I work for a small engineering contractor, and my role is software/control systems engineering, primarily. Roughly 70% of my job is engineering control systems for customers, and the other 30% is starting up those control systems at the customer site. I've been at this job for almost 7 years (considered a senior engineer now, so my level of responsibility is mid-to-high level), and it's my first job out of college.
My work is about a 7/10 or 8/10 stress level right now. But it fluctuates depending on how busy we are. The primary reasons the job can be so stressful are as follows:
1) We're frequently up against very tight deadlines.
2) Customers are not always responsive and won't always provide us with the information we need to make a project successful in a timely manner.
3) Customers expect control systems/software engineers to be wizards who should be able to wave their wand and make things work, and get very irritable when the situation turns out to be anything to the contrary.
4) Starting up control systems is a huge gamble, because you never know what's going to happen (obviously, we do as much preparation as possible, but even with this there are unknowns that inevitably crop up).
5) Control systems can be dangerous and kill someone if not done properly. You constantly have to be concerned with how what you are doing may affect the safety of the end user.
All this said, would I trade my job for anything less stressful? I don't think so, at least not at this stage of my life. I'm hardly ever bored in my role and I feel very accomplished whenever I complete a project, especially a large one.
On top of that, being at my current role has helped me learn to deal with stress in ways that I would not have learned anywhere else.
My work is about a 7/10 or 8/10 stress level right now. But it fluctuates depending on how busy we are. The primary reasons the job can be so stressful are as follows:
1) We're frequently up against very tight deadlines.
2) Customers are not always responsive and won't always provide us with the information we need to make a project successful in a timely manner.
3) Customers expect control systems/software engineers to be wizards who should be able to wave their wand and make things work, and get very irritable when the situation turns out to be anything to the contrary.
4) Starting up control systems is a huge gamble, because you never know what's going to happen (obviously, we do as much preparation as possible, but even with this there are unknowns that inevitably crop up).
5) Control systems can be dangerous and kill someone if not done properly. You constantly have to be concerned with how what you are doing may affect the safety of the end user.
All this said, would I trade my job for anything less stressful? I don't think so, at least not at this stage of my life. I'm hardly ever bored in my role and I feel very accomplished whenever I complete a project, especially a large one.
On top of that, being at my current role has helped me learn to deal with stress in ways that I would not have learned anywhere else.
LOL
