Honest answers only

Manufacturing is a thankless slog that will suck the life out of you. The only 1 getting paid are the top tier leaders. Rarely is inspection looked at as anything other than a pain in the ass and a cost. That being said, Its 100% better than running a production machine \ working as a robot. I did everything I could to direct my son away from anything manufacturing related. Been doing this for almost 30 years for a graduated degreed engineer starting to exceed my income and question me......yeah..... Manufacturing is awesome.....

No one is touching this ? Everyone just loves manufacturing ?

1) Everything
2) Yes

I was on the fence about responding to this one. But I'm not seeing a lot of takers, so here you go.

1) What I like most about this field is that I mostly work independently and have a lot of freedom to do things my own way. I’m told what to do and given deadlines, but I’m free to be creative about how I do it.

What I like least is that I have little influence to fix/improve the problems that come up in my job. It can be easy to get bitter about that, but I suspect that is pretty common in many roles within any organization. So, it is what it is.

2) I would suggest that someone seriously consider a career as a CMM Operator/Programmer. Whether or not it is a good fit for someone depends on a number of factors. The big one is a willingness to live close to where the jobs are prevalent and pay competitively like the manufacturing district of a large city. Being willing to move or do traveling work really helps too.

It also helps if it is something you enjoy doing and want to do long term. I don’t get the impression that it is a great steppingstone on the way to upper management or to move to different roles within an organization. The only roles I have seen as possible advancement from a CMM programmer is Quality Engineer, Quality Supervisor, Quality Manager, or some other obscure job title with the word ‘Quality’ in front of it.

My general feeling is: It’s a living. It's not very exciting but I get paid much better than the median wage in my country. I work in a climate-controlled environment. I don’t need to attend many meetings, make many phone calls, or spend tons of time with e-mails. Really it is a pretty sweet gig, even it doesn’t always feel that way.
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Ill expand on a few things after what Chirs said..... ( not disagreeing with any of it !! )

Where you work is every thing. Having influence is everything. I was able to convince people that I needed to be brought in on new projects from day 1 so we can work thru print and tolerance issues at step 1 and not after the fact to be succesfull. I also had a background as a machinist in " implantable medical " and have a Y14.5 certification. Your just not stumping or bs'ing me on anything dimensional \ print reading \ GD&T. Background experience is everything in my opinion. Not being able to give feedback to manufacturing makes you look like you dont know what your talking about and no one will respect \ believe you. Being at a place where the inmates run the asylum and " thats how we always do it " you will want to jump in front of a train.... I inherited a system at a company that the CMM programming was done so poorly that it took10 years to convince the shop that the CMM can actually measure something correctly. Yeah, unfortunatley movement up the chain is what chris said above. To me its more of a move from technical work to being more of a lawyer \ paperwork shuffler \ document control guy. If thats you great, Im not a spec reader and I want to run from anything " paperwork " related.

1) What do you like and dislike the most about working in this field?

DISLIKE = As a whole from what I have had to deal with in the past is lack of respect for what we do , that included management and people on the floor.
LIKE = I love to work with the CMMs to see what can be done with what appears to be impossible and make it work. Always trying find a better and quicker way of doings. I love the people that I work with here.

2) Would you HONESTLY advise someone to start a career as a CMM Operator/Programmer?

Without hesitation. But..... I would not tell that to just anyone. I know people that have no common sense and can't think through a good dump on the toilet if they had to. A person needs to have patience and the ability to deal with absolutely every kind of mentality that one can imagine.

1) I love(d) working in medical. It's typical pablum for the sales folks, but the years I worked for a rather large OEM? I felt that I REALLY made a difference for patients. My company let me local admin the Demon, and basically have free reign over the CMM inspection situation in Quality. A real career.... but when company execs and greed decided to ship the work to china? Figure how patients fare now. .

Now, I work for the government, and it's a cesspool. IT contractors handcuff EVERYTHING, they have NO clue of a CMM, but they want their tentacles in every software domain. I have to put in my CAC card password every 10 minutes (or so it seems) 10 people to sharpen a pencil... multiple eyes looking over your shoulder just to....uh, make multiple reports of n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Folks, do you ever wonder how a claw hammer costs $15.99 at ACE Hardware, but through the GSA it's $600.00. Yeah. Joe taxpayer bend over.

2) I wouldn't advise to be a CMM operator. IMHO? There's probably better cool and important buttons to push somewhere else.
But sure, I'd recommend putting your efforts into becoming a CMM programmer. Go in full throttle! And hopefully? You get in with with a good private sector company. Don't not EVER take the bait on the government hook. You might get an OK salary, but you might as well leave your brain on the nightstand. An army of bureaucrats will smother your soul........

1) I like the satisfaction of completing short projects in the manufacturing field. Had a job in design and it was disheartening when you spend months on a project and the boss decides scrap it and do something else. Only been working for a couple years though and pretty much everyone here hates their job. Eventually will try to do my own thing rather than wage-slaving my soul away.

1) Like- What I like the most about the job is the fact that every job is different and requires some degree of problem solving to complete.
Dislike- I do not have a degree so in the past I have been viewed as lesser than. Despite the fact that I am usually the guy sitting on the phone discussing GD&T errors and measurement data with customers. Also, in the past i was never brought into discussions that i should have been present for. Luckily the job i have now has eliminated those issues and i am much more involved and considered the expert in my field.

2) absolutely would recommend.

Really depends on the work environment and culture but most places do suck the life out of you. Running a machine pays decently well and is clean work so I have no complaints.