What are career paths in engineering?

There are many career paths in engineering, including industrial engineering, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering. For more information about each of these and other career paths in engineering, use this guide:

• Industrial Engineering

Industrial engineers are responsible for designing and creating facilities, systems, and equipment. They make sure these items are created in a cost-effective and safe manner, as well as ensuring the functionality of their designs. Some of their main objectives are to improve product quality and decrease production costs.

• Civil Engineering

A civil engineer designs and performs maintenance on public infrastructures such as public and private buildings, airports, water systems, and roads. They assess the feasibility of a given project by evaluating design practicality and collaborating with structural engineers.

They also may review government regulations regarding a certain project or site and ensure project sites meet specific codes and law requirements.

• Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical engineers use physics and math principles to create, modify, or maintain mechanical machines or systems. They also take part in the designing and testing of mechanical machines or systems. They work in many different areas and industries, including internal combustion engines, airplanes, aerospace, ships, robotics, as well as many others.

• Data Engineering

A data engineer seeks to make raw data usable for other colleagues, such as business analysts, so they may implement the information into company decisions.

Data engineers have duties like gathering data sets that line up with business goals and needs, creating algorithms to transform data into valuable information, and creating, testing, and maintaining database architectures.

• Electrical Engineering

Electricians handle malfunctioning and broken electrical equipment. They also can install electrical equipment. They provide services to a wide variety of companies and people with electrical needs.

They may perform work on a person's residence, a corporate office, a school, or industrial facilities, for instance. They have a primary focus on safety and functionality concerning electrical equipment.

• Software Engineering

• Systems Engineering

System engineers deal mostly with the planning, design, design changes, and implementation of a network or system. Their job is to determine problems within specific systems. They provide solutions for issues they find in the process, including designing new systems, upgrading hardware, and maintaining an existing system.