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What's the definition of a really good engineer?
- Thread starter TecHNooB
- Start date
wwswimming
Banned
i started in Silicon Valley in 1980 - when they actually maufactured things !
along the way i slowly accumulated a list of top 10 engineers/techies that
i had worked with or observed, at college, and at various companies.
the one characteristic they all had was fanatical, passionate attention to
detail. in some cases, it would be an electrical engineer who would insist
on micro-managing the mechanical engineering, which was my job.
in one case, i ordered some aluminum nitride as a filler for a silicone
potting material on a high voltage power supply. i also ordered a
sample of a fan that was about 5" diameter & 5" long to cool a 10 kW
air-cooled device (10% duty cycle, 1 kW net heat output).
both of these actions pissed off the EE (whom i greatly admired) &
he got me transferred to another division. then, in the next year,
they ended up using both the aluminum nitride & the high-output
fan (which cost $5K).
so, some of the best engineers i've worked with, in addition to
having the requisite attention to detail, also have a "French chef"
aspect to their personality. in other words, it's their way or the highway.
the ability to visualize EVERY ASPECT of the project is important, often,
to project success, so i understand the motivation behind the micro-managing.
i also got a chance to watch the founder of one of Silicon Valley's premier
design firms - as a grad student. with an EE background, i watched him re-
decorate the department offices - carpentry stuff. brilliant. like watching a
samurai slicing a grape.
i don't know what you mean by "grunt engineer". you mean, the guy on the
bottom of the org chart that gets to do the detailed design/ layout work ?
there's nothing wrong with that.
it might help to work at a chaotic start-up. that way, there tends to be a
"power vacuum", into which you can step & bring order from the chaos.
if you enjoy doing seemingly-impossible design tasks & committing to
challenging schedules - and you deliver - you will get recognized, not just
by management, but also by your peers.
one of my favorite war stories is of an engineer i worked with at a microwave
instrument house. we were developing a vector network analyzer, in the
mid '80's. i was the mechanical lead, so i had a seat on the 50 yard line.
the place had just gone vertically integrated - they realized how much money
they were spending on machined parts, and spent $$ bucks to set up their own
very well done large CNC shop.
the chief EE designed a part that was a tube, .050 outside diameter, .038 inside
diameter, with 2 cuts, to make 4 "fingers" (it was for a female connector). the
chief manufacturing engineer said "it couldn't be done". the EE got pissed off &
went into his own shop & made the same part - with 4 cuts, to make 8 fingers.
he used an air-tool that went up to 30,000 rpm, so as to remove as little material
in each cut, so as not to buckle what little material was left behind.
he came back in & placed that part on the manuf. engineer manager's desk.
end of story, the manager said, "we'll try to make it", the EE said, "No, you
WILL make it", they made it. & it's now what is known as the K connector
(SMA compatible from .5 to 46 GHz).
that ability of that EE to out-machine the machinists, to out-draw the draftsmen,
out PC layout the PC designer, made for a very productive combination. &, if
you will note, all of that stuff was what some people would call "grunt work".
he wasn't the kind of manager that walked around obnoxiously waving schedules
in people's faces. if he didn't like the answer he got, he would do it himself,
faster than the person to whom it was assigned, which tended to be embarassing
for them & highly motivating.
along the way i slowly accumulated a list of top 10 engineers/techies that
i had worked with or observed, at college, and at various companies.
the one characteristic they all had was fanatical, passionate attention to
detail. in some cases, it would be an electrical engineer who would insist
on micro-managing the mechanical engineering, which was my job.
in one case, i ordered some aluminum nitride as a filler for a silicone
potting material on a high voltage power supply. i also ordered a
sample of a fan that was about 5" diameter & 5" long to cool a 10 kW
air-cooled device (10% duty cycle, 1 kW net heat output).
both of these actions pissed off the EE (whom i greatly admired) &
he got me transferred to another division. then, in the next year,
they ended up using both the aluminum nitride & the high-output
fan (which cost $5K).
so, some of the best engineers i've worked with, in addition to
having the requisite attention to detail, also have a "French chef"
aspect to their personality. in other words, it's their way or the highway.
the ability to visualize EVERY ASPECT of the project is important, often,
to project success, so i understand the motivation behind the micro-managing.
i also got a chance to watch the founder of one of Silicon Valley's premier
design firms - as a grad student. with an EE background, i watched him re-
decorate the department offices - carpentry stuff. brilliant. like watching a
samurai slicing a grape.
i don't know what you mean by "grunt engineer". you mean, the guy on the
bottom of the org chart that gets to do the detailed design/ layout work ?
there's nothing wrong with that.
it might help to work at a chaotic start-up. that way, there tends to be a
"power vacuum", into which you can step & bring order from the chaos.
if you enjoy doing seemingly-impossible design tasks & committing to
challenging schedules - and you deliver - you will get recognized, not just
by management, but also by your peers.
one of my favorite war stories is of an engineer i worked with at a microwave
instrument house. we were developing a vector network analyzer, in the
mid '80's. i was the mechanical lead, so i had a seat on the 50 yard line.
the place had just gone vertically integrated - they realized how much money
they were spending on machined parts, and spent $$ bucks to set up their own
very well done large CNC shop.
the chief EE designed a part that was a tube, .050 outside diameter, .038 inside
diameter, with 2 cuts, to make 4 "fingers" (it was for a female connector). the
chief manufacturing engineer said "it couldn't be done". the EE got pissed off &
went into his own shop & made the same part - with 4 cuts, to make 8 fingers.
he used an air-tool that went up to 30,000 rpm, so as to remove as little material
in each cut, so as not to buckle what little material was left behind.
he came back in & placed that part on the manuf. engineer manager's desk.
end of story, the manager said, "we'll try to make it", the EE said, "No, you
WILL make it", they made it. & it's now what is known as the K connector
(SMA compatible from .5 to 46 GHz).
that ability of that EE to out-machine the machinists, to out-draw the draftsmen,
out PC layout the PC designer, made for a very productive combination. &, if
you will note, all of that stuff was what some people would call "grunt work".
he wasn't the kind of manager that walked around obnoxiously waving schedules
in people's faces. if he didn't like the answer he got, he would do it himself,
faster than the person to whom it was assigned, which tended to be embarassing
for them & highly motivating.
Modelworks
Lifer
For me it is the engineers that think outside the box and don't do things because that is the way all the others do them.
I was a prototype guy so I had to often come up with things that were not off the shelf solutions.
It is fine if you want to follow established rules and methods, but when you limit yourself to only staying within those things and not letting your imagination wander, you become just one of the run of the mill engineers.
I saw many people in college and work that knew all the formulas, could quote you textbooks word for word, but if you asked them to do something that was not already set in stone a method for doing it, they were clueless.
They seemed to panic if you suggested doing anything that broke protocol. Oh no, the power supply is out of spec by 10%, the part you are using was not designed for that, it will never work !
So many engineers make things more complicated than they need to be and they get so caught up in the details that they take the fun out of engineering.
I was a prototype guy so I had to often come up with things that were not off the shelf solutions.
It is fine if you want to follow established rules and methods, but when you limit yourself to only staying within those things and not letting your imagination wander, you become just one of the run of the mill engineers.
I saw many people in college and work that knew all the formulas, could quote you textbooks word for word, but if you asked them to do something that was not already set in stone a method for doing it, they were clueless.
They seemed to panic if you suggested doing anything that broke protocol. Oh no, the power supply is out of spec by 10%, the part you are using was not designed for that, it will never work !
So many engineers make things more complicated than they need to be and they get so caught up in the details that they take the fun out of engineering.
Jimmah
Golden Member
I'm no engineer, but being a CNC machinist/programmer you get to know a lot of them. The best engineers (at leas to us on the floor) talked to us, generally were friends and asked if we had any input on certain stuff. The pricks were the ones who thought anyone actually working on the machines were clueless and shouldn't be anywhere near a blueprint, always kept blaming us when things broke or their designs just wouldn't work (seriously Mr. Engineer, you tell me how I'm going to program this mill to cut that pocket, even though it's inside the part and we don't have a 5 axis mill.....).
I guess the best ones I've known tried hard to know as much as they could, and worked with others in the places they needed help. If you're ever in a jam, try asking an older machinist (CNC or otherwise) if they know something that may be of help.
I guess the best ones I've known had a sort of mad scientist aura about them, fun peeps.
I guess the best ones I've known tried hard to know as much as they could, and worked with others in the places they needed help. If you're ever in a jam, try asking an older machinist (CNC or otherwise) if they know something that may be of help.
I guess the best ones I've known had a sort of mad scientist aura about them, fun peeps.
Cogman
Lifer
Probably not a real life tony stark (in fact, not a real life engineer yet either). What I see in my field are a lot of people that are becoming engineers because.... Well, honestly I don't know their reason. They hate learning how to design stuff, they hate math, they hate having to do ANYTHING creative. My guess is they want to be engineers because of the prestige or the fact that it can pay well.
If you love your job, enjoy learning and figuring stuff out and being creative. I would say that engineering is for you. But if any of the traits I described above describes you, Get out now while you can. You aren't going to get a Text book that tells you how to solve every problem that was ever encountered or will ever be encountered (oddly enough most people in engineering majors seem to believe this), so if you expect that to be the case you are looking at the wrong field.
If you love your job, enjoy learning and figuring stuff out and being creative. I would say that engineering is for you. But if any of the traits I described above describes you, Get out now while you can. You aren't going to get a Text book that tells you how to solve every problem that was ever encountered or will ever be encountered (oddly enough most people in engineering majors seem to believe this), so if you expect that to be the case you are looking at the wrong field.
bobsmith1492
Diamond Member
You'll probably start out doing testing and validation... Every new engineer does testing or validation when they start from what I've seen.
Get out of it FAST and never put it on your resume. Make it known you want to design stuff; if you end up testing stuff YOU designed then it's not so bad! 🙂
Get out of it FAST and never put it on your resume. Make it known you want to design stuff; if you end up testing stuff YOU designed then it's not so bad! 🙂
soccerballtux
Lifer
Bob, and wwswimming, thanks for your posts. Very helpful.
wwswimming
Banned
my pleasure. maybe i will write more of my Shop Talk/ war stories
down at some point.
one of the moments I enjoyed when i was working at a large defense
contractor in San Diego was the "lunch bunch" i hooked up with. the
guy that had the nicest car, a Lexus 4 door with A/C, usually drove,
and he listens to El Rushbo.
At the time, there was a grocery strike, and we were talking about it,
and i explained that i was on the side of labor, thinking of the very
attractive woman with braces on her teeth (age approx. 30) who was
a checker at one of the stores.
to clarify, i said, "i'm basically a liberal democrat." (that would be the
short version.) the Rushbo listener said, "i didn't think guys like you
worked here."
i was still accepted in the group, we had many fine cheap Chinese
lunches at the same restaurant with the same group of 4 guys, 3
EE's & myself.
soccerballtux
Lifer
Always gotta wonder if when promotion time comes around if the boss thinks like that. Good measure to separate politics and the work life, or so I've heard. I haven't had much of a problem with it, but that's because we all agree politically (for the most part).
wwswimming
Banned
yeah, there were some interesting conversations shortly after 9-11.
we were sitting at the lunch-room, basically mostly gym-rats, the guys that always have lunch from 1 to 1:30 because they're playing b-ball or going to the gym across the street.
one of the gym rats is named Rich T., a guy with a New York accent who starts off with a "we should just kill a million of 'em". kill a million, kill a million (Muslims), he repeats himself. perhaps because of the look on my face, he said something like "OK, what's your bright idea ?"
i said, "how about conducting foreign policy in a way that doesn't make enemies ?"
the response was this wierd nervous laughter and the statement, "that's impossible !!"
within the the next day or 2, i was going into a staff meeting & saw Rich elbowing my boss & gesturing to me, who looked at me and smiled. looked like a little joke going down at my expense.
definitely, at a defense contractor, it helps to be an echo chamber of Fox News, if you want to be accepted among management.
on the other hand, i got to work with some very talented engineers on some very interesting projects.
QuantumPion
Diamond Member
Unfortunately you can't make everyone like you, no matter how hard you try. Just like with engineering, there are always compromises.
I think that creativity is one of the most important factors (along with leadership). Most engineers are very uncreative people. If you have 1/10 of 1% of the creativity of a normal person, you are a special engineer. If you're creative or have leadership skills, you won't be a grunt.
On another note, you need to clarify what it means to be a "really good engineer", do you mean someone who is successful, or someone who is very knowledgeable? Because being good at ENGINEERING isn't something that will get you far in life, being a great engineer is exactly what MAKES you be a grunt. Your engineering ability gets less and less important as you get higher up in an organization. The engineers who succeed (at least monetarily) aren't the ones who study all night for the exams and get As but then have no social skills, they are the ones who party all night and get Bs & Cs, but can win an argument, make connections, or influence people. If you have no social skills you are GUARANTEED to be the grunt, no matter how good your engineering skills are because like I said before, being a manager has alot less to do with engineering.
For Example:
We got 3 engineers here who are pretty similar technical knowledge, but one is an asian guy who nobody can understand what he says in meetings, one is a white guy who is a "Yankee" and all the southerners down here can't stand him when he is leading a meeting, and one is me who can at least somewhat lead a meeting (not an expert by any means), well I am the one who is doing best here simply because now they won't even let the other 2 guys lead meetings because the clients people don't like them. So now, I am getting ahead in life not because i can engineer anything better but because I can lead a meeting without confusing or annoying anybody. Its not even a little fair TBH, but its life.
For Example:
We got 3 engineers here who are pretty similar technical knowledge, but one is an asian guy who nobody can understand what he says in meetings, one is a white guy who is a "Yankee" and all the southerners down here can't stand him when he is leading a meeting, and one is me who can at least somewhat lead a meeting (not an expert by any means), well I am the one who is doing best here simply because now they won't even let the other 2 guys lead meetings because the clients people don't like them. So now, I am getting ahead in life not because i can engineer anything better but because I can lead a meeting without confusing or annoying anybody. Its not even a little fair TBH, but its life.
Rudy Toody
Diamond Member
bobsmith1492
Diamond Member
Why did a book inspire you to take apart the machine?
I started taking stuff apart when I was six... no books required!
Successful vs. knowledgeable?
There are engineers who are very skilled at their work and do well without becoming managers who don't do any engineering. You make it sound like the goal of an engineer is to become a manager!
If you want to "succeed monetarily," being a manager is probably the easiest way. Or, you could become an excellent engineer who does things the other ones can't do (getting a master's or doctorate helps make people see your skill if you want to make money).
CycloWizard
Lifer
A good engineer is one who can practically solve a problem. A great engineer is one who understands the theoretical origins of the problem and can therefore offer a better solution to it than the good engineer.
well shit, I wrote up a whole long post and then somehow deleted it, so here is my more poorly phrased, more annoyed version:
Obviously money isn't everything, but being *just* an engineer really won't get you far in life. An engineering degree is pretty much a guaranteed ticket into the middle class, but the chances of an engineer making it into the upper class are pretty slim. If you are OK with never being rich then its all good, but it just seems like its human nature to always be wanting more (I'm 23 and making $80,000/yr and all i can think of is how to make more), and an engineer is a dime a dozen. If you wan't more its gonna require you to go into management. So, if you want to make money then your social skills are just as important as your engineering skills if not more so. The fact is that in real life how well you did on tests in college really don't mean jack. PERCEPTION is everything, not reality, and your ability to impress people (even if its all BS), and your ability to avoid blame (even if its totally your fault), and your ability to get noticed (even if you had nothing to do with it) is what gets you ahead in life. Basically, corporate life is just a silly game and those wh o refuse to play get stuck doing all the work and taking all the crap, and you gotta make sure that ain't you.
OK, sorry for that rant, its just where I work right now everything is behind schedule and over budget, and the corporate culture pretty much requires you to cover your ass on a daily basis and deflect blame at every turn. Its mostly just the fact that the industry I work in pays a ton of lip service to having NO mistakes ever and that just ain't humanly possible.
Rudy Toody
Diamond Member
The book described the thought processes that came up with the sewing machine.
First, the eye of the needle was moved to the pointy end.
Second, to use a separate thread, a floating bobbin (spool) was created.
These are two things that had been around in their previous versions for many years. It just took a slightly different way of looking at things to have a great engineering feat, instead of the ordinary.
Rudy Toody
Diamond Member
They do! Look at General Motors.
wwswimming
Banned
how about the sewing machine ?
Pay close attention to what BrownTown said. I have been an engineer for over a decade and just moved into management after getting an MBA. The bottom line is that there is not much of a difference between a competent engineer and a really good engineer. Management sets the rules and mangement favors those who play by the rules and turns a cold shoulder to those who don't, even if management is wrong (and they are wrong a lot of the time).
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