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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?"
Either get a hobby doing challenging projects or strike out on your own and do consulting in a field that you particularly enjoy.
Join an OSS developers list and start hacking. Buy some hardware and get to porting. Write the next great killer application.
Whatever you do, don't move backwards in your career. If you think a move back to development is a step backwards, I'd recommend you adjust your attitude a little.
Quit your job, it'll be outsourced by the end of the year anyway. Instead, start a Sourceforge project for a next-generation text editor. Use your newfound freetime to beg for donations on the interweb and be sure to cultivate a dirty GNU/Hippie beard. Don't forget to watch plenty of tentacle hentai for inspiration!
I find it surprising that you are facing no "technical challenges". Rarelly should any no experience engineer be performing management type activities, beyond what is sadly the norm for all engineers. System Engs. certinally have a higher tendency to go management, but it isn't always the case.
Have you considered that it's the company and not the profession that bother you? Any systems eng. should be able to get a job that someone with a EE degree would without "going back".
Also, a quick question: by "real engineering", do you designing a few things and mostly going to meetings, or actually building something? Because unfortunetally, the former is generally "real" engineering, and the later is technicians work. I don't know how many newb hires I've seen get upset over time at the difference.
If you have saved some scratch during your gig as a System Engineer I would recommend going back to school for a year or so to get your masters degree. Most EEs that I know(anecdote alert!) anyway say that pretty much a masters is essential, if not at the very least a career booster. Plus it would get you back in contact with some interesting technology and give you a "fresh start" in the eyes of companies.
Monstar L
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, a Dutch space research institute. My current project 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) to see some stuff we're working on.
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Since I finished my degree in electrical engineering, I've been working in a consultancy, designing products, while watching my friends dissolve into large companies, moving away from actual engineering work.
To be honest, getting extra qualifications doesn't mean much. You have your qualifications as an electrical engineer, that is enough - what you need is a hands-on design job. So as i said, look for work in consultancies and RnD houses, there would be plenty around. What you get while working for such a company can never be given to you by a masters degree or a PhD. You are working on products for tomorrow, looking for better way to do things. You will learn a lot and gain lots of experience.
Thats my advice anyway - get yourself a job in a consultancy. Where are you from anyway? I could suggest a few.
Not all Masters programs are equivalent in terms of the demand for their graduates.
If you're not already a member, join the local IEEE and attend the meetings. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Find as many ways to network as you can think of.
I agree with the parent. Doing a Masters Degree is almost always viewed favorably by those doing the hiring. Where I work, you won't even get an interview unless you have a Masters. That wasn't the case when I graduated but we are seeing 'credential creep'. I'm grandfathered but the lack of a Masters means that I would have trouble even getting a lateral transfer within the organization.
Get a new job, if in the second job you end up in the same position, then it is probably you that is putting yourself there. So often you are your own worst enemy.
If after the second job you still aren't happy, get a job at a University and pay your way through a Masters program.
I started out as a civil engineer from an ivy league school in the 1960s.
... (hehe)" means someone who cares is so stupid that he actually cares about reality and progress, rather than about getting five to ten times the money like the cracker pretty boys who manage them ... in short, being by nature scientific and honest, an engineer will find there is no place for him in the great American financial apparition.
... but international competition will require that your salary be that of a construction inspector, who will ge a company car, a pension, and bonuses for filing vague reports at the right time. In short, as an honest engineer, by the end of your career, you will find yourself divorsed, broke, and have been the world's biggest fool. You will have "invested" more up-front hard-earned money of your parents in an education with a half-life of 3-5 years (and this is a non-deductable up-front personal "investment" which you will in effect donate for free, and then spend down for free, as a contribution to your employer's balance sheet -- and you will do this in exchange for the vague promise of at-will project employment -- with no continuity, pension or overtime -- and you will work more hours per day, farther away from family, children and home, under more duress of physical emergencies, and your boss' need for you to twist your words and sign falsified reports, than any of the other form of employee in your company. In short, you will take the fall, while your politically-connected boss counts the money. By comparison to the rewards offered a mail clerk, or to your bean-counter whip-thrashing boss, you are a fool.
Based on a comparison of incomes and profits, all forms of engineering are functionally disreputable as an occupation. By that, I mean socially and financially. After contributing the costs of your half-life education, and the non-deductable costs for its maintenance (average half-life of an engineering degree is maybe 3 to 6 years on the outside and declining), a taxi-cab driver will make better profits, and an intelligent and educated one arguably will have a better chance of raising a productive family, because he can spend more time with his family and children than the "working engineer" will ever be able to.
Setting aside the financial tom-follery of big salaries for engineers (which management will treat as some kind of joke) -- engineers are the biggest fools and therefore also one of the greatest dangers to society, based on the financial and social disrespect that they will receive from management and from society in general, in exchange for their loyalty and truthfulness (if they can file truthful reports and remain employed). Based on the comparative hours contributed to work, and on salary, benefits and bonuses received, associates who studied financial engineering or rhetorical engineering will in a short while move way ahead of you, and their up-front educational costs, which have to be contributed to 'get a job' are much lower.
Careerwise, once you've been branded with an engineering degree, you will find you have been "branded-a-fool" for life. Decoded, the phrase "... he's an engineer
Even if you have superlative interpersonal, communication and management skills, as a graduate engineer, you will find yourself "niched out of necessity" -- pigeonholed into an engineered corner because no one else in your company will be able do the required emergency engineering- mathematical- scientific tasks at hand
Learn to think of "real engineering" the way Cheney and Haliburton think of it. Create a financial apparation as a Potemkin storefront, behind which you operate an "engineering" sweatshop (average turnover or job life for an engineer is about 3-5 years -- look at the average of resumes for engineers -- it's a disaster), invest in joining a country club rather than an engineering education, buttlick for political-military contracts, and just steal the easy money! Look at Iraq. Take Billions i
The smaller the company, the more hats you wear. You could find yourself doing both Systems Engineering and Electrical Engineering (and half a dozen other things to boot).
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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.
The problem that I've seen is that there is the opportunity to stay in engineering, but there aren't as many opportunities. There may be 2 or 3 technical/engineering spots in the upper management areas, but there are 10x as many "regular" spots. So, yes - you can get raises and promotions staying on a technical track, but not as much or as fast as on a more traditional management track.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.