When do you tie yourself to an industry?
Hi folks,
For background, I graduated from a Big 10 university 2 years ago with the minimum recommended GPA and while I did robotics in highschool, sort of focused on design and manufacturing in my courses. One manufacturing internship later I realized I didn’t really want to be a production engineer, but I landed a job with a petrochemical company and work with big static and rotating equipment. I always dreamt of being a product engineer or working for a company I can get behind (renewable energy, etc).
I’ve seen comments of people’s pivot to entirely different industries. Also, while I value what I’ve gained from not knowing anything to at least knowing how some stuff gets done, I can’t help but still dream of a job that fits my previous hopes. I believe its not impossible but here are my questions:
Are the skills for engineering on large equipment really different from products/appliances?
One job I’ve read about that seems cool is a systems engineer; would I have to step back if I pivoted, and start over as a mechanical engineer if I want to work in a different industry (to then be a systems engineer there, because they don’t exist in petrochemicals)?
Does pivoting usually involve stagnating pay increases to accomplish getting the role/industry you want?
I very much appreciate any insight because it can be really easy to overthink career trajectories especially when I’m not in the location/industry I really want.