Job Check
Materials Engineers
Evaluate materials and develop machinery and processes to manufacture materials for use in products that must meet specialized design and performance specifications. Develop new uses for known materials. Includes those engineers working with composite materials or specializing in one type of material, such as graphite, metal and metal alloys, ceramics and glass, plastics and polymers, and naturally occurring materials. Includes metallurgists and metallurgical engineers, ceramic engineers, and welding engineers.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Conduct or supervise tests on raw materials or finished products to ensure their quality.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Review new product plans, and make recommendations for material selection, based on design objectives such as strength, weight, heat resistance, electrical conductivity, and cost.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Evaluate technical specifications and economic factors relating to process or product design objectives.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Solve problems in a number of engineering fields, such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, civil, nuclear, and aerospace.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Plan and implement laboratory operations to develop material and fabrication procedures that meet cost, product specification, and performance standards.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Analyze product failure data and laboratory test results to determine causes of problems and develop solutions.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 07Determine appropriate methods for fabricating and joining materials.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Guide technical staff in developing materials for specific uses in projected products or devices.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Design and direct the testing or control of processing procedures.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Plan and evaluate new projects, consulting with other engineers and corporate executives, as necessary.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
49%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 62% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Your human edge
AI touches every main task of this job in some way. Your edge is judgment: knowing when AI’s work is right, and checking it before it counts.