I'm a wannabe Autocad Programmer?

You want to eventually become a CAD administrator but you've pointed out a couple problems. 1 is that the opportunities or demand for that position aren't really there. and 2 is that getting into CAD will cut your pay.

I used to be an autocad drafter. autocad isnt a software that's really meant to have a separate person in charge of programming and a separate person for drafting. If a drafter wants to write a script and create a shortcut for what needs to be done, he can do that then get back to drafting. so there's not really a position dedicated to what I think you're describing.

If you're talking about CAD drafting and designing then you should take courses on autocad, maybe even get a certificate or degree. Then find an autocad job as a drafter and move on up until you are eventually the head of the CAD Department of the company.

The hardest thing for a man when he makes foreman. He has to set down his tools. I am an engineer, and I am the second fastest drafter in the place. I have supervised auto cad drafters, trained them. And just as I am ready to dump more work on them and make them designers they quit for another company.

A big part of design is document control and configuration control. I have a drafter who thinks he can correct things, but he never completes the whole task. If you make a change on one print, it affects 12 others. I just got off the phone with a field engineer who discovered yet another oops. Two out of 4 prints say it should be this. I workded on a uranium enrichment project that used "documentum" to keep track of everything. This was a huge IT project, that they messed up. It could take 15 min to load a print from that data base.

The buzz word you want is not Autocad manager. But configuration control. If a drafter or engineer makes a change, who made it, and what was made. This is going to be more important as we work from the cloud.

i understand that's not very specific. notwithstanding making use of specific CAD you purposes you are able to draw up the layout to the variety which you somewhat desire and then use CNC machines that are under pressure out as much as the computing gadget to construct the product/prototype which you have purely designed. CAD = computing gadget Aided layout CNC = computing gadget Numerically controlled open CAD -> draw layout --> sync to CNC gadget --> create regardless of you designed consistent with what variety if CNC laptop you're making use of