Engineer (M30) here, have been working in the electronics engineering field for several years doing circuit/hardware design at top-tier semiconductor companies.
I'm gonna go off on a lil rant here, so apologies…
I can't take it anymore. It's not that engineering is difficult or boring, I actually do audio/guitar electronics design as a hobby.
It's just that I genuinely do not give a shit as most of my co-workers or managers do about the product, health or vision of these billion dollar corporations. The degree to which these folks are married to their roles frankly disgusts me to the core, and it doesn't help that my attitude is heavily mismatched against theirs. I'm just trying to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly and have been successly faking my care for too long.
The company culture, the ping pong tables, the enthusiasm over a new part release, just why… Why are you so excited to put more money into the pockets of shareholders and CEOs when all you got was a 2-3% raise? Why? Why is your sense of self and esteem so tied to the company, role and vision? And I gotta sit here and be judged for not sharing the same level of excitement and dedication?
Co-worker literally told me: “you gotta learn to be a rockstar engineer. To be a rockstar engineer, you gotta be willing to do work over the weekends and tackle company problems as fast as possible for the sake of it”
??????
Are you high sir? Am I in a company full of kiss-ass honor students? What bubble did I just enter? Is this what these FAANGish employees are like?
I'm really sorry for the rant, but I just wanted to express this and let it out of my system. I'm gonna spend a couple more years at this company so that I don't look like a job hopper and then eventually go back to defense. Defense is boring, it's legacy, it's bland but at least every engineer is aware of it and collectively doesn't give a shit; the “work to live” folks, my kinda people. They know it's stable, comes with fixed hours, and that's there's a life outside of the cubicle and lab.
Thanks for listening.