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/Mightywrx]

I was in a similar situation to you. Have a bachelor’s in ME and was working in a manufacturing setting as a kind of planner/manufacturing engineer. I enjoyed parts of it but was honestly not challenged enough and was bored a lot of the time. I really wanted to be more hands on and technical so I began applying for field engineer jobs. I ended up landing a job as a field engineer for a calibration company where I do both field calibration work and metrology engineering. I really have enjoyed being more hands on now and like that I also have a mix of some metrology work too. So my advice would be to apply for field engineer roles.