dream job

To be pedantic, that's still covered under E

I don’t know of a single engineer who has never built a trebuchet.

I’m not even a “proper” engineer and I have like, five desktop trebs, 2 ballistae and some other odds and ends (3d printed, of course,)

It’s like, a right of passage or something.
- I have a scar over my eye from a trebuchet I built in high school, then I went to college for engineering, so that checks out
- I’m a software engineer, but now I feel like I need to build a trebuchet.
- I'm a machinist, which is kind of engineer adjacent. We make cannons.
- I’m a software engineer and I built a trebuchet during lockdown to launch Easter eggs at the neighbours’ gardens since we weren’t allowed to go see them.
- btw, it's a rite of passage.
- I designed and 3D printed a Ballista........
  
  Same-same, right?
Mother, 33, stops being a scientist to do science.
- ~~science~~ engineering
  
  Siege engineering to be precise
And M. A lot of M actually. And S. Also T. Put some A in it to make it not threatening.
- no M here. you can just launch shot and need no M to explain it. have you ever had fun?
I'm a machinist, which is kind of engineer adjacent. We make cannons.
I mean, if this were 1400 AD, sure...

Anyone else find it weird how articles often tend to add the parental status of the subject in the title?

Only if it's about a mother though.
- I guess being a mother is considered an important life achievement, while being a father is not.
I guess it's bait for people who like to judge. The idea could be: it's not responsible to quit science for this and being a mother makes irresponsible choices even worse. That's not my point of view, but I know people whose life seems to be so empty that they feel a constant need to look down on others and the "mother" information gives them at least 5 more minutes of talking shit about how this is a terrible decision.
- I see it the other way around. Older people eat up clickbait news, and older people tend to be parents, so identifying the woman as a mother makes them go “she’s someone like me” while identifying her as a scientist is less likely to resonate. It helps some people imagine themselves in her shoes.
It's been this way since the inception of the news paper. To sell papers they needed to get people invested in the subjects of the paper. That included giving information about the subject of the articles that other people might relate to. If you're a mother you're more likely to be inspired by a mom of 3 who went for a degree in science and ended up becoming a "Trebuchet Master".

Since they specified female, there is presumably also at least one male trebuchet master as well, meaning that the UK considers trebuchets important enough to have multiple trebuchet Masters.

The new alternative to Trident. It's cheaper to have trebuchets posted around the coastline than nukes scooting around on submarines and offers about the same amount of protection from the country being nuked.
- offers about the same amount of protection from the country being nuked.
  
  Sadly true lol
It’s the cheapest means of getting fresh beef from point A to point B. I am surprised burgericanos haven’t discovered it yet
- Now hear me out...Railguns
- There’s a restaurant on the outskirts of bangkok that launches a whole rotisserie chicken from a slingshot over the guests tables and impales on a spike on the helmet of a guy on a unicycle next to your table

Being "trebuchet master" without "Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics"... doubt

Sounds like multidisciplinary peak perfocmance to me.

I would, too. Which is the more exciting job? Unfortunately there probably isn't much call for a trebuchet bombardment these days.

Fun fact, only one trebuchet has ever been deployed for combat in the new world.

The conquistadors and coalition forces built one during the siege of Tenochitlan, they tried to fire it but the sling snapped, rock went up, rock came back down.

Thus ended the storied military record of trebuchets in the new world.
- That's fascinating! You should update the Wiki on trebuchets.
  
  https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet
  
  Clearly someone has pulled a Scots Language Wiki and has been writing bullshit on that article for years
Not yet.
Perhaps this should be decreed in a new Geneva convention as the only allowed long range missile system? That would make wars less deadly and more useful.

What's the distance on those things?

Over 300 meters. Truly the superior siege engine.
- But I still love the Ballista.
  
  I've made several over the years for demonstrations using a couple 2x4s, 2 oak dowels, a steel rod, and nylon rope that'll hurl a "bolt" (tube used to separate clubs in a golf bag with a tennis ball on one end) 400 yards.
  
  They're just fun.
Depends on the mass of the projectile, and how the throwing arm is tuned.

If its release is tuned for distance and they’re flinging period-accurate projectiles, tuned firmly distance a typical period tree could throw stones about 300 meters.

Depending on the kind of fortifications they were against (and if they had siege engines of their own, or other artillery- bow and arrows, whatever) they might set up a little closer and tune instead for more forward velocity rather than range.

The typical mass was about 200-300 kilograms, or a small sedan. You could go heavier, but that typically reduced range.
- 200-300 kilograms, or a small sedan
  
  A small sedan weighs about four times as much as that
"They would have been pulled up to a castle, maybe 200-300m away and they could have launched rocks, boulders and flaming boulders into castles,"...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-65099834.amp
- And cheese my cows. They could launch cows as well.
search YouTube "punkin chunkin"
1000 meters easy.

wait they did not ask for 10 years experience in the field?

100 hours of aoe2 and we've got a deal
- Oh, I got that! Do you think the Brits will accept a foreigner from a place that wasn't one of their colonies?
- Best I can do is 80 hours of Besiege, take it or leave it