Mechanical engineering is an important, lucrative and intrinsically rewarding field. Engineers associated with this field must have the sound theoretical and practical knowledge to pave the way for a rewarding career and thrive through their projects and jobs.
If we talk about mechanical engineering disciplines, it ranges from developing tiny mechanical robots to the spacecraft landing on mars. Here, we will discuss specific job skills necessary to make your carrier successful as a mechanical engineer in today’s environment.
According to a U.S. News survey, the median salary of a mechanical engineer is around $88,430 in 2019. Moreover, the best paid 25% of engineers succeeded by earning $111,998, and the lowest-paid 25% of mechanical engineers reached $70,280. But the question is, how do you stand out, and what skills will help advance your career?
To provide some insight, we have gathered a list of technical and non-technical skills to provide our readers with a leading-edge and help them attain a suitable job in the mechanical engineering field. So, let’s get the ball rolling.
Top Mechanical Engineering Job Skills
The top mechanical engineering job skills (technical + non-technical) of 2021 are given below.
1.Skill of Creativity
Designing mechanical systems is the foremost duty of a mechanical engineer. The nature of designs varies from one industry to another, especially in mechanical engineering. The design domains are diversified and cover from robots to an environment-friendly power plant.
Accordingly, the need for the creative design comes when the older design does not fulfill the expectations, or further development in that product may also be a reason for streamlining the new design. In short, creative skills are imperative to ensure the success of a mechanical engineer in the field.
Concerning that, we would say a mechanical engineer should also have an excellent grip on 2D and 3D CAD modeling, AutoCAD, and SolidWorks. It will surely help materialize what is in the mind of an engineer.
Not only that, but you can also learn trending and creative skills like graphic designing and digital marketing, allowing you to work across departments with ease.
2. Problem Solving
Being an engineer, you must have the ability to solve problems and work on them relentlessly. Typically, problem-solving skills are directly related to the theoretical and practical knowledge, and of course, classroom work plays a vital role in polishing your problem-solving skills.
For example, you must detect and solve the problem while testing for a new product or an HVAC system that is malfunctioning. A mechanical engineer needs to use their skills in calculations of design and to get the prototype ready.
Besides, improving the pre-existing product design also lies in the mechanical engineers’ domain; however, a robust problem-solving skill must be in place for that reason.
3. Mathematics
Mechanical engineering is the branch of engineering that involves the design, production, and operation of machinery. It is one of the oldest and broadest engineering disciplines, which require an understanding of core areas that include Mechanics, Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Material science, Electricity, Mathematics, and much more. Mechanical engineers need to possess certain qualities and skills. Nevertheless, strong mathematics abilities is a prevailing required skill in mechanical engineers’ careers.
Mathematics is a significant skill that engineers develop throughout their education: school level, college level, and professional mechanical engineering degree. Recently, with the mainstreaming of new value-stream mapping methodologies like Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma, math has become the widely used tool by engineers.
Apart from this, sound mathematical skills allow an engineer to avoid miscalculations, provide an exact budgets of cost estimation, and improvement in existing product designs. Remember, the correct mathematical input and calculations heavily influence the output of mechanical engineering software.
4. Project Management
A mechanical engineer is often called upon to solve technical problems related to product design and different machines or devices. Sometimes, multiple faults may co-occur that do not fall in the mechanical engineers’ domain, or your company might ask you to work on a project where you need to collaborate with people of other fields.
All things considered, a mechanical engineer must develop a skill of working and leading a team of technical and non-technical people without bringing any down to the process’s efficiency.
5. MS Excel and Programming Languages
Microsoft Excel is used for storing data and manipulating different tasks. For mechanical engineers, this software may help in the following ways:
- Inventory management in production lines.
- Managing data for cost and quality of different assembly parts.
- R & D of practically any mechanical core organization.
- Organizing operations in production planning, scheduling, and forecasting.
- Filtering, searching, sorting of different parameters.
Also, you may need to perform some tasks that require having skills in programming languages. For example, they come in handy to solve computational problems and when using sensors and micro-controllers. Given that, you should learn C, C ++, and Python.
6. Sound Communication and Presentation Skills
It truly does not matter how strong you are in mathematics, designing software, and problem-solving unless you are a great communicator and presenter. Good communication skills are essential for a successful mechanical engineer, as they might need to lead a team that belongs to diverse fields (Technical and non-technical).
Secondly, clients need to get addressed about their project’s progress, and for this purpose, you must know how to present and make a non-engineer person understand the technical process in a layman’s language.
Just as importantly, communication and presentation abilities will be required should you aspire to move into leaderships roles.
7.Attention Towards Details
In your career as a mechanical engineer, you will see that a vast number of skills work together to get the task done. When there is an error in a system or product, the mechanical engineer directs resources and tools to check the problem and analyzes the situation thoroughly. Here, the engineer may need to perform some calculations and tests to reach out to the problem’s root.
To make sure that this kind of situation does not appear again, the engineer brings every resource to its use. When the problem is solved, an engineer must note all the details and set a benchmark to solve similar situations in the future, and that is how they will be able to resolve the issue in a shorter period.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is clear that being an engineer does not only mean to be good at technical skills, but non-technical skills should also be part of an engineer’s personality. Not only for 2021, but these skills have ever been the requirement and will remain in the years ahead.
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