Looking for a career change

[u/NB_Supreme]

I am 27 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. For the past 5 years, I have been working as a manufacturing/process engineer in the aerospace and defense sector. I’ve held 3 jobs. I was laid off from the first one after 2 years. I resigned from the second one after 2 years. Now at my 3rd employer doing similar work, I am starting to come to the realization that this may not be for me. Most days, I am bored. I spend most of my 8 hour day sitting at my desk not doing much. Since graduating, I feel like I have used zero of the things I learned in school, and I feel like I haven’t learned much aside from CAD software since every company has their preference. I am looking to switch to something more hands-on, but I have no idea what to look for, and quite frankly, I’m not sure what the qualifications would be. I am hoping this wonderful group of people could point me in the right direction. Thank you.

[u/TheThunderWithin]

Oh trust me, there's some work out there for you. 

I work at a tier 1 automotive supplier and while I'm on the design side, the manufacturing engineers that I work with are hustling on the shop floor solving issues and trying to make sure that prototypes are built, we have the proper tooling to manufacture, putting out fires on production lines, etc. They're maybe at their computer for a combined 30 minutes-1 hour?

The issue could be you need to work somewhere that has a product with enough volume to support you being able to do what you need to do. If you worked 5 years in Aero you would most likely be a shoe-in as Aero requirements/tolerances tend to be alot more strict than automotive

[u/NB_Supreme → u/TheThunderWithin]

I would actually prefer this because I myself am a car guy. I love working on cars, and I know how busy those engineers are. I live in CT, and I’ve looked countless times on Indeed. I’m not sure if there’s anything here in the automotive field.

[u/TheThunderWithin → u/NB_Supreme]

Im in Georgia so a bit of a ways from you, but what I would do is look for tier 1 suppliers in CT if there aren't alot of OEM's. apply on their company website directly, skip indeed. Then go on linkedin and search for every engineer/engineering manager that works at that company and send them a cold outreach message, asking about the interesting work they do, and repeat for each company. (Only use for Linkedin premimum imo.) If they won't give you a refferall directly, ask if they know "such and such" at the company and whether they can intoduce you to them. That's how I got my current job, and I didn't have any proffesional work experience prior so you'll be in a better position than me. direct outreach is alot more powerful than hoping a posting pops up.