[grumps]

Finally!!! I thread that I feel that most competent at answering!

My background is highly similar to yours. I started life as a Mechanical Engineering student and quickly grew to dislike the degree. I discovered that I did enjoy running projects and my school offered a degree in Engineering Management. It's one of the few schools that has that degree AND is an ABET accredited program, its mostly a manufacturing based degree, my specialty was Industrial Engineering.

I digress...

My initial job out of school was operations for tin rolling mill, I quit before my first day. I switched to aerospace avionics/comms. I guess I was really lucky in the fact that my department was really meant for gray beard engineers, and I did do a lot of grunt work. I was, and still am, a hybrid part business and part engineer. I've since moved through a couple of different positions but I've landed at a web agency as a technical project manager. In the beginning it was a lot a harder to find positions. Why? Not many companies are interested in Junior Project Managers. Despite the belief, being a good project manager isn't easy and requires experience that's not easily gained by hacking at some software in your undies (that's my weekend hobby). Particularly dealing with clients, there's no substitute for experience.

I'm a bit older than you, and I know that you feel fucked at 25, I did too. Ever job posting wants more experience than you have. Do the very best you can now to pick up those key responsibilities and accomplishments of a project manager. Make sure you resume resonates the level of responsibility. I ran a $300k project 2 yrs out of school, which was a lot of money for my company. I made sure that was on my resume.

I'm currently looking to relocate to the Austin, TX area and for the first time, I'm telling companies that I'm not interested in them. Here's why I'm now successful:

1. In small companies devs & design tend to dislike PMs, there's a lot of bad ones out there, and a lot that have no clue. I'm pretty good with Linux and I can write some basic Django & Python scripts, but I've also managed some very nasty clients. 2. It's experience, I run about 4-5 projects at at time now. 3. Just stick with it.

To give you an idea, I'm approaching about 6 yrs of work experience now. It's been an uphill battle but nothing easy is worth having.

My suggestion to you is look for opportunities to grow your BA & PM skills, while your technical skills are important as well the focus for you should be the former. The technical skills are easier to pick up on your own.