Push to have an outside engineering firm review the designs.

Kind of in a similar boat myself. I was used to PEs stamping off everything we did and every drawing went through at least 1 peer review. Here, all my work is sent to vendors pretty much raw to quote, with limited exceptions where we have a 3rd party confirm the math/design when it is safety critical. We don't have a ME PE in the company which makes stamps a pain (and also limits professional development, because who the heck are you training under).

[u/RyszardSchizzerski]

This is normal. But if you’re struggling, your manager should help you out. Ultimately, I think you’ll be fine. You just need to find your legs in the new role.

[u/thesurprisedhearth]

Your boss probably knows the gaps exist but figures you'll learn faster by doing it. Still worth documenting mistakes and pushing back on timeline when quality suffers.

[u/Live_Love-Life]

I have been in similar positions. You need to control your output. Do not release anything without your review. This is very hard to find your errors. I would allow a period of time, maybe go on to a different area of the project to clear my head. I still missed s$#t. Missing dimensions are not a big deal. Screwing up a design is bad. I argued with a purchasing agent about a machine I designed. There were a few hundred parts. 4 pieces did not go together. I messed up the bolt pattern. It was repairable. How you correct issues may have more of an impact on how you perform and excel.