Cool Jobs

If the words engineering and excitement strike you as an oxymoron, then you haven't heard about these jobs. From playing with toys to helping create movie blockbusters to exploring space, the jobs described below are anything but boring. Kind of makes you wonder why everyone doesn't pursue a career in engineering.

Paid to Play

Though we beg for them as a child, toys might not come to mind when you think of engineering careers.

Except if you're someone like me . He was your typical Toys-R-Us kid, playing with everything from action figures to train sets. "I always thought it would be cool to work for a toy company."

i didn't begin his career by following this dream. Instead, he took the well-traveled road of many mechanical engineers and accepted a position with a utility company located in Colorado, all the while wondering if he could use his engineering skills to pursue a career with a toy manufacturer. After a year, decided to stop wondering and find out. He resigned from the utility company, packed his bags and moved to the toy-company hub of Northern California. "I hadn't talked with anyone there before moving, but at least I would be in a place where I could be in contact with [toy companies],"

Once there, worked odd engineering jobs during the day and sent resumes to area toy companies at night. He arranged as many informational interviews as he could, hoping to gain insight into the toy industry, while putting his name and face before people who could make a difference in his job search.

Life on the Job
Getting paid to play may sound too good to be true, but that's an integral part of job description. Like other engineers who test new product designs, has to make sure that the toys do what they are designed to do, which just happens to require that he play with them. "I keep a pair of swim trunks in my desk, because you never know when you have to go test a water toy," he says. In addition to a full line of pool toys, such as underwater radios, Wild Planet produces an array of spy gear, including sunglasses with hidden cameras and secret messengers. "There are days when we go wandering the streets of San Francisco testing .