[i_am_proteus]

Some labs do this! I've seen places where the ratio of engineers to grad students and postdocs was about 1:1. The engineers were salaried and could take courses at the university if they chose to (for free, but on their own time).

[mattkrause]

Tell me more, please! (Especially if they’re hiring)

[i_am_proteus]

A common thread was that these were labs that were joint between the university and a UARC or FFRDC. Academic grant funding doesn't usually include engineers, only PI and students, but FFRDC/UARC funding is different. So look at Johns Hopkins/APL, Penn State/ARL, Georgia Tech/GTRI, then (very importantly) look for labs run by a PI with a faculty appointment at the university.

A friend of mine worked at Hopkins for a few years, did interesting stuff, and walked out with a (free) MS afterwards.

[mattkrause]

Ah, those are a bit of a special case.

I visited APL a while back and loved it. The job didn’t work out (federal stuff has been....turbulent lately), but hopefully it’ll work out one day.

Thanks for the pointers!

[i_am_proteus]

I really do think lab composition's tie to grant wording (if the grant says support for three grad students, you get three grad students, not two grad students and an engineer) has a huge influence on how labs are structured, including why grad students end up doing jobs engineers "should" be doing.