Job Responsibilities
Support senior engineers in design of turbine engines and their
parts, with increasing responsibility and technical difficulty as
skills increased. I was part of a required 2-year new grad
rotation program, spending 6-8 months in four departments
(starting in hiring department)for the first two years with the
company.
I was hired by the reliability department, which uses statistical
and other analysis methods to analyze the failure rates of parts
and determine the safety and reliability of the system, or enigne.
My specific duties included working with Project Engineering and
reliability data personelle to obtain the necessary data, track
failure rates and other reliability metrics, forecast future
events and failures based on previous failures using statistical
modeling programs, especially Weibull distributions, attending
root cause meetings to present analysis results, compiling FMEA
and fault tree documents based on failure rates, modes, and
effects gathered from the appropriate engineering group, and
detailed tracking of all failures during certification and
prototype testing using a FRACAS database and review board to
prevents "escapes".
Next, I rotated to a group that designed control systems for
military & helicopter engines. I was assignedto work with an
engineer that was designing a new torqumeter for a two-engine
helicopter. The torquemeter needed to be as accurate as possible
so that the two eniges could match the torque they provided to the
helicopter rotor. During the 7 months I was there, I processed
all the test data from research testing being done to choose
between two designs. I worked with the design engineer to develop
the data processing procedure to imitate the electronic
controller/processor being developed by a supplier. I also worked
with a Six Sigma Black Belt candidate and the sensor supplier to
interpret the results of my data processing and analysis. I
convinced the team to accept results from Minitab instead of
Excel, kept track of test data logs and files I recieved from the
lab, and ultimately worked with a Matlab programming expert to
automate the data processing and mimick signal filtering and
signal processing that would be present in the final processor
hardware. The result of our work affected the design and
specifications of the supplier's processor/controller for the
torquemeter. I had regular contact with the design engineer 3-4
times a week at first, then 1-2 times a week near the end of the 7
months I worked with him.
After that, I rotated into the Project Engineering group. I met
with the Program Manager and other project engineers every morning
to review the status of an engine development program. My
responsibilities were to track the Reliability & Maintainability
progress. I worked with the lead Project engineer, and with the
Reliability engineer and the Maintainanbility engineer to develop
the schedule of deliverables and FAA certification documents and
track their progress against their schedule and the master
schedule with top-level milestones. Outside of the daily morning
1/2-hour meetings, there was practically no contact with the other
project engnieers or the department's manager. They spent most of
their time fighting fires and fixing problems, and didn't work
well together, dispite the morning meetings. They also didn't
give me very much work to do, and the work they did give me to do,
they just dumped in my lap and expected me to just figure things
out on my own. It was hard to get in contact with anyone, and
when I asked questions, I got "when you figure it out, tell me,
I'm still trying to figure it out, myself." Not very encouraging.
I killed a lot of time during that six months.
My last rotation was in a department that designed gears,
bearings, rotating seals, and lube systems for APUs (Auxiliary
Power Units). I researched gear and lube systems drawings and
compiled parameters to help in senior engineers' analysis. I also
processed bearing rig test data, analyzed lube & seal system
pressures by modifying an Excel spreadsheet developed by a senior
engineer for a previous analysis.
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Job Requirements
Honeywell's Aerospace Propulsion engines/APUs departments hire
mainly mechanical and aerospace engineering graduates. Bachelor's
of Science degrees are a minimum, with Masters and PhD degrees
also hired. Those with graduate degrees are not required to go
through the two-year New Grad rotation program.
Undergraduate engineering classes are notoriously hard, but the
difficulty is mostly due to the immense knowledge required for
engineering work. In my engineering studies, my professor were
generally helpful and generous, and the grading liberal, but even
for a medium quality class, expect to invest more effort and study
time to truly understand the concepts.
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Uppers
When in a good department, there is a environment of collaboration and sharing
information. The experienced engineers have no problem asking for new grads to
teach them things that they don't know, like new software developments. Each
engineer has different knowledge, and often share programs and spreadsheets from
previous analysis and projects. The benifits are exceptional and comprehensive.
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Downers
Highly variable experience depending on your supervisors and
coworkers, as well as current project you are working on. Project
engineers are not well trained, and although there is a pretense
of documenting procedures and passing on knowledge, there is still
a wide difference between the capabilities and expertise,
depending mainly on department.
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Lifestyle
Standard 8-4 M-F workdays, with slight variation in shifts possible. Oddice
environment, but due to the Arizona location cultural influence, slightly more
casual environment, mostly polo shirts and slacks, referring to upper management,
as well as coworkers, on first-name basis. Diversity levels high, but minorities
and women tend to be clustered in certain departments, especially analytical
specialties. Company social events include an annual rodeo, complete with
royalty, but most departments socialize indepently with events organized by their
manager or his manager, depending on individual taste. Sometimes, large projects
might host social events after a major milestone, depending on management
personalities.
Primary reporting responsibility is to your manager in a department of engineers
performing the same function on a variety of projects. You also have reporting
obligations to the Project engineers leading your project, as assigned by your
department manager. this is known as a matrix structure.
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Compensation
Starting salary as a new grad was $50,000, with 5-6% raises yearly
due to a preformanced-based review process. However, engineer
performance can be hard to measure, and results are often more
dependent on team effort and management decisions that the
individual engineer's competance. Bonus systems exist, but often
change, and again are based on the subjective recommendations of
managers, or sometimes even the subjective judgements of your
coworkers for smaller >$200 bonuses, depending on the current
bonus plan.
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Advice to Jobseekers
Watch the aerospace industry very carefully, espcially due to the
recent airline bankrupcies. The companies in that are in that
supply chain are feeling the hit, including Boeing, Lockheed
Martin, Pratt & Whitney, and Honeywell, as well as their
suppliers. There have also been changes in Defense spending,
shifting from mechanical defense systems like fighter jets and
helicopters to electronic and computerized systems, communications
technology, automated missile systems, and unmanned air vehicles.
Those companies that specialize in more traditional defense
systems are struggling to compete by incorporating more electronic
systems and sending more jobs overseas. The latest push is to
outsource not only manufacturing and programming jobs, but
engineering analysis, as well. There has also been a move to give
mnore design authority to suppliers, outsourcing entire parts and
services that had previously been tightly controlled by the bigger
aerospace companies. This is good news for smaller US companies,
but will mean many more layoffs in the future to force front line
managers to carry out the globalization and outsourcing policies.
This unstable market is also encouraging hiring temporary, or
contract, engineers through contracting companies, for periods
ranging from 3 months to 2 years at a time, as business demands
rise and fall.
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