tl;dr:
My 'new grad' job is very underwhelming, shows no signs of changing. I'm doing some reading and making some moves to try and fix my situation, but I also want to complain out loud.
Let's bitch about corporate work being a joke.
So, for quick professional background:
- I worked calibration when I was enlisted in the military
- I worked calibration for a pharma company before I got my degree
- I worked as a refurbish/recert tech in school
– which is to say that I've been doing quality-based stuff for a while before my current job. I got a bachelor's in electrical engineering and did some software work, aiming to land a decent position in engineering somewhere.
I picked up this job after graduation, titled “software quality engineer” and as it turns out, it's pretty lame. I don't actually work on the software, and I don't actually engineer anything. I just run the apps, push the buttons, and tell the devs if it works or not. I've pointed out that I want to do engineering work at all my manager one-on-one meetings. I've applied to a lot of internal positions or developer jobs. I get the usual ghosting from recruiters and hiring managers, and even people I work directly with don't offer much more than mights and maybes.
A few points from some of those manager meetings:
- I've pointed that titling this position with “engineer” is misleading, since there is no design work involved.
- My manager has acknowledged my history in quality-type jobs, they're aware of my skill set.
Those two points got me thinking:
If I have quality history, why am I an entry level tester? If I'm an entry level engineer, why am I not engineering anything? It's beginning to sound to me like I was just snookered into a lower slot because it was my first “big” job out of school and I didn't know how to pull the right details out of the interview. It's doubly frustrating since the market is crap and getting into different work is very difficult right now, more so because for the last two years, I haven't been doing any work that applies to an engineering resume. I'm effectively trapped in this position now.
I want to bring this up at my next meeting, since I'm legit upset about it, but I don't imagine it will do any good. In fact, I suspect it will likely just move me up the list of people to fire sooner rather than later. The pay for the job is fine – in all honesty – and I, of course, need to keep paying my bills, so I can't exactly walk out without another job lined up (see above paragraph). Still, it doesn't keep up with the cost of living for where they require me to commute, and it doesn't seem to offer any actual opportunities to advance or do any real work.
I've been looking for a new job since about six months into this one. Nothing has come up so far, and I'm not sure if I should stick this out until the bridge burns or just walk and take my chances.