Slashdot Mirror
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!
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 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