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<p>That’s what I studied. I’m going into basic data handling software development though. It seems like if you want to do anything interesting you’re going to need a PhD. A bachelors degree just doesn’t do much to prepare you for anything apparently. At least at my school.</p>
<p>Really? Does the school you go to make a difference or is a Phd always needed?</p>
<p>I think if you did a research oriented masters that might suffice. When I was looking through job postings for that type of thing many said Masters or PhD but I got the idea that they wanted you to have significant research experience.</p>
<p>Interesting, I never realized a Masters would be needed for employment. Thanks for the information.</p>
<p>I bet there are many students majoring in OR who do not know a BS is insufficient for good job prospects.</p>
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<p>I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that you won’t really be doing OR stuff.</p>
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<p>I agree with you. Perhaps this site attracts people who are a). high school and college students/parents b). people who love their careers, so they come to provide (with good intentions) information to high school and college kids. However, that means we only hear from people who are fortunate enough to land jobs with great employers, etc. I have read threads where people moan about their jobs, too, but most non-high school/college students usually love their jobs.</p>
<p>So NeoDynium, have you worked as an engineer? Can you share some of your experiences (obviously, only info you feel comfortable sharing). :)</p>
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<p>Interesting! Can’t wait to get a job, then! lol However, is it not true that many managers, in hope of getting promoted, make almost impossible promises, such as shortening the length of time to finish a project from one year to say, 9 months? Also, why don’t employers check on their engineers? That would surely cost costs, right?</p>
<p>[Silicon</a> Valley?s Dark Secret: It?s All About Age | TechCrunch](<a href=“http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/28/silicon-valley’s-dark-secret-it’s-all-about-age/]Silicon”>Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age | TechCrunch)</p>
<p>[In</a> Silicon Valley, age can be a curse - SFGate](<a href=“In Silicon Valley, age can be a curse”>In Silicon Valley, age can be a curse)</p>
<p>[Older</a> engineers battle age discrimination | Minnesota Public Radio News](<a href=“http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/04/02/daily-circuit-engineering]Older”>Older engineers battle age discrimination | MPR News)</p>
<p>Please give me your opinions on these articles. Age discrimination is the biggest turnoff for me in engineering. I can work hard, I can deal with office politics, I might even be willing to work insane hours. But age discrimination makes all those hard years in school rewarded by something so short-lived - as early as at age 35! And it also leaves you with few alternatives when you have hit 35-40. In other fields, age is an asset - you’re viewed as wise and experienced. But not so in engineering and other technical jobs. :(</p>
<p>My office has a lot of people who are around retiring age, but are still highly valued. Why? Because over the course of their career they never let themselves become obsolete. They became very familiar with new technology or new methods of evaluating projects. You can’t let yourself stagnate. You have to continually make sure that you have the years of experience and you can still keep up with the new college graduates.</p>
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<p>That may be true, but i don’t see why employers would still be willing to pay 2x+ for an older engineer when a college grad could do the same stuff after a bit of training. The latter method would save the employer lots of money.</p>
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It’s been my experience that schedules are far more likely to underestimate time required than overestimate, particular for certain areas of projects. When I first started working, I had a personal rule of expecting verification to take double whatever the estimated time in the schedule was. The reasons often have little to do with getting promoted. Bonuses and other pay and/or promotions can be tied to meeting schedule dates for management, so such an approach can backfire. Sometimes managers intentionally sets challenging time goals, in an effort to inspire the group to work harder. Sometimes it is done to make external groups happier, such as customers or whoever is sponsoring the project. Construction/handyman type contractors are also known for doing this. Sometimes it is not intentional. The person creating the schedule may not have a good sense about how long certain aspects of the project will take, or he may not take into account delays for unexpected things happening, or many aspects of the project may not be well defined at the time of the schedule (requires further research/simulation/design for accurate time estimate). This can also relate to a large degree of separation between those driving the schedule and those working on the project.</p>
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How do you get an engineer to work at their maximum potential? It depends on the engineer. Some work best with intrinsic motivation in a pleasant work environment, with lots of flexibility and autonomy, rather than having someone micromanaging their work and constantly checking whether they are making satisfactory progress and/or making threats of punishment for failure to make progress. There are also often issues with engineers working on complex tasks for which progress cannot be easily defined and/or understood by managers. For example, an engineer might spend a week starting to look into what type of design he’d favor for one aspect of a project. How does a manager define satisfactory progress at this on a day-to-day basis? An example of this type of intrinsic motivation environment is Google’s 20% time (one day per week to work on creative ideas unrelated to current projects). Note that some managers do frequently check on status, particularly among less experienced workers.</p>
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<p>As a practical matter, it is not possible for someone, no matter how intelligent he or she is, to keep up with EVERY new technology or method of evaluating projects. When I first started working in the 1980s, it was more common for companies to hire people who had strong engineering fundamentals (such as the ability to learn on the job). It has now become more common for companies to seek out people with specific knowledge. If they can’t find such people, they claim NO ONE is qualified to do this work (except people in the countries they outsource or offshore the work to).</p>
<p>[Why</a> Can?t Startups Find Designers?](<a href=“Why Can’t Startups Find Designers?”>Why Can’t Startups Find Designers?)</p>
<p>[Designers</a>, Developers, and Unicorns, Oh My! Reflections After Hitting The Hacker News Home Page](<a href=“http://uxdiogenes.com/blog/designers-developers-and-unicorns-oh-my-reflections-after-hitting-the-hacker-news-home-page]Designers”>Designers, Developers, and Unicorns, Oh my! Reflections After Hitting the Hacker News Home Page by Diogenes Brito)</p>
<p>More on the impact of specialization on keeping up with technology:</p>
<p>[Data</a> Scientist: a unicorn?](<a href=“http://blog.treasure-data.com/post/29496343559/data-scientist-a-unicorn]Data”>http://blog.treasure-data.com/post/29496343559/data-scientist-a-unicorn)</p>
<p>[Why</a> hiring unicorns will kill your startup faster than ?B players? | VentureBeat](<a href=“http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/22/why-hiring-unicorns-will-kill-your-startup-faster-than-b-players/]Why”>Why hiring unicorns will kill your startup faster than 'B players' | VentureBeat)</p>
<p>You don’t need to be the best at every technology. One of my coworkers was just a technician when he came into the company, who also worked construction. Currently, he’s one of the top Microstation experts in the company (who has offices in 30+ states) and looking towards working part time while putting kids through college, then retiring. </p>
<p>A guy in the structures department is probably nearing the high sixties works part time as a consultant. He’s a structural expert when it comes to the technical knowledge and details of a project. He checks over a lot of project plans. He’s the structural expert for our office most of the time.</p>
<p>The company can’t find a lead signals engineer. They’re spending 6 months to train a rail engineer to become a signals engineer because they can’t find what they need in the job market. The rail engineer is 100% American. </p>
<p>They are so highly valued because of the skills they developed on the job that a new hire can’t replicate or learn easily. Or they’ve proven themselves to be a very worthy investment for the company. </p>
<p>Myself (a co-op student) and 4 other employees got training on LiDAR and TopoDot because my company wanted to try out some projects. We were some of the very few in the company outside the main office to play with this new technology.</p>
<p>At the very least, it definitely can’t hurt to keep learning while employed. Tons of companies should have some funds set aside for training of employees.</p>
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The reason is that if anything you have the value estimate reversed - older engineers are often a bargain!</p>
<p>Here’s the thing - new engineers cost thousands to recruit. They then take a couple of years and thousands more to train, after which (or during) they may well run off to another employer, or just turn out to be a bust. Experienced engineers may not have all the newest skills (although they adapt more than you think) but they understand all the principles and systems involved and have a real work history. My old boss (an engineer) would cavalierly knock in a few hours what would have taken me a few days at least, and do it right. Well worth the money.</p>
<p>Also, it is worthwhile to note that employers do not generally promote (or even retain) stagnant engineers. I think it is hard for an engineer to not be worth ~1.5x what a starting engineer makes, but I have met a few who reached that level and plateaued… at which point their salaries plateaued as well. If the company is paying a senior engineer 2x what a starting engineer makes (accounting for everything I mentioned above) it is because they are getting at least that much value of them!</p>
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<p>I agree with you. It’s too bad many employers in the tech field don’t realize this. In non-technical fields, what you have stated seems like common sense to most people, but unfortunately, not in technical fields. Not as commonly as it should, at least, which is why employers keep wanting to import engineers, even though the eventual results prove that it is not a good strategy.</p>
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“Tech fields” covers a lot of ground, and most employers in tech fields DO realize this. The exceptions are not the rule.</p>
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The desire to import engineers has nothing to do with experience. We (the US) import experienced engineers as well as brand new ones, and they compete against American engineers with similar levels of experience. If a company is prevented from replacing an experienced American engineer with an inexperienced foreign engineer, then more often than not the fallback is an inexperienced American engineer.</p>