{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/mechanical-engineering-technologists-and-technicians/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians", "soc_code": "17-3027", "category": "Engineering", "us_employment": 36190, "median_annual_wage": 74510 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 40, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 9, "embodiment": 14, "liability_shield": 3, "trust_premium": 6, "judgment_accountability": 8 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Generating a detailed drawing from a designer's layout, running a hand-calc stress check, reducing a run of thermocouple data into a plot, and drafting the test report are all now first-pass machine outputs, which drags the score to 9; what keeps it out of the 0-6 band is that setting up a fixture, deciding a load cell is reading badly, and re-rigging a test that failed for physical reasons remain hand-and-eye work no model performs.", "embodiment": "You are in the lab bonding strain gauges, torquing bolts on a test article, hooking up a dyno, chasing a vacuum or coolant leak, and standing next to a spinning rotor — 14 rather than 18 because the environment is usually your own test cell with controlled access, not a customer's roof or an active production line.", "liability_shield": "Nothing you do requires a state license, and the drawing you detail and the test data you deliver both go out under the PE's or lead engineer's name — the 3 rather than 0 reflects that ASNT NDT levels, ASME certs, or an ABET-accredited AS are sometimes hiring filters, not legal gatekeeping.", "trust_premium": "Your value is largely transferable across employers, but the engineers who hand you a half-baked test plan and expect you to make it run, and the machinists and vendors you call to get a part turned by Friday, are relationships that a replacement rebuilds over months — that earns a 6, not the 13+ of someone whose name the client is actually buying.", "judgment_accountability": "Real calls exist — whether a suspicious data channel is instrument error or a genuine failure, whether to abort a run before you destroy the article — but they happen inside a written test procedure and get escalated to the responsible engineer, which is why this sits at 8 rather than in the teens." }, "rationale": "Roughly half this job is screen work AI already does competently — CAD detailing, tolerance and stress calculations, test-data reduction, spec comparison, and writing up test reports. The other half is genuinely physical: building and instrumenting prototypes, wiring strain gauges and thermocouples, running dynamometer and vibration rigs, and troubleshooting why a fixture is reading wrong. There is no license or personal sign-off protecting the role — the PE stamp sits with the engineer, not the technician — so the drafting-heavy tier shrinks while the lab-and-prototype tier holds.", "outlook": "By the mid-2030s the CAD-and-report half of this job is largely AI-assisted with fewer people doing it, while technicians who own physical test, instrumentation, and prototype build stay in demand at flat-to-modest headcount.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: if CAD detailing, tolerance stack-ups and test-report writing are fully absorbed by generative CAD/LLM tooling (Siemens NX/Autodesk copilots already do drawing cleanup and report drafting), the residual job is instrumentation design, fixture debugging and deciding whether a suspect data channel is a real failure or a sensor artifact — work with no clean digital ground truth. The score rises because the automatable half stops being counted as part of the job, not because AI got worse.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Growth in hardware-heavy programs that cannot be simulated to sign-off: DoD/aero qualification testing, battery and e-drive durability labs, hydrogen and heat-pump rig testing. Each adds strain-gauge/thermocouple installation, dyno and shaker-table setup and rig troubleshooting in one-off configurations. Watch for CHIPS/IIJA-funded test-lab buildouts and OEM battery test-cell expansions as the concrete signal.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Personal certification regimes that attach to the technician rather than the PE: ASNT NDT Level II/III certification, AWS CWI, and ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation clauses (A2LA, ANAB) that require a named, competency-authorized individual to approve test records and endorse method deviations. NQA-1 nuclear QA and NADCAP aerospace audits already require identified qualified personnel signatures on test data. If accrediting bodies extend those signature requirements explicitly to AI-generated data reduction — i.e. a named certified technician must attest the machine-reduced results — this moves from procedural to personal.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal ownership of data-integrity and anomaly disposition: FDA 21 CFR Part 11 audit-trail rules for medical-device test data, and 10 CFR 21 defect-reporting duties, place a named individual on the hook for whether an out-of-spec reading is reported or dismissed. If AI-generated reductions require a human to record the disposition rationale under those regimes, the technician owns a consequential ambiguous call.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "No realistic route to a trust premium — the buyer of a test report is an internal engineering group or a certifying body, neither of which pays extra for human-produced data, and the technician is not customer-facing. Liability also has a hard ceiling: as long as the PE stamp sits with the engineer, technician certifications shield the task, not the person's exposure to being replaced by a cheaper technician plus better tooling." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2019, "emp": 42820, "wage": 56980 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 39880, "wage": 58230 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 40180, "wage": 60460 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 39610, "wage": 61990 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 38930, "wage": 64020 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 37450, "wage": 68730 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 36190, "wage": 74510 } ], "from": 2019, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -15.5, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "electro-mechanical-and-mechatronics-technologists-and-technicians", "title": "Electro-Mechanical and Mechatronics Technologists and Technicians", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 55, "median_wage": 73900, "overlap": 88, "skills_to_close": [ "Installation", "Repairing", "Troubleshooting", "Equipment Maintenance" ] }, { "slug": "electrical-and-electronics-repairers-commercial-and-industrial-equipment", "title": "Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Commercial and Industrial Equipment", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 67, "median_wage": 74090, "overlap": 87, "skills_to_close": [ "Repairing", "Installation", "Equipment Maintenance", "Troubleshooting" ] }, { "slug": "avionics-technicians", "title": "Avionics Technicians", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 71, "median_wage": 82280, "overlap": 85, "skills_to_close": [ "Equipment Maintenance", "Repairing", "Troubleshooting", "Installation" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }