Question: Do you ever work by yourself?

Neil Taylor answered on 12 Mar 2015:

Hi Em12!

Hmm, tricky one to answer. I guess it depends – I do sometimes work alone on small projects if it’s something that I know how to do pretty well, but there is ALWAYS another engineer (usually two) that will check the work to ensure it is correct. There are sometimes also other people involved in the project in a non-technical way.

For example, I’ve spent a lot of my 3 and a half years in my job creating finite element analysis models(often shortened to FEA – it’s some software where you draw an object, divide it into little blocks, and then ask the program to work out how the object will react to temperature/bending/stretching etc.).

So, if I was doing a piece of work that was a simple FEA model, I could model that myself – I’m pretty confident in what I’m doing, and I’d usually require little input from others. However, to kick-off (start) most pieces of work, it’s usually wise to have a meeting with another engineer(s) to discuss the problem and agree what the best route to take is. It’s also important to get other engineers to check the work independently when it is complete, to make sure that it is correct.

There are also other people who may be involved, such as a project manager. They will track how the project is performing in terms of cost and time.

This was a long answer, but I hope it helped!