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What are the minimum hours for a week of work in electrical engineering ? ?
I was just curious about how flexible and/or how much free time I would get at a full time job in this industry.
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Tony’s Answer
There are two kinds of "electrical engineers".
The first develop new products, standard 9-5 job, 40 hours per week. Occasional overtime to meet tight deadlines.
The second are those that maintain critical systems, such as Nuclear Power plants. Here you probably clock in normal 40 hours, but may have to do weird shifts, such as four days 10 hours each, plus overtime as needed to handle emergencies.
The first develop new products, standard 9-5 job, 40 hours per week. Occasional overtime to meet tight deadlines.
The second are those that maintain critical systems, such as Nuclear Power plants. Here you probably clock in normal 40 hours, but may have to do weird shifts, such as four days 10 hours each, plus overtime as needed to handle emergencies.
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Mack’s Answer
Tony is right on target with his "two kinds", and it probably applies to more engineering disciplines than just electrical engineers. There are several areas of engineering that generally carry a 40 hour, 9-5 work schedule. Development of new products, processes, equipment, etc., basic research efforts, maybe even technical sales and service could fall into that category.
At a manufacturing or production facility (including nuclear power plant), the norm might still be 9-5, 40 hours, but for emergencies, plant level trials, process improvement, process analysis, quality assurance your schedule might be much less regular. For facilities that operate 24/7, engineering support could be required around the clock and someone would need to work night shift, for example. Usually this would only be for a short time and often a certain amount of "comp time" would be allowed to balance the periodic unusual hours.
As a salaried employee, most engineers are paid to get the job or project "done" and extra hours would be worked to accomplish the goal. Instead of overtime pay, engineers may have a bit more flexibility in their schedules. Also, vacation time is often pretty liberal with two weeks available even for young engineers with an additional week added every few years of employment.
At a manufacturing or production facility (including nuclear power plant), the norm might still be 9-5, 40 hours, but for emergencies, plant level trials, process improvement, process analysis, quality assurance your schedule might be much less regular. For facilities that operate 24/7, engineering support could be required around the clock and someone would need to work night shift, for example. Usually this would only be for a short time and often a certain amount of "comp time" would be allowed to balance the periodic unusual hours.
As a salaried employee, most engineers are paid to get the job or project "done" and extra hours would be worked to accomplish the goal. Instead of overtime pay, engineers may have a bit more flexibility in their schedules. Also, vacation time is often pretty liberal with two weeks available even for young engineers with an additional week added every few years of employment.