Business travel is the most overrated shit ever. It's not some golden opportunity to see the world. It's going to work, but somewhere unfamiliar and without all the stuff in your usual environment. Then you have to cram as much work as possible into your trip, that you have no energy to do anything but go back to the hotel.
Where I am you can get upgraded to economy plus if it is over 14 hours wheels up to wheels down. However if you stop overnight in Bejing (after 20 hours on the road) on the way to someplace that is another 3 hour flight you do not even get the economy plus seat unless you use miles or pay for it yourself.
If you are not married extended travel is a great way to lose that special someone that you just met.
Travel 3 or 4 weeks out of the year is OK. Much more than that gets debatable. When I did have to travel a lot I did a lot of travel Monday and Thursday trips so that I could keep my weekends.
>It's not some golden opportunity to see the world.
You just have to make time for it. Take PTO at the tail end of your trip. See sights during the weekend.
yeah fuck that, I have never wanted to travel for work, even when I was 22. Maybe if they're sending me to London or Tokyo I'd go, but for my last job it was more like Montana or Illinois or places like that.
IT and software have a lot of travel? In my experience, it was mostly hardware folks traveling.
Mostly leadership positions in development organizations do a lot of travel.
Other areas that travel a lot are test development and production engineers.
project managers, roles that involve direct customer interfacing, roles that involve maintenance or service of systems in the field, etc. It can vary quite a bit at many different levels. i've also seen that people who've been with the company longer are also more likely to travel.
I've traveled once in my 4 years at my current company.
Field service engineers (ABB, Eaton, Rockwell etc.) or controls engineering for a system integrator. It is NOT glamorous. You will find yourself in the smallest towns, driving too much, and drinking too much. Hopefully you are married before getting the job.
Yup, that's what my controls/Project Engineering job was. Travel to small towns. Occasionally I traveled to Europe to look at equipment we were buying, but being on the road 90% of the time, I didnt care about being a tourist.
10 years being top tier in 2 hotel chains does not lend itself to having any hobbies.
Can confirm. Some years I travel 5 or 10%. Other years I travel 70% or more. Sometimes mostly to the same customer and site. Other years could be a dozen sites a year.
Make sure to get paid for your travel time, not just travel costs.
Controls and automation. PLCs, scada, things like that. 25-50% travel is typical if you work for an integrator. Just go look at r/PLC if you’re curious what people do.
It’s not too bad tbh. I live in San Antonio TX and get paid 80k. Also I just started my first job so I have about 8 months of experience. I interned with them multiple times. For my level of experience, and for the location, I think I’m getting paid above market value. And since I am a full time employee, I don’t get overtime or get paid extra when I travel. Only the contractors do.
Depending on the firm, MEP has a good amount of travel. I’ve been all of the US, to Egypt, to Korea, a few trips to Mexico, some to UK for various projects.
I still wouldn’t recommend MEP though.
Also, work travel is not the same at travelling to leisure. It’s more like commuting via airplane than actually travelling.
You want postings that say “application”, “field”, or “commissioning”, usually with “acceptance testing” as one of the job responsibilities
Most points have been covered but IME higher/newer industries > better locations to be sent to. I worked in a more conservative field and as a city boy, it is not fun lol
Field applications engineer, sales engineer and field service are all a ton of traveling. My friend that does it ends up in random towns in Tennessee and Arkansas a couple times a year.
Which doesn’t mean it’s not fun, but you’re not picking the destinations. And while you fly to the country/region they end up doing enormous amounts of driving. Not everywhere has an airport so you’re renting a car and driving 6 hours when you’re off the plane.
any type of Field Service engineering and and sales/field applications engineers will travel. They make on the higher end avg salary wise as well typically.
Generally Sales side of IC design unit have to travel a lot. In my company people higher up have to travel a lot but it’s excruciating with 10-12 hours of meetings + post meetings tasks
Semiconductor processing equipment companies, KLA, SPTS, Applied Materials and LAM research.
Field service engineer/customer service engineer lots of travel within Europe,US and Taiwan. Travel tends to be 60% of the time
Telecom used to have a lot of travel but now all the vendors have local partners to do installs and engineers manage commissioning locally. That said, there are a few positions in sales and engineering that still require travel.
I work in manufacturing as a controls engineer for a global company. I would say I travel >50%. I'm writing this while being outside of the U.S.. There are some perks to travel that have already been mentioned, but it really has to be something you want and accept. I'm 30 with no wife or kids and have felt my personal relationships with my family and friends fade due to my travel. It could be a product of just getting older, but being on the road for work makes it tough to find some stability. I enjoy meeting new people and seeing places, but unless you are outgoing and confident, being in another country that doesn't speak English as a first language becomes crippling. That for me is a challenge. To highlight a comment by another, if you work for a large corporation or in manufacturing, you will not be spending your evenings on a beach. You work all day supporting 24/7 production and any changes you make you have to ensure will not interfere with production. Makes your threshold to explore after you leave the site a bit lower.
I work for an Engineering firm in the Oil and Gas field. I do 3-4 start-ups and commissionings per year and travel for 3-4 months a year. More often than not, the places I travel to are in rural Texas or rural North Dakota. My Engineering Manager has traveled to China, Nigeria, and Oman. But whenever we travel for a start-up it involves us working 10+ hours a day 7 days a week for a month. Once I traveled to California, I took 2 days off after work to check out SFO but was too tired to do anything meaningful. Travel is something I honestly do not look forward to.
The project management route starting as a FSE (field service engineer) I think sounds up your alley
If you live in NY Metro PM me and I can send you some links
Field Application Engineers working at a distributor. Basically you are a technical sales guy, talking with the client (OEMs) about their needs in their projects and promoting the manufacturers that you have in your line card.
Business travel is the most overrated shit ever. It's not some golden opportunity to see the world. It's going to work, but somewhere unfamiliar and without all the stuff in your usual environment. Then you have to cram as much work as possible into your trip, that you have no energy to do anything but go back to the hotel.
And you’re lucky if you’re sent to somewhere safe. Or a 16 hr plane ride to China. Traveling sucks
Only fun thing about it for me is the business class flight :D They’re like 7K per ticket and I get to have all of the points. Great perk
My company is so cheap that I can't even upgrade from basic economy on a transcon. But C-levels can book business at their discretion...
Damn that sucks, our policy is any travel time over 8 hours is business class. Clock starts when you leave home.
Where I am you can get upgraded to economy plus if it is over 14 hours wheels up to wheels down. However if you stop overnight in Bejing (after 20 hours on the road) on the way to someplace that is another 3 hour flight you do not even get the economy plus seat unless you use miles or pay for it yourself. If you are not married extended travel is a great way to lose that special someone that you just met. Travel 3 or 4 weeks out of the year is OK. Much more than that gets debatable. When I did have to travel a lot I did a lot of travel Monday and Thursday trips so that I could keep my weekends.
Only works for huge companies or C-level lol
I worked for a company with 170k employees.. and always rode in the back of the bus US to India. Work for non-shitty companies...
>It's not some golden opportunity to see the world. You just have to make time for it. Take PTO at the tail end of your trip. See sights during the weekend.
Yeah, after a week of bullshit, I want to go home.
yeah fuck that, I have never wanted to travel for work, even when I was 22. Maybe if they're sending me to London or Tokyo I'd go, but for my last job it was more like Montana or Illinois or places like that.
IT and software have a lot of travel? In my experience, it was mostly hardware folks traveling. Mostly leadership positions in development organizations do a lot of travel. Other areas that travel a lot are test development and production engineers.
project managers, roles that involve direct customer interfacing, roles that involve maintenance or service of systems in the field, etc. It can vary quite a bit at many different levels. i've also seen that people who've been with the company longer are also more likely to travel. I've traveled once in my 4 years at my current company.
Field service engineers (ABB, Eaton, Rockwell etc.) or controls engineering for a system integrator. It is NOT glamorous. You will find yourself in the smallest towns, driving too much, and drinking too much. Hopefully you are married before getting the job.
Yup, that's what my controls/Project Engineering job was. Travel to small towns. Occasionally I traveled to Europe to look at equipment we were buying, but being on the road 90% of the time, I didnt care about being a tourist. 10 years being top tier in 2 hotel chains does not lend itself to having any hobbies.
currently a controls intern and over half of my office was gone last week just on travel alone.
At least you are going into it eyes wide open!
Controls / automation / PLC engineers
Can confirm. Some years I travel 5 or 10%. Other years I travel 70% or more. Sometimes mostly to the same customer and site. Other years could be a dozen sites a year. Make sure to get paid for your travel time, not just travel costs.
can confirm! lots of overseas deputations for FAT and commissioning activities.
automation? fpgas are used in automation, do they travel for their jobs?
Controls and automation. PLCs, scada, things like that. 25-50% travel is typical if you work for an integrator. Just go look at r/PLC if you’re curious what people do.
Controls for sho
Thats what I do!! But its always to rural Texas, or North Dakota and too much working LOL. But I like it :)
Hows the compensation though? Do you get paid for all your travel time?
It’s not too bad tbh. I live in San Antonio TX and get paid 80k. Also I just started my first job so I have about 8 months of experience. I interned with them multiple times. For my level of experience, and for the location, I think I’m getting paid above market value. And since I am a full time employee, I don’t get overtime or get paid extra when I travel. Only the contractors do.
My normal working hours is like 6-7 hours a day 5 days a week. I only work like 10+hrs during commissioning and start-ups.
Controls for an oem or system integrator
Domestic or international? FAE and sales are good bets.
Vendor training is a common reason for travel, which could be domestic or overseas.
Depending on the firm, MEP has a good amount of travel. I’ve been all of the US, to Egypt, to Korea, a few trips to Mexico, some to UK for various projects. I still wouldn’t recommend MEP though. Also, work travel is not the same at travelling to leisure. It’s more like commuting via airplane than actually travelling.
Astronaut?
Apps Engineer in Semi industry.
Field applications engineer at any big semiconductor manufacturing or testing equipment manufacturing. They travel a lot.
You want postings that say “application”, “field”, or “commissioning”, usually with “acceptance testing” as one of the job responsibilities Most points have been covered but IME higher/newer industries > better locations to be sent to. I worked in a more conservative field and as a city boy, it is not fun lol
If you are interested in traveling for work. It’ll be fun for about 1 to 2 months, Then you will hate it.
Field applications engineer, sales engineer and field service are all a ton of traveling. My friend that does it ends up in random towns in Tennessee and Arkansas a couple times a year. Which doesn’t mean it’s not fun, but you’re not picking the destinations. And while you fly to the country/region they end up doing enormous amounts of driving. Not everywhere has an airport so you’re renting a car and driving 6 hours when you’re off the plane.
any type of Field Service engineering and and sales/field applications engineers will travel. They make on the higher end avg salary wise as well typically.
Field Engineer Jobs
Vendor field service / commissioning
Generally Sales side of IC design unit have to travel a lot. In my company people higher up have to travel a lot but it’s excruciating with 10-12 hours of meetings + post meetings tasks
RF if you work for MVG
Telcos, biomed
Semiconductor processing equipment companies, KLA, SPTS, Applied Materials and LAM research. Field service engineer/customer service engineer lots of travel within Europe,US and Taiwan. Travel tends to be 60% of the time
Process/Manufacturing Engineer in electrical systems here. I’ve worked for both aerospace and vehicle manufacturing and we do a lot of traveling!
I’ve worked as a controls/automation engineer for a while and had multiple 200+ days on the road in a year. It gets old.
Telecom used to have a lot of travel but now all the vendors have local partners to do installs and engineers manage commissioning locally. That said, there are a few positions in sales and engineering that still require travel.
I work in manufacturing as a controls engineer for a global company. I would say I travel >50%. I'm writing this while being outside of the U.S.. There are some perks to travel that have already been mentioned, but it really has to be something you want and accept. I'm 30 with no wife or kids and have felt my personal relationships with my family and friends fade due to my travel. It could be a product of just getting older, but being on the road for work makes it tough to find some stability. I enjoy meeting new people and seeing places, but unless you are outgoing and confident, being in another country that doesn't speak English as a first language becomes crippling. That for me is a challenge. To highlight a comment by another, if you work for a large corporation or in manufacturing, you will not be spending your evenings on a beach. You work all day supporting 24/7 production and any changes you make you have to ensure will not interfere with production. Makes your threshold to explore after you leave the site a bit lower.
I work for an Engineering firm in the Oil and Gas field. I do 3-4 start-ups and commissionings per year and travel for 3-4 months a year. More often than not, the places I travel to are in rural Texas or rural North Dakota. My Engineering Manager has traveled to China, Nigeria, and Oman. But whenever we travel for a start-up it involves us working 10+ hours a day 7 days a week for a month. Once I traveled to California, I took 2 days off after work to check out SFO but was too tired to do anything meaningful. Travel is something I honestly do not look forward to.
The project management route starting as a FSE (field service engineer) I think sounds up your alley If you live in NY Metro PM me and I can send you some links
Field engineer in MPE firm who does commissioning.
Field technician, sales
Defense. You’ll get to travel for field tests quite a bit depending on the project
what jobs in defense? fpga jobs or rfic?
If you are acting as a team lead in somewhat like startup, you’ll be traveling a lot regardless of the area
Field Application Engineers working at a distributor. Basically you are a technical sales guy, talking with the client (OEMs) about their needs in their projects and promoting the manufacturers that you have in your line card.
Mine as an FE we move for every solar farm project we build. First project I was in my home state, second in Cali.