I got to have two dream jobs. One was working for BRE, when they won the 1970 SCCA Championship, and then later at a shop that did R+D engine developement.
The down side to both were, wages. The education I got, was priceless, and working with the like of Pete Brock, Mac Tilton, John Morton, John Caldwell, was incredible. The R+D shop had a few PhDs, some of which were the greatest teachers in the world, and a few well, they thought themselves too good to share their knowlege. Being able to start with an ingot of AL, and cast, machine, and dyno my own work was the most gratifing job I've had.
Having those experiences, sure helped thou, in the long term. Mechanicing was just soo easy after seeing how things all worked together.
Now, the plan is to learn Assembly Language at get good at actually writting ecm code.