any jobs in SanDiego?

I have an intermittent customer in San Diego area. They standardize on SolidWorks but they do quite a bit of work for the company named Solar Turbine, and these guys are a Pro/E outfit (and a pretty large one, too). Also, if I am not mistaken there is a Pro/E UG in San Diego which kind of implies a certain user base.

"Dan Valleskey" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@news.in.comcast.giganews.com... : : We are contemplating a move, as the second wage earner in the family, : I am not under a lot of pressure, but will I have much luck finding a : job using my Pro-E skills, six months from now? A year from now? : : Anyone care to take a W.A.G. on this? how many Pro seats are in the : San Diego area? How many companies out there use Pro-E? : : How does the economy look in that area?

Hey, Dan, more unemployed Pro/e designers are always welcome in sunny SoCal. Actually, the job market is booming, if you want to work for $6-8 per hour. Or, you could come out here and join the Vons and Albertson's clerks on strike. My advice is start sending out resumes to places now advertising design work on the internet (Monster, Net-temps, Hotjobs, etc.). Explain your situation and see what the response is. It's best to come with a job offer. If they don't think enough of you to talk to you while you are out of state, their opinion and approach won't improve once you are here, unless you have something they really need but are expecting to just fall into their laps. There's a fair bit of that stubbornly blase airheadedness out here. And, they seem to be getting away with it as long as the economy is slogging along.

Some big places do, as Alex pointed out, use Pro/e: besides Solar Turbines, there are Genomics, Nokia, Kyocera, Qualcom, General Atomics Aeronatuics, Northrup Grumman, Baxter Labs and some other aeronatical, electronic and medical equipment places. None of them have hired in the last 6 mos. They will bring in people occassionally through an agency like Volt, Aerotek, Butler or Addeco. And there's a lot more of that kind of thing happening in Orange, LA and Ventura counties than down here. So, you could easily live in North SD County and wind up driving up to Orange County daily for work. The contracts are running, though, only 1-3 months on average.

So, some things you ought to have on your Resume: * Engineering degree, advanced is better, some specialty is best * Aeronautics experience * Stress analysis (Ansys, Nastran, Patran, Mechanica) * Plastic part or mold design experience * DoD security clearance * Any more specialized use of Pro/e: system admin, Windchill, Intralink

But, if you want to see how depressed things are, check out the website of the local Pro/e user group.

meeting announcement for Nov 12 didn't appear until the 13th. About a dozen people have signed up for it, three quarters are board members or vendors. They had a problem with their old site based on no one maintaining it, so they dumped the old one and started this elaborate bulletin board system, no supposedly moderated which means they gone to the other extreme meaning so restricted and regulated, no one wants to have anything to do with it. The last meeting I went to, before the UG went into hiding, had about 20 percent of participants (by my informal poll) either unemployed or under employed or newly 'self-employed'. So, if you have a license of Pro/e and want to start drumming up business, you might be able to make a go of it, especially if you can afford to start slowly and devote a few years to building up the business. However, from the small design shops I've talked to, none of them are thriving either. Everyone is pretty much waiting for the economy to turn around. Six month down the road, who knows! They've been saying six months more for almost two years. So far, I've had better luck looking for work in Texas. At least the cost of living, including gas prices, housing, etc. is more reasonable. Anyway, if moving depends on a booming job market, it is not and will not be six months from now. Even after the recovery of the second half of the 90s, it was only the last couple years where the labor market got tight, it was relatively easy to find a job and wages were going up. Now, they're all bargain hunting, so even if you can find a job out here, even though the cost of living is not cheap ($400k to buy a house), don't expect the money to be that great. If you're an international star of exotic metals research with advanced degrees and patents, you'll have an easy time of it; expect the sledding to be rougher and the reception cooler if you're just Average Dan. That was always true, just more so now.

David Janes

David, The SD user group went to shit after Stan turned the group over to Diana. It takes a lot of work to run that operation and quite a few of the users just don't want to present interseting topics which drives people away. The last meeting was a total disaster and I can't see the current board turnign it around, just too bad.

Dan, what do you do ? What's your experience. I th>:

"Boltman" wrote in message news:eo6wb.19749$ snipped-for-privacy@twister.socal.rr.com...

: regarding the website, it is being run by a SDSU student, enough said. : It was before, but I'm not even sure of that anymore. They've turned the operation of the main part of the site over to a bulletin board type hosting service. It's basically a message board which no one is using because everyone is still going to the old site and finding, by now, nothing. It's also an air tight chamber, nothing in, nothing out, thus eliminating the problem of illicit material. Before it collapsed completely, *if you scanned very carefully*, there was a link to the new site. Well, they've gone into hiding. Hey, they've got their jobs, and, in fact, because no one is hiring, they're probably complaining about being overworked. Awww, poor Pro/DIEGO board people!!! Well, I've got just the solution for your troubles ~ we'll play 'Trading Places'. I will relieve you of your responsibilities, take them all on my own shoulders (with the income, of course,) and you can be unemployed in San Diego for a year. And, I'll do all the stuff that your complacent, self-satisfied selves haven't done for a *long* time. You know, all those things you were going to do when things slowed down. Funny how you don't do them when the pressure of the fast times lets up. You just excuse yourself with 'hey, demand is down' and blame it all on the 'apathy' of the Pro/e users. BTW, kids, don't try this at home, it only works for those 'in power', even if it's of only a ghost ship.

David Janes

The reason was that their message board, which no one in the organization used, got taken turned into a sex chat room. One of the last job ads (one that I wrote to them about and never heard anything from them) featured someone propositioning everyone to become a 'call girl' in Bangladesh. It kind of stood out on the staid, conservative Pro/engineering website, kinda funny, really, but a strong hint the whole operation was going down hill.

: From what I was told. The webmaster claimed that the site was hacked : and he shut everything down. My guess is that he screwed something up : and being a student, the website is just not a priority. : I take it you've left SD. What did you do here ? Who did you work for ?

No, I'm still in La Mesa, stuggling along, getting widely ignored by everyone in California I send a resume to. The last interview I had was in Austin, Texas so, who knows, maybe I'll never actually work in California.

David Janes

By your statement that you might never work here, I take it your new to the area ? Dude, I had a manufacturing buddy that was out of work for a year. The market here sucks. Where did you get your Pro/e experience ? Have you talked to Diana ? At the last meeting, she said GA was looking for people. Are you a ID, surface type of guy ? Or are you a nuts and bolts or sheetmetal type ?

: >David Janes : >

: By your statement that you might never work here, I take it your new to : the area ?

Packed up and moved out of the Hustler state a year ago November 1. Aside from the longest bout of unemployment in my life, I've no regrets moving. It's actually not a bad place to be unemployed. The people are friendly, it's easy to get around, walking up and down hills is good exercise and there's the ocean which I can see from a few block from where I live.

: Dude, I had a manufacturing buddy that was out of work for a year. The : market here sucks. : Where did you get your Pro/e experience ?

Ten PTC authored Pro/e courses at Elgin Community College outside of Chicago and almost 3 years at Caterpillar.

: Have you talked to Diana ? At the last meeting, she said GA was looking : for people.

Haven't talked to Diana but I've sent a couple resumes to GA in response to actual job ads. They're one of the ones ignoring me.

: Are you a ID, surface type of guy ? Or are you a nuts and bolts or : sheetmetal type ?

I've done a little of everything, from Sysadmin stuff, to mechanical design to surfacing (my favoite is ISDX ~ that is some very cool shit!). I think one of my problems is that they're all looking for niche players, narrowly specialized, tightly defined. And I'm an ex-toolmaker, jack of all trades, generalist, no specialties, except picking up anything in about a week. Oh, well, something will turn up eventually. I actually had a chance at a job at Solar, but it involved working for Volt, and that I won't do. You know how you get that feeling from dealing with used car salesmen, like you want to barf then go take a shower!?! That feeling is worse with Volt, like you're scraping *past* the bottom of the barrel. I hope never to sink that low. No offense to those of you working for them, but I guess I'm just too particular about who I let stab me in the back.

David Janes