Engineering Success - The Engineering Career Podcast

Ep 2. How I got here w/ Doug Dahlinger: Retired at 55 after 33-year career; 0 motivation to apply for jobs; Creative outlet for engineers?; Class most relevant to career?; and do you miss college?

Listen Later

To submit your question, email [email protected]

In this episode, Daniel interviews Doug Dahlinger, a retired engineer who retired at 55 after a 33 year with one company - Lockheed Martin.

Doug answers questions like: 

  1. How did you retire at 55? What did it take for you and did you have any advantages or things that helped you out? Were there any key decisions or principles that you lived by in order to achieve that milestone?
  2. What was it like working for a defense contractor?
  3. Working for the same company for your whole career?
  4. In your career, what did work life balance look like? Did you make any decisions or avoid any possible promotions to maintain a certain level of balance?
  5. Tell me about your most recent role and what your day to day looked like - what kind of projects and what your level of involvement looks like.
  6. Were there any key decision points that you had to consider in order to reach the point in your career you reached before retirement? What are they and how did they impact your career positively, negatively?
  7. What class from college do you find the most applicable for your career?
  8. How much of what you did at work was things you’ve learned on the job vs. what you’ve learned in college?
  9. Here’s your chance to pitch your college and degree program. What about your university prepared you really well for your career and why should someone consider attending that program? What do you think is most important for prospective students to consider when evaluating college engineering programs?
  10. What kind of college student were you?
  11. Were you that same kind of student in high school? Did your attitude change at all between high school and college/did it transfer/did any academic decisions in high school prevent you from or set you up to achieve in any ways in college and with your career?
  12.  What advice do you have for any students in high school or starting out in college that are looking to going into a career as an engineer?

    13. Then, in the second half of the podcast Daniel responds to more career questions from reddit: 

    1. Graduating in a month...feeling inadequate and have 0 motivation to apply for jobs. 
    2. A slightly different question. Does anyone ever feel like you need a creative outlet in your life to balance out the nature of what is required from an engineer? How did you find your creative outlet?
    3. Looking back to your college education, which one class is most relevant to your career today?
    4. Do you miss engineering school?

      5. Thanks to Anchor for making this podcast possible.  If you want to see more of Engineering Success, make sure to Subscribe on YouTube for more content.

      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj86alc3a7_A_PibgYpkWFg 

      Daniel is a Mechanical Engineering graduate of Trinity University's B.S. in Engineering Science and currently works in Business Development in the Engineering Consulting and Construction Industry.  All views expressed on this podcast are his own and do not reflect the opinions or views of his employer.

      Music by Maxgotthetracks: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Pclog68AY1ArXm5PiApCX?si=KbqFimdQT6iK3Os2G4Jnkg&utm_source=copy-link


      ...more
      View all episodesView all episodes
      Download on the App Store
      Engineering Success - The Engineering Career PodcastBy Daniel Dahlinger
      • 5
      • 5
      • 5
      • 5
      • 5

      5

      2 ratings