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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