Hi Blind, I've been interested in getting into consumer product design for a while, but never got a chance to intern/take college specific classes. I've had a couple interviews before at Apple but never got past the first few rounds. Is anyone here able to chat about how they broke into Big Tech for consumer product design or provide recs for resources on the skills required (gd&t, injection molding, fixture/tooling design, etc)? TC: 140k YOE: 1 #apple #google #amazon #meta #occulus #uber #lyft
For mechanical faang is 10x harder than it is for SWEs without related experience. I spent a looong time trying. Most of the advice I got was to get consumer electronics exp at another smaller company and then go for faang. I said fuck that and switched to SWE
Are you staying with SWE permanently? I feel like I don't have the interest/patience to start over like that :(
Yea I enjoyed SW stuff and had achieved stuff that I wanted to do in ME so decided to just full switch. Depending on your experience you might have an easier time. My biggest hurdle was my lack of design and stress analysis work. My role was a lot of mechanical systems engineering, data analysis, and airplane system failure analysis. I hadn’t touched CAD in 4 years and never did stress analysis professionally, so it made things harder for me
How do you make 140k with 1 YOE with ME degree and you're not at a FAANG?
Seems mostly luck. Just happened to get a good offer and negotiated (from a growing company???)
Yeah you got very lucky, 140k is senior level here(at a world famous litho company, so 3+MS, realistically 4 or 5), for jobs in MCOL West Coast.
MechE here. I'm not in consumer design but there's opportunities in cloud HW and definitely mechanical sourcing for consumer products. I got in big tech through Supply Chain, but once you're in it should be a fairly reasonable shift to move into a consumer product in big tech.
What was it like interviewing/getting into supply chain at Microsoft? I know a few MechE guys here in SCM but doesn't seem like they get to do much mechE besides DFM/cost reduction feedback.
I'm not doing MechE stuff at all, but I didn't want to, so my specific role might not be the best for you. But there are other roles in SC that are more mechE like cloud HW, which can be datacenter design/optimization, or things with DC parts, but I honestly don't know too much. Interviews for MechE positions may include a technical assessment that varies based on role and your skills.
Product design is very different from mechanical design. It's more of an art than science. It isn't impossible though. You should plan for the transition by putting together a portfolio. Follow some hw product designers on LinkedIn and see how they showcase their work.
Here is my journey: started in automotive as a quality engineer intern and hated the repetition and minimal impact to drive good design. Transitioned into design engineering at a less reputable company to get the experience. After 1.5 years I realized purely mechanical systems were boring so I changed departments and started designing infotainment systems for another 1.5 years. That’s when I decided to jump from automotive to consumer electronics. After 2 years of experience in consumer electronics (5 years total) I got serious about my fundamentals and spent 2 months reviewing textbook concepts that had gotten foggy. After 5 interviews got a role within FAANG designing future products. If your an ME here’s a quick list of fundamentals you need to know: - Beam bending - Max sheer, moment, and displacement diagrams for different scenarios - Modulus of electricity for Al and Steel - Stress strain graph - Stiffness VS hardness - Plating methods, and benefits - basics of plastic injection molding, stamping, die casting The list goes on and on. The process became much more fun when I genuinely became more interested in learning the fundamentals than just getting a cool job. Enjoy the ride - in the end a job, big salary etc. won’t make you happy anyway. 🙂
Thanks Lenovo. This is super reassuring and a good reminder that process > result. I'd love to PM you sometime if youre open to talk about study tips.
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What’s there reason apple didn’t work out? Of the well-paying, big tech companies, they need the most MEs.
Never got real feedback but I assume lack of industry experience/not strong enough fundamentals