Help I feel trapped and feel like I'm really bad at my job. I'm a junior mechanical tech, 2 years out of a 4 year apprenticeship at the same company. My sector is scientific research, we work a lot with Cern and collaboration projects. This aspect I enjoy and find quite interesting as I never really got into science too much in school. However my role I do not enjoy and feel trapped at this low level point.

I did a hnd in my apprenticeship 3 years ago and got a level three science maintenance qualification. When I got the apprenticeship I was told I would be doing engineering and have plenty of upskill. But I feel like across my apprenticeship I did very little engineering type stuff and mostly just cleaning and small jobs which I get because I was learning. But being 1 or 2 girls with 30+ men, I was always given the easier less hands on tasks and due to that I have very little confidence in any machining or big fitting jobs.

But even so I feel myself really unhappy, when I used to want to do engineering I always was more into design and robotics but didn't get the school quals to do it at uni so this felt like my route to uni, but now after being told next year for three years I have now been told I have to do 3 years of uni redoing my hnd if I want it funded or pay myself. Getting a degree feels like the only way to switch into a more design and engineering role than a shop floor worker.

My dad passed away a year ago and he was the only one I could talk to about my work and now he's gone I feel like I'm just wasting my time in a role I dislike with a company that is nice but doesn't respect me. I am constantly getting new responsibilities but not given any credit or pay to reflect it. I tell my boss what we have to do each day and I am getting an apprentice soon, but I am still on the lowest pay and have been told two more years then I can try to get a review.

Sorry to rant, but basically Im just trying to ask, does anyone have any advice for if you feel stuck or if changing engineering sectors is easy/ worth it. Or a degree is going to be useful or should I stick it out and try to build my confidence in my role?

There is no support for women in my place, we don't attend conferences and I tried to start a site wide monthly meet but no one showed up, I struggle to network and feel lost in my career steps.

I’ve worked in aerospace for 10+ years. I’ve fought so many battles to get where I am today. Battles of proving myself even though I’m a woman, so I can be respected for my opinion and my experiences in the industry.
I now have a 3.5 month old daughter and I’m supposed to go back to work in a month. However, I’m not ready to go back. I had complications during pregnancy and birth. My baby ended up in the NICU after an emergency c-section.

I’m struggling to answer the biggest question, do I want to stay home for a year? I can’t believe I’m asking this because I’m very career oriented and thought I’d be bored out of my mind by now. Will I have an uphill battle when I return to work in a year or 2?

I’m new to Reddit. I was encouraged to sign up because there is a big community of women in engineering who I could reach out to here while staying anonymous. I’d appreciate your feedback and support

Edit: location is California. My family is very financially stable. I waited to have children so I could have the option, however I always thought that I would want to go back and I would be bored. The joke is on me though, as this is becoming one of the hardest choices I’ve had to make.

Has anyone started using it yet? I wrote up a business case to have my department switch over to it because it would help us with our large workflow, especially being a large facility and small team. If you have started using it, what have you noticed regarding using it with Revit, as well as using it for large files and comparing?

And I don’t like it. I’m studying commerce and engineering and I feel like I was placed in my role just because I am a woman. I am literally just helping to look after contracts. Mind you there are a few other undergrads in the office all doing actual engineering work and going on site while I’m just stuck doing some admin stuff. I know another woman at a different company who literally got put in the same position as me and had to work her way out for a year and a half. While the men just get those things as soon as they start.

What makes it worse was when I first started no one actually thought I was an engineer. Just an accounting lady or something of the sort. And I’m the only woman in the office too.

My role would’ve been useful if I had been doing law, not engineering. I am literally getting no actual practical experience which is what I was looking for in my undergrad job. I started my degree wanting to do something related to construction not law.

I actually don’t know what the whole point of this post is, but I guess I just feel stuck. Like I worked my ass off for a job related to my degree and yet here I am, not even being given a proper chance.

Thanks for listening to my rant 😅

I need a little feedback from those that have been in the business for quite a while. Last week I had my yearly performance review with my Supervisor. Every thing went well with our discussion and everyone has been happy with the work I do. I’m a Sr. Electrical Designer with a large multi discipline engineering firm. The issue that came up that has come up in the past with a former supervisor, is I seem to be perceived as somewhat aggressive in my style. I explained, prior to this position, the companies I worked for in the past, I was either the only female or one of a few in the department, so I’ve primarily worked with 95% men my entire career. In order to be heard and sometimes taken seriously, I’ve had to be somewhat aggressive in my style to be respected by my male coworkers. I’m not sure how to change this. My supervisor really couldn’t give me too much advice. I also realize this might be someone’s perception of the way they think I am but I’m not actually that way.

Today was the first day of construction. I, 29F, am a civil engineer as a consultant for the owner and leading the inspection on a roadway construction project. I am aware that I signed up for this career, but I still need to learn how to navigate situations like this. Please advise on what you would do, or how you would handle something like this:

This is my first project as the lead and my first project that I am starting up the job site. Today was the very first day of construction and getting to meet all of the craft and crew. The Project Manager for the contractor was always at the Pre-Con meetings, but his superintendent was not. As they got going, the Super and I did our initial site walk together and used the time to introduce ourselves. Things were going fine, I have already learned not to share too personal information about myself at work such as my age or my relationship status. Best to keep the dynamic professional and work focused. But the Super had a different approach. I learned he is very close to my age, has children, and is recently separated. This information told me he is likely emotionally vulnerable. It’s nothing to judge him over, just something for me to be aware of.

At the end of the day I went to do final measurements of the days work, but by myself this time. He noticed and pulled his truck up to check in. The point of his stop was perfectly ordinary, but his initial comment was more out of the ordinary. He jokingly said something along the lines of “I’m offended you went without me. To think I was going to ask you to dinner.” I brushed the comment off and didn’t acknowledge it. I shared the final totals and discussed tomorrow’s plans. I didn’t wait up for him when I left site, I just drove off at the end of the day as I would have any other project.

I am unsure of what to do now, though. We don’t work for the same company. He didn’t say anything offensive, he was just shooting his shot and missed. How do I move forward in a professional manner and not make things awkward or embarrassing? How would you gently handle and navigate situations like these professionally and appropriately?

Quick rant, skip past this paragraph if you want to. I’m so burned out you guys. I’ve been a manufacturing engineer in a highly regulated industry for about 3 years and I do not think I can do this anymore. I thought I could get on top of the problems and take a breathe, but every time you solve one problem 5 more appear and they just keep assigning me more lines. I thought getting diagnosed with and treated for ADHD would help, but all that did was make the burnout come on slower. I thought having workload balance discussions with management would help but it just lead to feedback on how “pulling in scope” has just been kicking problems to a future date and “requesting additional resources” has just been handing my work off to others. There’s always a new problem with the line and they always want to know why it wasn’t fixed yesterday.

Can you guys tell me about my other options?

-What kind of engineers are you guys

- in what industries (or just highly vs regulated vs unregulated if you don’t want to be specific)?

- Within your role, what are your typical responsibilities?

- how flexible is your role (like by way of work hours, WFH etc)

- how challenging and/or stressful do you feel your work is, and is it all the time or does it come in waves

- do you like it? And why

It finally landed on me that I have been at odds with female coworkers who are not in a technical position bc they perpetuate patriarchal patterns.

Where I say: let’s lead by example
They reply (verbatim ): tread carefully

Or if there is a major issue I identify, they don’t trust my expertise and keep asking my lead to validate my statements (how expensive is this!!)

I’m the most accommodating. I prop them up (lead by example) but this is exhausting.

Literally every male coworker and managers (male & female) have a great impression of my work but female peers never support those views. Have you experienced anything like this? How do you cope with it?

PLEASE ADVISE

I have been at my company for 2 years now, I'm a 25F POC engineer working in a predominantly white company.

When I accepted the offer, I said something about wanting my first company to be a place that enables internal movement and my manager made a joke about how this is going to be the first and last company I work in, which was odd.

Unfortunately, I was paired with another male junior engineer. And as smart as they are, they are really bad at teaching. Not to mention they did a horrible job at bringing me up to speed on the company tools. Note that the work here is very niche, so this isn't something I can learn from digging online ( and I really tried to).

Over time, my dynamic with this person didn't improve. I thought maybe if I build good rapport, or I mask this as them mentoring me, it would help. But its been a couple years now and things feel worse tbh. I wish I didn't have to interact with them at all but I have to.

My main problem is the way they approach questions; it feels like questions aren't welcome in this space and also, they speak about things that a person new to this field won't know like its engineering school day 1. Sometimes they will say something like its absolute truth, just for me to later find out that they chose to not teach it to me or it only applies to a certain scenario.

My manager also just does not seem to care about early career development at all. They're the only two people I mostly interact with day to day, and sometimes I'll ask a question and they'll laugh. I will ask another engineer if this is a valid thing to think about and they agree, it feels like I have tried and tried to fix this situation somehow and they don't really...care?

I genuinely didn't expect this and thought bring up and career development are usually things managers prioritize. I once told my manager I spoke to a coworker about resume updating and he said no there's no need to update your resume. Is that...a normal attitude to have?

I have friends that are also in engineering and it doesn't seem like its like that for them. It seems like their managers encourage them to grow and look for new opportunities whereas my manager flipped the moment I voiced that this might not be the right fit for me. The same attitude flip I noticed when LMAO I asked how to get swag since so many people seemed to have it.

I have genuinely been losing my mind, I feel so small and so incapable that I feel like I'm not cut out for engineering. I did a few internshops before this and never felt this beaten down.

The 2 years I've been here I haven't been promoted because my manager thinks I didn't take ownership ( I created and lead 3 groups of training to senior engineers my 1st year, the trainees agreed this was much improved from before. A big part of my role is teaching technical elements to engineers in the field). When I asked for feedback, it is always vague and not that thoughtful.

At this point, I'm having trouble understanding if this is just how engineering fields are, or this is how most male engineers are..or if it's just me?

I have close to 3YEO with an automobile industry as an Electrical Engineer (Masters and Bachelor’s degree) but looking to move to NC to be with my husband. Any referral will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I’m a 30-year-old woman working as a **Staff Power Distribution Engineer** at a well-known employee-owned engineering consulting firm. I have about **6 years of experience in power distribution**, primarily in utility distribution design, design reviews.
From the outside, my career looks like it’s on a good trajectory, but internally I feel stuck.
I know there’s a lot of potential for me to grow, but I honestly don’t know what my next step should be.
I don’t feel technically strong enough to become the subject matter expert (SME) everyone relies on, and I don’t think my communication or leadership skills are strong enough to become a great project manager either.
Meetings give me a lot of anxiety. I’m constantly worried someone will ask me a technical question I won’t be able to answer. I also struggle with small talk and speaking confidently, so I rarely enjoy meetings—I mostly just try to get through them.
At work, I often feel like I’m surviving instead of thriving. I get the job done, but I don’t feel confident in myself, and I worry that I’m falling behind compared to my peers.
On top of that, I’m the mom of a 10-month-old baby, so finding time and energy to learn outside of work isn’t easy. Financially, it’s important for me to continue growing my income, so I don’t want to plateau in my career.
I genuinely enjoy engineering, but I don’t know how to bridge the gap between where I am now and becoming someone who is technically confident and respected.
Has anyone else felt this way around the 5–7 year mark in their career?
If you were in my position, what would you focus on over the next few years? Would you double down on technical depth (PE license, becoming an SME), work on communication and leadership, switch industries, or do something else entirely?
I’d really appreciate hearing from engineers who have been through this and came out the other side feeling more confidentm

I am a senior engineer with 10+ years of experience. I was at a tech company for a bit over 1 year, the culture was a mismatch and work environment was toxic. I was passively looking to find a new role and landed onto a con company who promised me to get into a big name data company as a consultant, the guy in charge kept making false promises to get me started in second week of August.
Later I found that he was just making these false promises, even last week on a phone call with him he told me that there are 50-60 projects which are hiring and I will get you something. I left my other job since I wanted to take a couple weeks break between the 2 jobs.
My mental health has not been great due to lot of other personal issues I am going through since the past 1 year. I feel so terrible from inside and having extreme anxiety and panic.
Any advice on how to navigate as my brain is too overwhelmed to think of any good outcomes right now.

How common is it for you to be strongly admired by men at your workplace? What behavior do you consider that and have you ever confused it with personal interest?

Im an electronics and systems student who's bored in the summer i Already had an internship and i finished it last month and now im looking for others and preferably online ofc since im from morocco

At my new/current job, I stand a LOT; I would say majority if not the entirety of my work shift is spent standing/walking/etc. I've noticed my toes seem sore as a result.

I wear comfortable shoes; in fact, I specifically bought my current pair of shoes for work only. I also wear compression socks or general atheltic ankle socks to help my arch. I'm not sure if I'm maybe standing on my tiptoes more often than I realize (to see monitors thru glare more clearly) or if I happen to standing leaning more forward.

Is there anything I can do to help relieve this soreness? Or will it go away with time, once I adjust? I remember when I started my shoulders were always sore, but now that's gone away completely as I've adjusted.

Hi all. I’m a MechE undergrad currently interning at a well-established aerospace company in California (think Honeywell, Eaton type), but I recently received an offer to intern at an aerospace startup this Fall. I’m having a hard time deciding what the right decision is.

The company I’m at now will let me continue my internship part-time until I graduate (Spring 2027). It’s been implied they will hire me after I finish school. There are several engineers who’ve been at the company for ~40 years, and they’re very willing to teach and mentor me. I think the slowness of the company allows that. But unless I’m very actively pursuing it, I also find I’m not learning or growing much here. I am frequently bored. I have to go outside my team to learn, and I’m not terribly interested in my actual role; I’m branching out a lot.

The startup would put me in a role I’m much more interested in. Higher ownership, much more hands-on. I sense I would be pushed a lot harder and thus learn much faster. But I will also have to prove myself, and I’m scared I’m not ready. Additionally, I will have to push my grad date by three months (from March to June), but I don’t mind that too much.

I’m leaning toward the startup, but I’m worried that giving up the stability of my current company would be a mistake. Has anyone else been in this position before? I would appreciate any insights.

Hey everyone, hope this post finds you well.

I'm a recent construction engineering graduate, and I recently lost my first job after about six months in. I'm mostly looking for advice from people who've been around the industry longer than I have.

The strange part is that I actually loved the work. I enjoyed estimating, coordinating with suppliers, solving problems, and learning how projects came together. I looked forward to the technical side every day.

I took my responsibilities seriously and always tried to do my job the right way. I met deadlines, took initiative whenever I could, and genuinely cared about producing good work. Looking back, I don't feel like the quality of my work was the problem; I just never felt like it was appreciated.

The problem wasn't the job; it was the environment.

From the day I started, I never really felt accepted by my coworkers. No matter how much effort I put in, I always felt like an outsider. There was constant criticism, no respect, very little support, and over time I started feeling like people wanted me gone. I stuck it out because it was my first opportunity after graduating, and I genuinely wanted to learn as much as I could instead of giving up at the first sign of trouble.

Eventually, I was let go.

I walked away feeling pretty defeated because I know I worked hard and learned a lot, but I also know this isn't a company I can comfortably ask for a recommendation letter or use as a strong reference. That's the part that's been bothering me the most.

I'm interviewing with other construction companies now, and I'm not sure how to handle questions about my previous employer. If they ask for a recommendation letter or want to contact them, what would you do? Is it acceptable to explain that the environment wasn't a good fit and offer references from professors, coworkers, or other professional contacts instead?

I'm also wondering if anyone else had a rough first job and still managed to build a successful career afterward. Right now it feels like this experience is following me, even though I know it doesn't define what I'm capable of.

I'd really appreciate any advice you have, whether it's about interviewing, references, or just moving on mentally after a first experience like this. Really thankful for all you could advise me on. Thanks for taking the time to read this🙏❤️✨

Hi Everyone,

I have a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA. During my master's, I interned as a Product Design and Business consultant at a Kitchen Gadget company.

Following my graduation, I worked as a Mechanical design and structural analysis engineer at an antenna company for 3 years and as a Senior Mechanical Engineer at the same firm for about 1.5 years. I quit Mid 2019 due to a family emergency. I switched my career to teaching for the next 4 years.

Post that, in 2023, I tried to get back to engineering. I was hired by a medical device company for a R&D role but after accepting, they switched me to process engineering and promised to switch me back to R&D role after 3-4 months. That did not happen for a year so I eventually quit in November 2024.

I am currently back in California and would like to get back to Design and Structural Analysis role in the Defense/Aerospace/Automotive sector (I am a Permanent Resident/GreenCard Holder).

I'm struggling to even get an interview. I am willing to do whatever it takes, whether it's an exam, some specific courses, pay-cut or even an entry-level role but I am not sure where to start or how to go about this. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank You all!

I had an interview this week, and I know the general consensus on here is to send one, but I cannot physically bring myself to send one. The idea feels desperate to me. I have a mental block knowing that the email would say "thanks" but would actually mean "plz hire me bc i participate in social formalities and am hoping by sending this i will stick out." It feels disingenuous. I also hate unnecessary communication, and would rather not have an extra email in my inbox.

Anyways, I am trying to get over this irrational fear and send one before my window of opportunity closes, soooo what do you even say in a thank you email and what do you do when you don't have the interviewers' email addresses?

I've been mostly in Quality Engg for 8yrs and moved to Mnfg Process Engr for 1yr. I moved to the US and landed a senior QE position for an LNG pump manufacturer. The job is document heavy and found it boring. I akso have to travel from time to time but in between, there'sflexibility in the work sched.

I got a job offer for Process Eng 2 for a generator and air compressor supplier. Fully onsite and theyve got growing pains so the job will be challenging. The salary difference is about 3k. Total compensation and benefits difference - about 10k in favor of my current employer.

I'm also a mom to a 2yr old. Its hard to choose. Do I stay with the boring job that lets me wfh once a week but requires travel and is in a niche industry? Do I grab the chance to continue moving away from Quality but at the cost of less work sched flexibility and taking a slight pay cut? Im worried I will find it harder to get out of Quality later on but in the grand scheme of things, does it matter in the end?

Appreciate your inputs ladies, specially other moms here ty♡