That's funny.
If you want stability, find a company that builds infrastructure support equipment. They won't pay the best though.
For pay and a challenge, advancing technology like aerospace is the way to go.
As a 35 year aerospace Engineer, that started on the burr-bench and worked my way up to running mills, programming, and engineering, perhaps i can shed a tiny bit of light.
1. Aerospace is not "advancing technology" it's actually receding technology. There is nothing being done that hasn't been done since the 1960s. indeed, with increasing regulation and global, not just domestic, increase in bureaucracy, the industry is becoming stagnated despite all the ballyhoo at each press release.
2. Aerospace is and has always has been a wild rollercoaster ride. Often very steep and abrupt. Yes, it's where the money is, but it's also where the poverty is. Being out of work for months at a time is quite common.
3. Catia is Solidworks, only made much worse. Catia V4 (Classic CATIA) was tremendously capable, but IBM made it horribly expensive and proprietary. Like the Betamax, and for the same reasons, it fell out of favor despite its capability. You couldn't just *buy* catia, but had to be "approved" and jump through hoops, at least early on.
Losing lots of bizness, they reworked SWorks and stapled the Catia name to it. It in no wise resembles classic catia and that caused uncharted and untold confusion in the industry among the operators. But this was sold to the executives as an "enterprise wide solution". Executives, that don't know anything, assembled blue ribbon committees, that don't do anything, to approve their recommendations that they want. Salesmen had convinced the execs they'd have this limitless and therefore infinitely seductive *control* over every step and every segment of their enterprise. This was laughable and incredibly expensive.
But the fix was in. Engineering, manufacturing, shop, planning, programming, supply chain... etc. They were all one big happy family under catia v5. This was the lie. Boeing devoted entire departments to "Knowledge Based Engineering" developing subroutines to get Catia to do what they said it'd do; with only marginal sucess.
4. PARTS of Boeing and several others have gotten tired of Catia and IBM as a whole. They're switching to the Seimens product NX. This is a system that was formerly UG-II that was made by guess who? McDonnell Douglas. I suspect there's some connections remaining.
5. If anyone wants to get into aerospace NOW, it means this nation is in the toilet, because aerospace is way down and only MAYBE gonna revive a bit on this new stealth bomber thing. Ever since your prez, Barry Hussein, got all over the bizjets in 2008 for being 'only for the rich', the whole industry took a nose dive starting at the Boardroom. Not in 2008, mind you. It wasn't connected with the 'housing bubble' stories. But by 2011, it was ghost town from the factories to the finishing centers and most having slave-work, if any work at all,that had to be done yesterday for fear of it being cancelled at any time.
Hope some of that helps.
Wrat
