JMOs usually don’t go to work in pure design or research roles. Most of our clients who want JMOs with technical degrees want them for both their engineering skills and their leadership skills, which is a rare combination in the open market. In other words, engineers with skills in leadership, project management, and people skills can be seen as future leadership in technical organizations.

Most companies will start JMOs in an individual contributor role to learn the product and technology, with the plan of moving them into an engineering management role down the line. A sampling of these initial roles includes:

Manufacturing (or Process) and Quality Engineering - Specialists in designing and upgrading process (production) lines that produce the product as it was designed. Their constraints are cost, material availability, labor, product quality, product specifications, and ergonomics.

Application or Product Engineering - Engineers who are product experts that support the sales and product development cycle. They meet with customers to determine needs, help the sales process by demonstrating the features of their product, and often design or modify the appropriate system for the customer.

Field Service Engineers - Engineers who support the product in the field. This includes maintenance, reliability, sustainability, upgrades, and customer training.

Product Development Engineers - They work as part of a multifunction product development team. They consider all factors in developing new products including new technological capabilities, cost, market demand, pricing, supplier capability, and production capability.

Facilities Engineers - Engineers who focus on capital projects such as manufacturing equipment installation, facilities maintenance, construction and upgrades, power distribution, support systems like HVAC, etc.

Industrial Engineers - IEs focus on process improvement. They constantly analyze manufacturing and distribution processes to identify cost, material, and labor savings.

Project Engineer - Generally M.E.’s and E.E.’s hired to do a specific medium to long range project, such as ther modification of a manufacturing line, or installation of new equipment, etc.

Engineering is clearly a major choice for those who have engineering degree and want to use them, and who are creative, analytical, detail oriented, able to build and work with teams, and who can handle multiple tasks.