RE: Mechanical Engineering Careers with Good Work/Life BalanceДЇamilyman731, it took a change of company which was a step back in position, pay, and benefits. Your employer expects you there for 40 hours and to pitch in on occasion and not as the regular. If you need to get a piece of equipment back up and running and you work 16 hours on Monday work less the rest of the week or take Friday off. They are better off to hire more staff at 40 hours per week (2000 hr/yr), especially if there is an overtime rate of pay. Your employer doesn't intend to work people 80 hours per week (4000 hr/yr) or even 60 hours per week (3000 hr/yr) as a regular occurrence. If you need to be available in case of breakdown then split the coverage with coworkers and sit there for your days on call and don't work past your expected work day. If you have to wait till after shift to test something then take off early and run errands, gym, shopping whatever you want, and go back when it's time to test. If your not keen on working a lot of overtime you will need to get creative. RE: Mechanical Engineering Careers with Good Work/Life Balance truckandbus (Automotive) 9 Apr 19 19:12ДЇrom my experience newer engineers work more hours to get more experience faster and more pay. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good career path I can start on as an ME that has little to no overtime requirements (preferably 5 hrs/week or less)? Obviously, I'd rather not have to start from square one, but at this point, I'd be willing to have to take a few steps back to get my career going in the right direction. I know not all engineers face this problem, though it does not seem to be uncommon even outside of PE. As long as they are taken care of, I would rather have more time with them than fatten my paycheck a little more. My primary goal entering engineering was to enter a career where I could make enough money to support my family, but to also be able to be there for my family. On top of that, if a major piece of equipment goes down and maintenance can't figure out what is wrong, you are stuck troubleshooting it until it is back up and running, regardless of how late that ends up being. Most projects can't really move past the planning/quoting/etc phase except outside of production hours, but simultaneously, you are required to be available to support production during the day (and possibly night if working at a 3 shift operation). The deeper I get into it, the more it seems long, inconsistent hours are a core part of this field. Since I graduated college with my ME (about 3.5 years ago) I have been working in manufacturing as a production engineer.

Companies with good work life balance