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Do engineers only work at a desk, or do they also do field work to create stuff?

For example I want to be mechanical engineer, but I want to help building stuff like: Creating houses where the walls can absorb energy and use it or a Space plane that can launch form the ground. I wonder how long does it take to actually work as an active engineer? #engineering #engineer
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Mike’s Answer

As others have state, the amount of time you spend behind a desk, working with your hands, or working outside depends on the job. This should apply to all fields of engineering and most companies. If you want to avoid desk time, getting into position in operations will give you a lot of time working on equipment to keep it operational or to perform upgrades. I enjoy my work as I have a mix of work I do. I do have desk work but I get to do lab work too. In the past I would support operations if they ran into trouble or if we had a major upgrade.
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Mark’s Answer

I work in the technology industry and have the privilege to work with many different types of engineers (ie. field operations, developers, sales engineers, network engineers, etc.). Many of the engineers that I work with keep the business running with technology, but many also help create stuff (new products/services, solutions to improve how we work and play, etc.). Engineers are imbedded into all areas of our lives - some work from the desk and others are out in the field.

It sounds to me like you are most interested in creating things. You don't necessarily need to be an engineer to create things. Find out what you really gets you excited...try many different things until you find your happy place. If that's engineering put your focus there. If that's coming up with ideas on how to improve housing....no need to become an engineer.....find a resource and share the ideas with communities that can evaluate it and give you feedback.

Most of all find something that make your soul sing and heart happy!!
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Kevin’s Answer

Agree with everyone else's responses so far. It really depends on the role. As an RF engineer, one of the roles was determining where new sites could be built. This would require a mix of desk work and field work. Desk work would include running some theoretical propagation analysis to see what the site would cover. Field work would be actually going the location for where the site would go to take measurements and determine antenna locations.
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Wael’s Answer

It depends on the engineering job you are interested in. For example, calibration engineers spend their time in vehicles and dyno cells creating the maps an engine relay on. On the other hand, a design engineer spend most of his time behind a computer creating components and systems.
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Magdalena’s Answer

I work as New Products Introduction Engineer.
I'm responsible for leading introduction projects for new products in EMEA region — coordinate extended teams efforts, communicate with Core Team, solve engineering issues, assessing project and engineering risk.
My Team introduce changes to existing products ensuring stable mass production - Investigate and resolve product related engineering issues that might occur during manufacturing process.
We are also seeking for improvements and enhancements to existing processes.
This is a challenging profession, in this job you can never get bored.
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Sekhar’s Answer

Hi James, It purely depends on the kind of role and company. If you heard of tier-1, tier-2 companies, and the way they work, you will understand better. Tier-1 and Tier-2 companies are more of manufacturing companies.

If you look at software side, DELL, IBM, Cisco, HP etc. are tier-1 companies. At times, technical staff go to customer place to fix their hardware issues. Especially Servers, storage and networking.

Water purifier, washing machines, Air conditioner, Refrigerator etc. are some of the manufacturing companies where company representative or technician visits to give demo or fix their hardware problems.

Not all employees and not all roles demand to go to field or customer place to work.

All the above said are example of field engineers. I hope this clarifies your doubt.
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Ray’s Answer

per my perspective, I'd believe the ten thousand hour rule, when you want to be the expert of the some field (ex: ME Eng), you have to step by step to understand and figure out why and what you real interest on this field, set target and to see how to acheive that. To answer your question of subject that actually some of engineers is work at a desk only, but lots of engineers not, it's all depends on the kind of role and company/job. If you like hand-on more than work at a desk, sure you can select the former, but I will suggestion you can try both and see which one you like, also you need to consider your career path which is more suits you in the future.
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