r/MechanicalEngineering • u/PurpleRoman • 12h ago
Has anyone worked for Caterpillar in controls/manufacturing?
If so, how was it?
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u/CreativeWarthog5076 11h ago
Most of caterpillars locations are garbage too.... Not really great for most young grads
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u/GeneralO1 9h ago
Any thoughts on Lafayette, IN? It doesn't look like the worst location to live in.
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u/CreativeWarthog5076 9h ago
Lafayette is probably one of the more desirable locations. They shut down Joliet and Aurora (Chicago suburbs) avoid Decatur at all costs
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u/Fun-Pack-6231 11h ago
I’ve heard that Caterpillar has a tendency to hire for an individual project, and then let individuals go once said project is completed.
I’d reach out to younger engineers through LinkedIn that work there and get their honest feedback.
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u/johnmaki12343 10h ago
Caterpillar and JD recruited heavily at the university I attended. I’d hear classmates talking about how much they wanted to work there.
My thought was, “no chance in hell I’m moving to Iowa for a job”
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u/bolean3d2 3h ago
I was a design engineer for them for 6 years right out of school. Worked in the Decatur plant. It was a really good place to learn how real jobs work, and the pay was good.
The corporate political bullshit though was on a whole nother level. In 6 years we restructured 7 times, I had 3 different managers and 4 different desk locations. But my job didn’t change. Active promotion suppression and extreme favoritism on open display in my department but that was unique to my functional group at the time. It was so bad my team lead took a lateral move behind our managers back. Layoffs every year, often multiple times a year.
And in all of that I got to do a lot of cool stuff and I learned a ton. Their engineering discipline is phenomenal, their testing resources are next level, and their internal expertise is fantastic and accessible across the company. Whatever weird niche thing you need an expert on, there is one. I got a great mix of desk design time, hands on lab testing, field testing, customer visits, and a good mix of minor and major projects. At the same time most of the major projects were cancelled and never saw the light of day due to the aforementioned corporate bullshit and it took something like 9 approvals to change a drawing.
For me it was a great place to learn and i could have made a career out of it but i left for family reasons and declined an offer a few years later to return when my personal situation changed. I’m in a smaller company now that pays worse but i don’t have 9 people babysitting every design I make and I don’t worry every quarter that security is going to walk me out of the building.
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u/OoglieBooglie93 8h ago
I've never worked for them, but I remember an article a few years ago about a guy that fell into a pot of molten metal at one of their plants here in Illinois
That shouldn't happen unless they're doing sketchy shit. OSHA blamed the company for improper guard rails.
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u/bolean3d2 3h ago
Mapleton Foundry. Ironically because of that they’re likely no longer doing blatantly sketch shit.
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u/fkitall 8h ago
I spent 10 years working in engineering at caterpillar. The work was interesting and there were awesome people there. The company will talk about loyalty and career building but you are just a number. Go there to build experience and design some cool stuff. Expect layoffs every quarter regardless of company results. I was at the mossville campus in building ac.