20 Odd Jobs That Only Exist Because of the Auto Industry
The Hidden Specialists
Cars don’t go from an early sketch to a driveway through engineering and assembly work alone. Along the way, many eyes have to look over the vehicle, ensuring that the car meets safety, environmental, and even aesthetic requirements. The work doesn’t stop after a car is sold, either: a new windshield can mean camera calibration, while other vehicles need to be appraised, auctioned, recycled, or transported. These jobs may sound unusually specific, but they’re all part of how cars are built, tested, sold, repaired, and moved. Here’s a closer look at 20 of the industry’s most unusual roles.
1. Crash-Test Dummy Technician
Crash-test dummies can’t do their jobs properly until they’ve been inspected, fitted, and calibrated. The people who make them, also known as Anthropomorphic Test Device Technicians, are responsible for building, positioning, and dressing the dummies for their fated voyage. Their work ensures that researchers will get the necessary data for optimum car safety.
2. Proving-Ground Vehicle Test Engineer
A prototype can’t be accessible to the public without proving its worth on the road first. These engineers test vehicles in outdoor or specialized environments, including in harsh weather, to see what (if any) problems the vehicle may have.
3. Tire-Wear Test Technician
Tire testing isn’t just about checking tread depth after a drive. Tire-wear test technicians are responsible for measuring long-term tire durability. This often means performing test drives, documenting structural damage, and reporting to manufacturers on how to make their tires safer and more durable.
Jimmy Nilsson Masth on Unsplash
4. Vehicle Dynamics Engineer
The job of these engineers is to look at the whole picture. They have to test how a vehicle’s handling, steering, braking, and stability all work, or don’t work, together. If something feels off, they have to go in and make sure a car’s many systems are all balanced properly.
5. Noise, Vibration, and Harshness Engineer
When it comes down to it, cars are essentially giant metal boxes, and they’re not exactly quiet. Noise, Vibration, and Harshness engineers test sound quality, road noise, wind noise, exterior noise, and secondary ride to work out if a car’s sound and feel are comfortable enough for the average driver.
6. Automotive Aerodynamicist
Aerodynamicists use wind tunnels and rolling-road equipment to see how air moves around a vehicle as it goes down the road. While important for racing vehicles, it’s also important for fuel efficiency for regular cars. Some facilities can simulate both the rolling road and the air stream at speeds up to 200 mph.
7. Automotive Clay Modeler
Digital design tools haven’t replaced the physical thing. Clay modelers are responsible for creating full-scale car models, shaping, filing, sanding, and polishing the model so designers can judge a vehicle’s proportions, surfaces, and small details from every angle.
8. Automotive Color, Material, and Finish Designer
A vehicle’s look isn’t set by body shape alone. These designers are responsible for the car’s exterior. They pick the color options, trim, textures, materials, and coatings to create a cohesive look.
9. Vehicle Propulsion Calibration Engineer
Engines, electric motors, high-voltage batteries, and thermal systems must work together as a coordinated system. Calibration engineers develop and validate controls that balance performance, drivability, fuel economy, and emissions during road and dynamometer testing.
10. Vehicle Compliance Engineer
On the consumer side of things, safety is arguably one of, if not the most, crucial requirements of any vehicle. The people responsible for making sure new vehicles live up to the safety and environmental standards are vehicle compliance engineers. They’re also responsible for reviewing regulations and test procedures, along with auditing vehicles.
11. EV Pedestrian-Alert Sound Designer
At low speeds, some hybrid and electric vehicles are quiet enough that they’re required to make exterior warning sounds, known as Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems. Sound designers create those pedestrian-alert sounds, along with cabin warnings, alarms, and other cues.
12. Automotive Cybersecurity Engineer
As vehicles continue to become more electric and even phone-accessible, there runs a risk for these models to be hacked. Automotive cybersecurity engineers model threats, find vulnerabilities, build security architectures, and validate hardware, software, communications, and sensor-based systems.
13. ADAS Calibration Technician
Automatic braking, windshield wipers, cruise control, and lane assist are all a part of ADAS, or Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. These technicians are responsible for making sure these features not only work in new vehicles, but will also replace or fix these sensors if a vehicle gets into a collision.
14. Vehicle Emissions Inspector
As we become more aware of the impact vehicles have on our environment, rules and regulations surrounding how much vehicle exhaust is too much. Emissions inspections can spot cars and trucks that put out more pollution than permitted, using standardized tests and diagnostic checks to identify vehicles whose owners need repairs.
15. Automotive Locksmith and Key Programmer
Car keys aren’t always just pieces of metal anymore. Many are electronic devices that need to communicate with the car before it’ll unlock or start. Automotive locksmiths help with lockouts, cut replacement keys, and program or reprogram transponder keys and key fobs.
16. Paintless Dent Repair Technician
Sometimes your car gets a ding or a scratch without you noticing. Instead of completely overhauling the vehicle, specialized technicians can reshape the metal without damaging the car’s paint.
David Glessner | Photographer & Director on Unsplash
17. Auto-Damage Appraiser
After a collision, someone has to figure out the specifics of how bad the accident is. Auto-damage appraisers inspect vehicles, assess repair costs, prepare claim documentation, and may work with repair shops to reach an agreed estimate. Their reports tend to influence an insurance company’s involvement with the collision.
Clark Van Der Beken on Unsplash
18. Auto Auctioneer
You can probably tell by the name what an auto auctioneer does. These guys are responsible for running the sale of used or salvaged cars. They work with ringmen and other remarketing staff to sell vehicles in an organized, competitive setting.
19. Automotive Recycler
End-of-life vehicles are handled by a specialized recycling industry. Automotive recyclers recover quality parts and reusable materials, working within facility standards that support safe, compliant operations and keep usable components in circulation.
20. Car-Hauler Driver
Getting a vehicle from one place to another is its own beast. For automobiles, light trucks, and vans weighing 10,000 pounds or less, securement rules call for restraint at the front and rear using at least two tiedowns. Those tiedowns must prevent lateral, forward, rearward, and vertical movement, both to keep the car secure and the surrounding traffic safe.
