Bachelor's of Mechanical Engineering June '00 from Auburn University.
Going on 6 years doing hi-rel aerospace electronics packaging for a 13k+ employee communications company based in Melbourne. Much of the work is TS, but a mechanical engineer working the electronics packaging area can generally expect to oversee the life cycle of an electronics box from concept design to qualification testing & delivery. To that end, he will grapple with areas such as galvanic compatibility & related coatings & finishes; radiation and EMI/RFI susceptibility and shielding; material outgassing; ESD protection and mitigation techniques, selection of exotic materials for weight, strength, or both; metal and polymer fabrication practices; organic and ceramic circuit card design and fabrication; component solder joint low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue failure mitigation (based on thermal and vibration environmental factors); ruggedization of circuit cards and enclosures for extreme environments; precision tolerancing of electronics assemblies (particularly in RF design); structural adhesive bonding techniques and associated materials and finishes; thermal management techniques in extreme environments; thermal and structural testing/evaluation techniques, the 'lead-free initiative' and its impact on hi-rel electronics; circuit card assembly materials, techniques, and processes, and a number of other topics I've overlooked. He will need to be familiar with MIL and industry specifications and standards for everthing from how to size a current-carrying conductor for space to specifying the correct nickel plating on a machined part for a specific application. In addition to the manpower and scheduling (managerial) tools required for his position, he will need a familiarity with 3D solid modeling tools such as Pro/E, database configuration management such as Pro/Intralink, product structure management packages such as Agile PDM or PTC Windchill, and analysis tools such as NASTRAN, PATRAN, FLOTHERM, FEMAP, and others. He is required to work closely with internal, government, and commercial customers and counterpart(s), technical partners, and subcontracted vendors to arrive at a mutually acceptable design compliant to often quite rigid specifications, all in a team environment. He is required to communicate and defend his design in front of internal customers, the government customer, and the government's consultant community.
It's a neat job, not quite so glamourous that you can drive it home and everybody can see it...can't even talk about it to anybody...but there's some satisfaction in being on the knife-edge of technology, 10 to 15 years ahead of the commercial world in many areas.
