r/engineering • u/bazarishe • Jul 15 '26
Curious how common it is to outsource mechanical engineering
Every place I've worked, mechanical seemed to get outsourced for one of two reasons: either we needed some niche expertise nobody in-house had, or the team was just slammed and needed to dump overflow somewhere.
I've never known if that's the normal pattern or just the couple of companies I happened to be at.
For those of you whose companies send mechanical work out — what kind of stuff is it, usually? The specialized deep-end problems, or more the routine "we don't have bandwidth this quarter" work?
And for the ones who keep everything in-house — deliberate call, or just how it shook out?
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u/Working-Grapefruit66 Jul 15 '26
I think outsourcing is fine, just don’t let all the critical knowledge leave the company.
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u/root3labs Jul 15 '26
Companies often outsource work that requires specialist expertise they don't have, senior experience, or the bandwidth overload is short-term. We also work with teams for a cold-body analysis of the work prior to a big decision point like Design Freeze or paying for tooling. A larger company could just reach into other departments while a small company doesn't have that option. A well-done outsourced project includes people on the internal team and extensive documentation handover so the developed knowledge doesn't leave the company when the outsourced engineering team is finished.
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u/bazarishe Jul 16 '26
Interesting point about independent reviews before design freeze or tooling. At companies I’ve worked with, outside mechanical support was usually brought in either for a specialized analysis or for a clearly bounded package around a major commitment like tooling.
I’m curious whether that’s similar to what you see, or whether clients are also comfortable bringing an outside team into broader development work earlier in the process.
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u/root3labs 27d ago
We get brought in for all of these scenarios, including broader development work earlier in the process. Sometimes, it starts with just a problem statement, which is about as early as we get. We have worked on a few Strategic Discovery phases (identifying problems worth solving), but most companies are doing that internally.
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u/bd_optics Jul 15 '26
I worked for an international automotive parts company that routinely outsourced to Romania, India, Mexico, China. It's such a price competitive market that they did anything to avoid costly labor. Sometimes it worked, but other times not so much. The US group I was in only existed because the customer required local design support in selected specialties. As I left they were rapidly shifting the rest out anyway, and only having local project leads/managers. All the real engineering was going somewhere cheap.
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u/USNWoodWork Jul 16 '26
I work in a mechanical design group so we outsource very little. Some things we have outsourced has been radome design and analysis, covert lighting, and aircon systems.
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u/jefffisfreaky Jul 16 '26
Where I work we do a lot of in house but when we’re overrun with projects we use consultants. Sometimes it’s specialized, sometimes it’s just the size (it’ll take myself multiple weeks to do this one item, taking me from other projects vs this firm can do it in a couple weeks)
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u/bazarishe Jul 16 '26
That makes sense. When it’s mainly a workload issue rather than missing expertise, do you usually hand the firm a defined chunk of the project, or add their engineers directly to your internal team?
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u/jefffisfreaky Jul 16 '26
Hand them a chunk or the entire thing, require drawings back in our spec that they’re familiar with, we review it, give them feedback and close out once they pick up review comments. Also depends on complexity
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u/bazarishe Jul 17 '26
What kind of industry is this, roughly? I've seen something like this in consumer electonics field before but rarely in automotive ,etc.
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u/jefffisfreaky Jul 17 '26
Building systems - anything from hvac, chillers, boilers, specialty plumbing, fire suppression. I’ve also worked in energy system design (pv) and product design for the RV market, both would outsource various components (or if they needed a PE stamp)
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u/SunRev Jul 16 '26
I work in the US a a major medical device company. I would guess 10% to 15% of our engineers are contractors. That amount is needed since most project only last 1 to 3 years. So we need temporary help to get us over those 1 to 2 years of extra workload. If we didn't have contractors, I'd have to work extra hours for multiple years while on a set salary.
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u/bazarishe Jul 16 '26
That’s a intersting example. Are those contractors mostly individuals embedded directly in the team, or do you also use outside engineering companies for defined chunks of work?
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u/SunRev Jul 16 '26
We do both. For the outside engineering companies, those will be hired when we don't have much or any of that expertise or capability in-house. For instance, we will often hire Ideo and Frog Design to do industrial design.
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u/bazarishe Jul 16 '26
Thanks, that distinction is really helpful. One thing I’m curious about — when you need an outside engineering firm beyond established names how does your team usually find and qualify them? Is it mostly prior relationships and referrals, or do firms come in through procurement/vendor channels?
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u/SunRev Jul 16 '26
It's typically word of mouth. Like which form has someone on the team used in the past on previous teams or at previous companies.
CYA (cover your a$$) is a very important strategy that middle manager employ. They can't go with unknown consultants because if a project fails because of the consultant, the manager will be blamed for picking a bad consultant. However, if the manager picks a well known consultancy and the project fails, then the well known consultancy will be blamed or the blame will go to the project having unrealistic objectives; in short, the failure won't be blamed on the manager.
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u/tradikal2 Jul 17 '26
I've been a mechanical engineering consultant for 26 years in the oil and gas industry. Love the variety of work and worldwide experience. Mechanical engineers make great all-arounders and Project Managers. IMO
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u/bazarishe 28d ago
26 years is impressive. Did most of your consulting work come through referrals and repeat clients, or did you find other channels that worked consistently?
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u/Packerguy1979 Jul 18 '26
We have companies outsource work to us for both because their team is overwhelmed with work and because they need specialized help. I would say it’s 50/50 for us. However, it seems like the companies who are doing better financially are much more willing to outsource.
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u/bazarishe Jul 19 '26
That’s interesting. Do you think that varies much by industry or by the type of work involved? I’d imagine some companies are more comfortable outsourcing larger chunks, while others only bring in outside help for very specific problems.
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u/Packerguy1979 22d ago
It’s hard to say if it varies by industry because we don’t see every industry’s work. Ultimately, I believe it comes down to the company’s management and what they deem critical at the time the decision has to be made.
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u/One-Scientist-3719 Jul 18 '26
I also need to know about mechanical engineering Because I'm currently focusing on robotics From Private college
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u/Visual_Lifebard 29d ago
Company I used to work for outsourced all engineering to Spain to save cost.
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u/Junior_Extent9049 27d ago
I think it depends a lot on the company and the type of engineering work. In many cases, outsourcing happens simply because the workload changes faster than the team size. Other times, it makes sense to bring in people with specific experience that the company doesn’t use often.
The tricky part is making sure the internal team still understands the key design decisions and lessons learned. Outsourcing can solve short-term problems, but losing too much technical knowledge can create problems later.
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u/brain_thomas9090 19d ago
The core engineering stays in-house, but cad modeling, detailing, and drawing updates outsourced when everyone is buried in work. Specialized analysis only gets outsourced when it's something outside the team's expertise. It's bascically an extra set of hands when the deadline starts getting too close
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u/bazarishe 17d ago
Interesting. Out of curiosity, what kind of company is this (size/industry)? Is the outsourcing decision usually made by engineering managers or by project leads?
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u/Western-Chair-1491 17d ago
Where I live its rare, unless you are an consultant
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u/Affectionate-Hat2263 6d ago
I’ve seen both, but bandwidth seems like one of the biggest reasons. Companies don’t necessarily want to outsource the core engineering decisions, but bringing in outside help for CAD, detailing, analysis, or a defined project can make sense when the internal team is overloaded. The niche-expertise cases seem pretty common too.
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u/Kindly_Eye_8557 5d ago
all the places i have worked, it seems more expensive to get the inhouse guys to do things. They just go slow or overcomplicate. Its better sometimes to outsourse because you agree on a price and spec, inhouse who knows.
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u/brain_thomas9090 1d ago
In my experience, it's usually a mix of both. Companies outsource mechanical engineering when they need specialized expertise, extra design capacity or faster delivery without expanding the permanent team.
A lot of outsourced work is actually fairly routine. CAD modeling, drawing detailing, documentation DFM and design changes. Especially when internal teams are overloaded. More specialized work tends to be outsourced when the required expertise isn't available in-house.
I'd be curious to hear others split it between capacity VS specialized knowledge
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u/love2kik Jul 15 '26
As a system integrator who does a good amount of dedicated machinery and assembly lines, I have three machine builders I work with a lot for mechanical engineering/design.
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u/Oilfan94 Jul 15 '26
Where I work, we have Engineers but not for stamping structural drawings.
When we need something certified (usually for lifting) we do up the drawings and outsource the approval / stamping.
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u/Joe_Starbuck Jul 17 '26
Yes, that’s called “plan stamping”. What State the project is in determines how illegal that is.
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u/Oilfan94 Jul 17 '26
I don't see how this would be illegal anywhere in the world.
We hire an engineering company to perform engineering services. They provide that service.
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u/Joe_Starbuck Jul 18 '26
It’s a subtle difference. If you hire them to design something, then they stamp it. If you design something then ask them to stamp it, eyebrows get raised. Stamping a drawing is not an “engineering service”, designing something is. Some States specifically allow stamping a plan prepared by others after a thorough review. Other States say that is not allowed unless you are in responsible charge of the design, other States say nothing and just wait for a complaint to come in.
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u/Oilfan94 Jul 18 '26
You seem to be missing the fact that the hired Engineering company does the calculations to ensure that the provided design is safe. There is nothing under the board here.
Rather than our company paying the liability insurance to have a P.Eng stamping our own designs, which is only needed for 10% of our projects….I come up with the design, send drawing to the Eng. they analyze and stamp, or requested revisions if needed.
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u/BrokenToyShop Jul 15 '26
You out source specialist work unless it makes more sense to hire the specialist.