Going Back to Engineering?

JoeLinux asks: "I am a Systems Engineer for a Big Engineering Company(tm). I've been in the position for four years after getting my undergrad in Electrical Engineering. I've finally come to the conclusion that I will never see any form of technical challenge despite the continued promise of such. The problem is that almost all engineers usually make the transition the other way (E.E. to Systems). Seeing as Systems is looked at as a possible gateway to the dark side (Management), is there any going back to 'real' engineering? Have any readers successfully made the transition? How do you justify what would typically be considered a step back?"

Peter Principle

[krotkruton]

The Peter Principle [wikipedia.org] states, "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Although this isn't quite applicable, it is seen all too often that engineers and such who do well at their jobs are eventually promoted to management, where many don't want to be, regardless of whether or not they are good at doing it.

The good news is that this might be changing. I'm currently at the University of Illinois and have had the wonderful opportunity (sarcastic) to have just finished a class on CS Ethics and Professionalism here. The class was miserable, but that's not the point. There was a lot of focus on how to do job interviews and what to look for when you are trying to get into the workforce, and this topic of engineers getting promoted to management positions came up. Our professor, along with a guest lecturer who runs the Career Management Offices (or something like that), both said that many jobs now are offering contracts that will "promise" to allow for engineers to stay in engineering and not get bumped to management, while also getting continued pay raises and promotions, so they aren't just getting stuck in engineering with no chance for advancement. This is good news for others who are worried about having a choice between management with a promotion and engineering with no chance for advancement at some point.

I also have a friend who graduated with EE and started working as an engineer at some manufacturing plant I believe. He did well and within a couple years of graduating, got into what I think is an unorthodox managment position. He is more of a contractor; he manages the other engineers in the building while working with them to get projects done. When things go wrong, he's the first one there trying to fix things. He doesn't have to deal with a lot of paperwork and salaries or anything like that, so its not my idea of management. Maybe this is the direction you were looking for?

Either way, I realize neither of those are getting from Systems to EE, but if some recent graduates are starting to have these opportunities, then maybe you will to.

Check on jobs in research institutes

[cerberusss]

I'd like to suggest that you look for a job in a research institute. What you're asking is NEVER going to fly in a business environment. I'm currently working at SRON [www.sron.nl], a Dutch space research institute. My current project [www.sron.nl] involves a supercooled instrument which receives waves in the 500-620 GHz range and will fly on a balloon somewhere next year. I'm the software guy for the project and it's great work. You get to work with very smart physics guys and the project has a bunch of custom-designed electronics which I'm reading out and controlling.

I'm under some pressure right now because we're going to fly april 2007, but normally, there is enough time to creatively do your job.

Check my website (for instance here [vankuik.nl]) to see some stuff we're working on.

Re:Check on jobs in research institutes

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kidding right? I'm a physicist, so it's a little different to being an EE, but once you've spent time in industry, the gatekeepers of academic institutions and not-for-profit research institutes (at least here in the UK) really don't want to let you back in, even if you're one of the top people in your field.

The moment you step off the academic treadmill you're screwed if you ever want to go back, because the academics can't recognise professional experience - even when you've got a multi-million dollar research budget and publish dozens of papers each year.

It's even worse if they can't see your research because it's classified or so commercially important that it's only viewable after vetting and an NDA.

Re:Check on jobs in research institutes

[CastrTroy]

I took software engineering in university, and while I'm not yet a P. Eng. I find that there are very few companies out there who want to do real software engineering. I find that taking software engineering provided a good foundation to develop good software, and that I find I'm better off than those who took computer science, but I also find that a lot of my knowledge isn't doing me a lot of good, because companies don't want engineered software. They want something good that doesn't crash all the time, but they don't want something that's perfect, because they don't want to take the extra time necessary to do it right the first time.