Another blocker is that CAD is a relatively small part of mechanical engineering. Pretty much all software engineers use version control, but depending on subfield/company, maybe 20-50% of mechanical engineers will use CAD significantly. Mostly the design guys. The engineers in test, analysis, materials will barely touch it.
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Though interestingly if you look at the numbers there are more CAD seats than MechE's, so I'm guessing a lot of other engineers, technicians, etc. are using it.
Test folks have totally different systems like LabView for data logging and analysis that don't really talk to the simulation tools, CAD, etc. - very fragmented dev tools.
I really like Bret Victor's "Seeing Spaces" vision for a more integrated hardware dev environment where it integrated software and workshop into an real-world "dev environment": http://worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/
I can confirm that. While it's true that the MechE's at my workplace all have CAD seats, we also have a number of floating seats that get used by a variety of people. There are things you can do in the CAD tool, but not in the free "viewer" tool, so we provide CAD seats to our manufacturing engineers, who also use CAD to design things like jigs and fixtures.
I believe it actually takes a bigger and more hierarchical engineering organization to have MechE's who are not busy at the CAD terminal a lot of the time.
In addition, our machinist has a CAD seat, the machine shops that we use all have CAD seats. And while optical engineering is a small field, most OE's have CAD skills.
Peter of Edge Precision recently released a video on the CAD and CAM he does in a typical machining job[1]. The video of him turning the part[2] is also good.
Machinists running any sort of CNC machine will need both CAD & CAM seats.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPtoxEgzrhE [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-jT3HrSHjE
I had a SW license for sure when I was a stress analyst . I'd use it to look at a part to take a dimension, and maybe once a month use it to make a drawing from an existing part that would go into a report. I never modeled in it. By far the most important software for me was Excel though.
>more CAD seats than MechE's
Unless you're an EI fresh out of college, engineers probably won't spend many billable hours in CAD. Your time is too valuable, and most contract rates won't be high enough to have engineers doing drafting.
(EI = Engineer Intern, for getting your 4 years of experience for becoming a PE, which is similar to a Medical Resident for physicians.)
We have a pool of draftsman that handle most of the actual drafting, at the direction of PEs, which let's the PEs focus on actual design and other things that can be billed at higher rates.
But since CAD is still installed on the PE's computers, they're probably still counted as users, even if it's mostly for review, printing, minor redlines, etc.
Hint: Don’t let a CAD designer give you a model that is not fully resolved (i.e. constrained.)