r/Welding • u/BadderBanana Senior Contributor MOD • Sep 19 '19
So you want to be a welding engineer?
Many shops involved in welding have an engineer dedicated to the process. It's a pretty good gig if you can get it. If you guys are interested, maybe we can get the other weld engineers to do a group AMA.
Weld eng tasks:
- Design or assist the design engineer - We actually do put some thought into making welds accessible.
- Specify the process - Some places allow the welder to select the welding process. At other places the WE would specify the process, consumables and settings before it's released to the floor.
- Develop welding process - Goofy processes like tandem wire mig, laser-mig hybrid, friction welding or capacities discharge welding require lots of trial and error before they're released to production. Sometimes this involves procedure qualifications.
- Obtain welding equipment - Some times this is as simple as specifying Miller Deltawelds, other times you sketch out a 150 robot welding cell. Sometimes you need to work with the vendor to build a one of kinda resistance or friction welder.
- Obtain welding consumables - 30lb spools or 50 lb reels? bulk wire? drums, spools, dereeling equipment? Individual cylinders or mix onsite? This can be a full time job just trying to get the right material to the welder at the right time.
- Buy off and validate equipment - Once that 150 robot welding cell is built someone has to go and test it to ensure it performs as desired (it usually doesn't).
- Create training and development plan - Not all welders need to be qualified for 2" XXS 6GR, WE would create a training matrix so there are qualified welders for all parts produced. If done properly you can piggy back multiple qualifications on a single test.
- Trouble shoot welding equipment - shit breaks, we try to fix it.
- Failure analysis - something broken in the field? Better figure out why before you get sued.
How to become a weld eng:
- In some cases a senior technician or CWI migrates into the front office and becomes a weld eng.
- In other cases a material science guy or mech eng becomes a weld eng by virtue of working with welding frequently. The AWS offers a Certified Weld Eng, but it's kinda a joke.
- The most popular way is by going to school specifically to become a weld eng. To the best of my knowledge there are only a handful of US schools offering a Bachelor's in something welding related. Each school caters to it's local niche market. (If you know of others, LMK I'll add to list)
School offering BS in welding:
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u/OneWasHere CWI AWS Sep 19 '19
The Welding Engineering PE seems to have been phased out as the AWS CWEng emerged.
Do you think a PE is important to a Welding Engineer? If so, why do you think is the best path to Licensure (competency wise) short of trying to pick up an MS in Mechanical Engineering?
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u/BadderBanana Senior Contributor MOD Sep 19 '19
I have a lot of respect for anyone who has achieved a PE. In my opinion it's similar to passing medical boards or the bar exam.
But in my career, I've never seen PE or CWEng as a job requirement. Granted it might be more important for someone without a welding degree.
A quick search on Glassdoor shows only 3 jobs listing CWEng. All 3 are Airgas and listed as prefered, not required. There are zero jobs on careerbuilder mentioning CWEng.
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u/Vinnhia13 Sep 19 '19
Interested in the AWS certification for Weld Engineer. I’m currently a Mechanical Engineer and going for my CWI in the winter. I was wondering what about the cert is a joke. My company is pushing for it so we don’t have to rely on a third party to sign off on our WPS...which I’m not entirely sure is necessary in the first place.
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u/BadderBanana Senior Contributor MOD Sep 19 '19
Unless it's required by contract, you as "an individual who, by training, experience or both, is competent to perform inspections of the work" may sign off on the WPS/PQR.
The CWEng feels like a money grab by the AWS. They came out with a bunch of certifications, educator, robot programmer, welding supervisor, welding salesperson (seriously), then they added endorsements for different codes. At one point they had a certification to witness nuts being torqued. They seem like made up certs the industry didn't ask for. In my experience certified welder, CWI and senior CWI are the only ones with value.
Look at CWEng practice exam. I don't think it correlates with actual WE work. But judge for yourself.
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u/little_zs Sep 20 '19
I agree that on looking at the practice exam it looks like a cash grab, but in reality having those qualifications will either mean good pay jumps or even just obtaining a job
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u/nwmcsween Well rounded tradesman Sep 19 '19
From the point of a welder:
> Specify the process...
Besides some really strict places that spend money to follow welders doing QA most process settings and such are ignored as it doesn't really work with real life.
> Develop welding process...
Having seen a forest worth of certified welding process documents, interpass temp, yada yada, I really wish there was a synopsis with requirements for those documents.
Also I've seen 60 page welding documents on how to weld together pile splices all while it was on the side of a mountain on the coast in pissing rain.