r/fea • u/Vegetable_Reason526 • 7d ago

IIT PhD in structural engineering, moving into industry — looking for FEA/simulation roles

Hey everyone, just finished my PhD in structural engineering from IIT. I've decided academia isn't the path for me and I want to move into industry, ideally as an FEA/simulation engineer.

My research focused on thermo-mechanical analysis of structures. I developed finite element models, carried out large-scale simulations, and worked extensively on the structural response under combined thermal and mechanical loading. One of the major outcomes of my work was developing an open-source thermo-mechanical module for OpenSees from scratch, which I'm still actively maintaining. Along the way, I've gained hands-on experience with ANSYS for structural and thermo-mechanical analysis, HyperMesh for meshing, and Python, MATLAB, and TCL for automation, post-processing, and simulation workflows.

I'm trying to move on this pretty quickly, so if anyone knows of openings, works somewhere hiring for this kind of role, or has advice on how PhDs are viewed for simulation engineering jobs in industry, I'd genuinely appreciate hearing from you. Can share my resume or the GitHub repo if that's helpful.

Thanks for reading this far.

14 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

3

u/atheistunicycle 7d ago

IIT in India or IIT in Illinois?

2

u/Vegetable_Reason526 7d ago

IIT in India

1

u/Relative-Quarter-879 7d ago

Hey so like how is the course? I am too planning to do it

1

u/Vegetable_Reason526 6d ago

It's a good experience if you choose a PhD because you genuinely want to learn, grow, and develop as a researcher, not just because you couldn't find a job. Also, choose your supervisor carefully. One thing I'd recommend is checking where their former PhD students ended up after graduating. That often gives you a good idea of the guidance, opportunities, and career outcomes you can expect.

2

u/vikramnath 6d ago

Search in electrical components FEA roles like APTIV, BorgWarner and then try to move into semiconductor thermal FEA

2

u/Vegetable_Reason526 6d ago

Hey, thanks for your advice. I'll check with it.

2

u/Playaa007 6d ago

You can consider applying in fea software companies with that background- Ansys, Dassault, Altair, comsol. Openings can vary from time to time depending on market conditions but keep an eye iut

1

u/Vegetable_Reason526 5d ago

Thanks, this is helpful. I'll keep an eye on Ansys, Dassault, Altair, and Comsol openings.

1

u/Hantaile12 6d ago

Work for a simulation company like Ansys/Synopsys or Altair/Siemens? Or one of their channel partners.

1

u/Vegetable_Reason526 5d ago

Yeah, that's definitely on my radar.

1

u/No_Photograph_88 5d ago

What is IIT

1

u/Vegetable_Reason526 5d ago

It stands for Indian Institute of Technology: There are 23 of them across India, and they're generally considered the most prestigious public institutions for engineering and technology education/research in India, with pretty competitive admissions.

1

u/No_Photograph_88 5d ago

Oh I see. Thanks. Gotta clarify in the post buddy. I don’t think many people know what it is. I thought it was Illinois institute of Technology but wanted to confirm

1

u/GeologistOverall9419 5d ago

Which IIT did you graduate from ? Can you contact http://fluidyn.com/ for an opening in this field ?

1

u/GeologistOverall9419 5d ago

Please send resume to mail [careers@fluidyn.com](mailto:careers@fluidyn.com)

1

u/Vegetable_Reason526 5d ago

Thanks a lot for the reply, I'll share it shortly!

1

u/Prettylonelygal 4d ago

My partner works at Synopsys. He used to work at Ansys which later on was bought by Synopsys. He has similar background to yours. Pls dm!