<p>Yes, most people don’t know about the DARPA project and the ARPANET.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET</a></p>
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<p>Cosmicfish, it seems that we’ve been debating these very same issues for quite awhile now, and you always seem to defend and/or otherwise serve as an apologist for the engineering career-ladder status quo.</p>
<p>And to that, I must ask- why? It has always been my thesis that engineers - or at least the top ones - are substantially underpaid relative to the value they provide to the world. That is to say, they generate tremendous value, but they capture relatively little of it. They furthermore don’t enjoy the career advancement opportunities that they should. Nor do they enjoy the social status in society that other professions enjoy. We should therefore investigate potential reforms that might provide such top engineers with enhanced opportunities. Furthermore, cosmicfish, it seems to me that you’re one of those top engineers that would benefit the most from such reform. After all, we’re all engineers or engineering students on this forum, so it would behoove us to improve the standing of engineers in society. </p>
<p>So I must ask, why do you fight? Exactly why do you continue to defend what is, at least IMO, the indefensible? You don’t want additional pay? You don’t want more career opportunities? You don’t want more status?</p>
<p>Hey, if you don’t want additional pay, fair enough, then might I propose sending it to me? I’ll take that money off your hands if you really don’t want it. Or if you really don’t want enhanced career opportunities and status, perhaps you could at least allow other engineers to partake.</p>
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Should electrical engineers working on John Deere combines be paid more than those who design Apple iPods?</p>
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<p>I’m not sure that that question is entirely relevant. Why not have *both * Deere and Apple EE’s (along with the EE’s in the rest of the economy) be paid substantially more, on average? After all, all investment bankers and strategy consultants are paid well. Goldman Sachs investment bankers might be paid more than, say, Citigroup investment bankers, but they’re all paid well. </p>
<p>Or, if it’s not feasible for all engineers to be paid better, then why not have only the top engineers be paid better, regardless of employer. After all, the quality of engineer at any employer surely exhibits wide variation: the top engineers at Deere are surely better than the worst engineers at Apple. So why not have the top Deere engineers be paid shockingly well? Again, investment bankers and consultants are paid shockingly well. While the counterargument to the comparison of engineers vs. Ibankers/consultants is that most engineers will never hired by Ibanks/consultancies, a subgroup of top performers can be. So why not pay that subgroup more? </p>
<p>Otherwise, that subgroup will continue to feel incentivized to leave engineering, generally via the MBA escape hatch. A whopping 25-40% of all MBA students at the top B-schools are former engineers, and many (almost certainly the vast majority) of them are not going back to engineering or tech management, but rather are switching careers to consulting or banking. If engineering paid better and offered better advancement opportunities, surely many of them would choose to stay. Since the Ibankers and consultants have somehow managed to devise an ingenious strategy to support stellar pay and career opportunities for its employees, perhaps engineers can do the same. </p>
<p>And again, I’m mystified as to why such a stance attracts such vitriolic resistance by some posters. I thought we were all engineers here, and hence we were all on the same side. You guys don’t want higher pay? You guys don’t want improved advancement opportunities? </p>
<p>Or perhaps my assumption is wrong, and that we actually aren’t all engineers here? Is it possible that some of us are actually managers of engineers whose task is to convince engineers why they shouldn’t want better pay or advancement opportunities, all in a deep strategy to control labor costs? If so, then I suppose I must congratulate you for playing a well-played game.</p>
<p>Honestly, engineering pay is for the most part worth the job done, barring the tendency for companies to be excessively cheap as **** (which is, admittedly, a more common trend with the recession, exported production, and imported labor). It’s the glass ceiling which really is a problem. That kills engineering talent.
It’s no great loss if an engineering star forms a startup. It is a loss if they choose to join the bubble-blowing industry.</p>
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The question was entirely relevant. I am trying to understand your position on how wage rates should be set.</p>
<p>Can you answer?
Many of us are either students or relatively recent graduates. Employment for new engineering grads is not 100%…you won’t find too many engineering students crying about the fact that a few MIT kids get to work on Wall Street instead of adding to the engineering labor force. You know what the competition is like for EL positions in top-tier finance or consulting? I’d speculate that the majority of engineers would rather not deal with that, even for higher pay.</p>
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I think you missed my point. Every thread you contribute to in the engineering forums gets steered (by you) to the same point. I am certain that you believe each time that it is thoroughly relevant, but to many of us (or at least many of me) it is often as absurd a diversion as the one I offered.</p>
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You seem to think that world consists only of your particular innovative idea and the poor deluded slobs favoring the status quo. A little too simplistic. The reality is that I consider the status quo less than optimal but still far superior than what most get. Your solution would benefit a select few while making the overall situation worse - I do not consider that a solution.</p>
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On this I agree. Where I disagree is in your recommendations for general reforms, and your advice for self-promotion for individual engineers.</p>
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So I must ask, why do you fight? Exactly why do you continue to defend what is, at least IMO, the indefensible? You don’t want additional pay? You don’t want more career opportunities? You don’t want more status? <a href=“1”>/quote</a> Because I think your ideas are bad, and will only make things worse.
(2) I don’t. I just oppose YOUR proposed solutions. If I am injured, I should listen to the guy who thinks I should I should spray windex on it?
(3) Of course I do, but I recognize that my “measly” engineering salary already puts me higher than any other profession with a comparable educational requirement. Also, my desire to actually do engineering work exceeds my desire to get paid however much more to do other things.
(4) Of course I do, but that does not mean that I want the career opportunities you seem to think I should want, nor does it mean that I think such opportunities are unavailable to poor little me.
(5) I don’t particularly care about status. I generally have a poor opinion of those who do.</p>
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Do I have the power to stop them?</p>
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The time I can devote to this forum is sharply limited this week, but I just wanted to touch on this, as I think it highlights a difference between you and me. I am well aware that patent attorneys make a lot more than engineers, and am also well aware that intellectual property law is necessary for the engineering profession to exist. Nonetheless, also I feel that the current system of IP law is a major contributor to the problems you observe in the engineering profession, and think that encouraging top engineers to switch to that team only makes it worse. Encouraging engineers to move into management, or law, or finance may help them financially, but it does nothing for them as engineers, nor does it help other engineers - it just strengthens those professions at the expense of ours.</p>
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That’s just it though - engineers are being disincentivized to remain in engineering, at a cost to the well-being of the field. A simple case of a pursuit for greater self-interest leading to a negative externality for the country. This problem is way more prevalent in regards to the sciences in that we need a solution immediately, but engineering is undergoing a similar decay at the expense of just about everyone.
At least the solution is relatively obvious: encourage manufacturers to stay in the country, with either subsidies or tariffs and taxes. Maybe restructure the H-1B system in a way that doesn’t harm local workers as well. The problems in the field of science are deep structural deficiencies that make people dependent on the ever-capricious field of Washington politics and probably won’t be fixed for years.</p>
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Yes, but:
(1) The reverse is also true, in that the relatively high pay of engineering also draws talented people from other fields.
(2) A relatively small number of talented engineers are capable of achieving the great wealth that finance, law, management, etc. offer, and too often the pursuit of that wealth draws those who lack that broad talent and interest needed to make a worthwhile career in those fields.
(3) Actively encouraging this (as sakky does) only makes it worse.</p>
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I think that will increase demand for engineers, but will not necessarily improve salaries, management positions, or “status” as sakky seems to want.</p>
<p>[Did</a> government invent the Internet? ? Marginal Revolution](<a href=“http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/08/did_government_.html]Did”>Did government invent the Internet? - Marginal REVOLUTION)</p>
<p>For engineers that would never hit the glass ceiling, the pay is definitely worth it. However, I’ve seen plenty to see that sakky is right about that we’re not really making it worth their while for top engineers to be engineers. They clearly feel that it’s worth taking their chances in the world of law, finance, and the like. This is a clear detriment to society.
Honestly though, finance needs to be gutted regardless. We’re using too much credit at the cost of an economy based on real value. That killed the Roman Empire and in a more unstable world, that could be the death of the US as well.
Speculation is becoming WAY too prevalent.</p>
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<p>Fair enough; if you find them to be absurd, then why do you keep responding? Heck, why even bother to read my posts at all, if say that you always find them to be so predictable anyway? Why not do us both a favor and not read them?</p>
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<p>I would argue that those ‘select few’ who would benefit would precisely be our fellow engineers. After all, isn’t helping our colleagues by promoting the status and strategic positioning of our profession within society exactly what we ought to be doing? Believe me, the other professions haven’t exactly been shy about promoting themselves, often times at the expense of the engineers, and they’re not going to stop. Why must we always be their doormats? </p>
<p><a href=“1”>quote</a> Because I think your ideas are bad, and will only make things worse.
(2) I don’t. I just oppose YOUR proposed solutions. If I am injured, I should listen to the guy who thinks I should I should spray windex on it?
(3) Of course I do, but I recognize that my “measly” engineering salary already puts me higher than any other profession with a comparable educational requirement. Also, my desire to actually do engineering work exceeds my desire to get paid however much more to do other things.
(4) Of course I do, but that does not mean that I want the career opportunities you seem to think I should want, nor does it mean that I think such opportunities are unavailable to poor little me.
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<p>You say that you are opposed to my solutions - but do you actually understand them? Seems to me that you think that I want all engineers, or at least the best ones, to become financiers and consultants when in fact I want nothing of the sort - I actually consider that outcome to be a most regrettable outcome that is the unfortunate and unavoidable byproduct of the fact that engineering firms persistently refuse to pay engineers their worth. </p>
<p>Rather, if I had my druthers, I would actually convince engineering firms to take all of the rents that they currently pay to (a.k.a. waste upon) the consulting and finance industry and redirect it to bolster engineering pay. I suspect that neither you nor anybody else here would have any objection to that, and indeed, would probably heartily endorse it. The catch is that it’s not clear how to instigate that change. </p>
<p><a href=“5”>quote</a> I don’t particularly care about status. I generally have a poor opinion of those who do.
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<p>Whether you or I care about status or not, the fact is, status is a source of power and power ultimately determines who gets paid what. For example, it should surprise nobody that arguably the key reason why consultants and bankers enjoy such high pay is because they are (probably undeservedly) accorded high status by managers. Engineers are therefore engaged in a war for status within the corporate hierarchy whether they want to be or not. Unfortunately, it’s a war that they don’t seem to be fighting. </p>
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<p>Sure you do, by sitting here on CC and convincing them that they shouldn’t want more pay and status and should be simply content with whatever is available to them under the status quo. That sort of defeatist attitude helps nobody.</p>
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<p>On this particular point, I would agree that if the current IP system could have been strangled in its cradle, that would have indeed been a far preferable system. But it wasn’t. It exists and it’s not going away, however much we might wish otherwise. The most viable solution I can see is to then have engineering-trained attorneys who could then possibly steer and shape the IP laws in a manner conducive to the engineering profession. That seems far preferable to the current system where IP laws are steered by lawyers who have no background in engineering. For example, the latest patent law “reform” was amended and voted upon by members of Congress who, while commonly having backgrounds as attorneys, have little if any engineering training.</p>
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<p>Which is as it should be, for we are engaged in a war for talent. The problem is that the other aforementioned professions pay even more. </p>
<p>Now, granted, perhaps one could argue that a profession such as medicine pays more than engineering because medicine actually provides greater value to society than does engineering. But the value to society provided by law, consulting and finance is questionable at best…but that only means that their ability to extract such handsome pay packages is all the more impressively cunning. If those professions can pay such high salaries in return for such dubious value to society, just imagine how much engineers could be paid for actually providing the legitimately value to society that they do. </p>
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<p>I doubt that I can truly ‘actively encourage’ something that is already happening at fever pitch. It’s not as if the top engineers from top schools headed to alternative careers only once I started posting here on CC - that had already been happening for years. All I’ve done is simply highlighted a problem that had already existed. </p>
<p>My goal was to instigate a discussion regarding how engineers can improve their standing in society. For example, if investment bankers can apparently demand and receive such high pay right out of school with practically no training, maybe the engineers could reform their own profession to do likewise. </p>
<p>But if people are simply uninterested in that, then we’ll inevitably continue to watch the best engineering graduates head to alternative professions.</p>
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<p>Um, I didn’t find anything within that posting to indicate even in the slightest that the government did not invent the Internet. What the private sector did do - and of which I have never disputed - is popularize and commercialize the Internet. </p>
<p>But it is still nevertheless true that the government - whether at the behest of Al Gore or not - did indeed invent the Internet.</p>
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<p>Here’s a question to which I have never received a satisfactory answer: why do you practically never hear complaints of the H1B system potentially lowering salaries in the consulting and finance industry? To be clear, that’s not to say that those industries don’t employ H1B visa-holders, for they certainly do. But I struggle to think of any groundswell of enraged consultants and bankers complaining that H1B holders are taking their jobs and lowering pay.</p>
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<p>And the question was answered: the star engineers, whether at Apple, Deere, or anywhere else, should be receiving star pay. </p>
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<p>But what they should be crying about is why engineering firms refuse to pay salaries in accordance with the consulting and banking firms. </p>
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<p>So? The competition for top-tier engineering positions at, say, Apple are highly competitive as well. But even the most competitive engineering position won’t pay anywhere near as much as will the top consulting and banking firms, and it’s entirely appropriate to ask why.</p>