Wow, that was hellafast. Thanks guys! Got loads of CBT on Agile and 6Sigma at my current workplace, so staying on after work and getting all the free training I can get my hands on 
I like programming microcontrollers and other pieces of hardware (Arduino, MSP430 Launchpad, DE2 Cyclone II board). Are there engineering jobs out there that involve programming hardware? Designing firmware? What title/field should I be looking for?
Electronic Engineering, Electronic Programming Engineer, Electronic Engineer Programmer. Words to that effect.
My dad worked in electronic engineering before he went into teaching it. He worked for a brewery, a watch designer, a CB Radio manufacturer, an aerospace component designer and even designed missile tech for the Royal Navy. Seemingly, a diverse field lol.
Do you have any big companies nearby that interest you? Or any engineering firms in general that youâd like to work for? Where are you based?
@"Warriorâs Dreams"â
Embedded software engineer is a buzz word. I assume you mean programming in something like C, as opposed to an FPGA.
Also just software engineer at any small/medium company that makes products similar to what youâre looking for, e.g. health monitors, smart watches, so sensors in general.
Agile pisses me off because managers take it too far.
Should never have a daily meeting unless thereâs something critical due in a few days, in which case, it damn well better be planning something important for tomorrow because we need uninterrupted time to work.
Let me put it this way, as a CS person, when something is busy, we make a queue to the busy item. When someone is done with that item, something can tell the next person in the queue, ok, you can use that item now.
It should be more like that. Managers break down some tasks that need to be done, talk with engineers about said tasks, breaking down even further, and then start distributing it to the team. The engineers working on the tasks then report back updates as necessary, such as, Iâm done or it turns out this will take a lot longer than the original 3 day plan.
On demand.
edit:
My coworker told me, if a daily scrum takes more than 5~10 minutes and you need a table and chairs, you failed. /James Gosling
Only one person being cynical about Agile? Well let me help.
Agile is an enshrined way of saying âwell we canât plan for shit, so weâre just going to wing it and maybe blame it on the âcustomerâ.â And since you donât exactly have deadlines who cares? Unless you do have deadlines in which case youâll plan everything out months in advance and thatâs not really Agile any more but weâll still call it Agile because thatâs whatâs hot in the streets.
Which is to say that Agile rarely goes the way itâs supposed to. Typically when people complain about Agile itâs defenders will counter that itâs not working well in a scenario because theyâre not doing it right. And that may be true, but if almost no one gets it right maybe itâs not that great a thing.
So being in Long Beach grants me some cool potential oppurtunites for internship work in a variety of fields
However my hubris in the days of my youth have essentially ensured I have a metaphorical stick up my GPAâs number. I do know the UC and the CSU system have two GPAâs.
cumulative which accounts for community college coursework and University courseworkâŚand
University GPA, which is the GPA for my University coursework alone.
SoâŚwhen a possible employer asks for GPA, do I just list the University coursework, use both and label each one clearly so that they know that Iâm doing well in the coursework thatâs for engineering, or am I forever screwed having to use the cumulative one.
Also, is it worth learning how to use Matlab, and relearning Autocad again on my own time as a Chemical Engineer?
My company and most company have their sensationalist continual improvement that managers just rehash revomit which turns out to be corporate bull. Thatâs not to say that it could be a great tool or that you can learn from it or use it effectively. Like all things, it comes down to being a tool. It matters more how to use the tool rather than all the shiny bells on it. My company has a great program but the managers just use it and turn it into a religion to force it down peopleâs throat and to antagonize and demonize people. Like I said, great tool, dumbass user. There are moments to use and there are moments not to use it.
Assuming you got good grades across the board, people would just list both. Engr is tougher anyway, if you got a high engr GPA, 99% you got a high cumm gpa as well.
As far as learning softwares, try to learn the concept first. So if you pick Autocad, donât focus on learning Autocad, focus on proper draftmanship. Same goes for Matlab, I forgot and relearn Matlab so many times but I can do it anyways because I understand the mathematical concepts behind it. Autocad and Matlab sounds very mech engr to me. I thing Chem engrs use other stuff like HYSYS or something. If you need to draw parts, learn SolidWorks or Autodesk Inventor or Pro-E or like me, SolidEdge but damn itâs hard to put time into it because when I get home I just want to have fun and stuff.
@tekno virus, Iâm kinda like that 1 percent. I got a bunch of Câs for non science work. GPA is that badâŚ
My overall GPA in the math and Science sector (excluding whack biology) is 3.3 for non university coursework. Togheter it dips really badâŚI got my shit together now, but I feel like itâs too late and have to remedy the GPA with relevant experience etc.
Damn it, your quoting my post has made me realize I incorrectly used an apostrophe in âits.â I hereby publicly apologize.
Matlab is pretty great. Iâve taken to using it as a very versatile graphing program too. And itâs great for prototyping algorithms too. The downside is that itâs very pricy, so either be a student or get your company to pay for it. Octave is a decent free clone of it, but itâs hard to find a package for Windows that does all the graphing well. (I used to use qtOctave but itâs dead now 
)
I always felt like solidworks was for mechanical engineers more than autocad but then again Iâve never used autocad
You could list your major GPA and omit your cumm gpa. If someone asks, tell em you screwed up. I doubt they care what grade you got in Art History. It would matter if youâre applying to academic scholarships or academic research programs. You could even turn into an advantage by telling a prospective employer you sucked but then you got your stuff together and now youâre getting As and stuff.
Matlab is great, no doubt but the company you end up working might be using something else. The syntax might be different, but youâre carrying out the same operations mathematically which is why I pointed out the importance of learning what and why youâre doing something in Matlab.
lol
I had to write a few essays on the topic last year got 1stâ for all of them
Anyway your posted reminded me of a few surveys I read, dependant on project most companies use some sort of hybrid life cycle, because just using 1 doesnât work.
Heres the 2013 report - http://stateofagile.versionone.com/
Interesting bit of info I came across whilst researching, the DoD moved away from waterfall to agile a few years ago. They had a crazy stat of 33% project failure rate, $6 Billion loss from 11 major project failures resulting in 31 years behind schedule. :o So if you were wondering where your tax dollars went⌠That was too much for some folks so in 2010 the defence bill was adjusted to make agile methods part of the law.
Nasa have also moved onto using agile as well, 81 month long projects using waterfall were completed in 15months B) The pluto mission was the first Nasa project to use agile.
Ironically, what annoys me is that being in Long Beach, theres great tech opportunities that are JUST far enough to be annoying. Google offices in santa monica, LA and Irvine, but not here. Blizzard in Irvine. IBM in Costa Mesa and Santa Monica. At least theres a solid smattering of smaller tech companies around so theres definitely jobs available, it just sucks to be so close yet, so far with LA traffic
@manbehindthewiresâ so what the heck was that tool?
haha oh yeah! Itâs an old wirelocking device, circa 1950s-1960s.
[details=Spoiler]In aircraft and gas turbine engineering, where parts are intent on vibrating themselves apart, things are often tied together, so that if a component attempts to loosen, it applies a positive, tightening force on to the next component. I imagine Tekno Virus sees this stuff on his bigass generator.
These days, the method is being replaced by specific wirelocking pliers or, in the past 5-10 years, by swaged steel cabling, but traditionally, it was done by hand (I often prefer to do it by hand, even now). The weird stick was an evolution of the hand-wound approach. You place the locking wire through the 2 holes in the top and out the holes in the chamfer, then wind it by hand. I tried the tool when I found it and, frankly, itâs better by hand haha.[/details]
What kind of engineers are in demand right now? Iâve read that systems, petroleum, energy, and mechatronics engineers are hot fields to go into.
Also, does anybody know anything about mechatronics? Specifically, would I have to switch to Mechanical Engineering to do it?
My only experience in mechatronics is robotics from this course/related:
https://courses.soe.ucsc.edu/courses/cmpe118
https://classes.soe.ucsc.edu/cmpe118/Fall14/
Build everything, unless you can buy it for cheap.
Anybody here have experience stress relieving 316L?
Thatâs stainless steel to deal with high corrosion enviorments no?
Yeah, itâs got pretty good corrosion resistance. If you need a little more, then you go with Duplex. If you need something exotic, then you can use nickel based alloys like your Monels, Carpenter 20, Hastelloys, and Inconels.