If you've remained a technical contributor, eschewing the climb up the corporate ladder, are you happy with your decision? That's the question we posed this month to members of our LinkedIn systems and product design engineering group. We also wondered what the biggest thing those of you who've remained in the tech trenches would like to see changed about the way managers relate to you.
Consulting engineer Robert Sander Sr. has no regrets about his decision:
I spent four years as a manager and hated it all the time. I am much happier as a technical subject matter expert and acknowledged leader of technology in my field. I prefer working on my own, but must have direction from my manager to make sure my goals are aligned with what the company wants and needs. I love what I do and don't regret ever making the switch to technical.
According to consultant William Ketel II, "The sense of personal achievement that comes with a successful design is quite a reward, and that does make me happy. I can't imagine doing anything else that would be so rewarding that I would get paid for."
Lest we assume that management and engineering are discrete functions, Ketel reminds us of the contrary. When he was chief engineer at a startup, he saw himself as being on the engineering side because he was "the one ultimately responsible for everything." After that startup cratered, his experience with his manager at a subsequent job wasn't so sanguine:
When one [manager] makes it clear that they regard all engineers as interchangeable commodity resources, moral suffers, loyalty is damaged, and the engineers leave. I am at a loss as to how MBA accountants can design electronic vehicle systems.
Design engineer Chuck Blevins picks up that point:
I stopped being a manager and went back to the technical side. From my experience, a good manager allows the technical side to make technical decisions and keeps upper management informed, but out of [it]. Managers who want to make technical decisions do the project a disservice.
"Good managers give the people who work with them the tools to do their jobs and then leave them alone, but with frequent communications to keep everyone on track," said our own contributing technical editor Jon Titus.
Going back to being a technical contributor was the best thing he ever did, according to mechanical engineer Chris Pollard:
[I] decided that being a manager was a dangerous occupation. Your job depended on who you worked for -- not what you knew. So I just kept learning more 'stuff,' using old tricks and shortcuts and adding to them. Nothing beats designing a new machine that goes into production or solving a major engineering problem.
I know we need management. Someone has to absorb the profits I create. But I was born to be an engineer and I love it! I don't mind managing technical people to help me do the work. Heck, I don't even mind having a nontechnical person on the team fetching things, issuing POs, selling stuff, cleaning the building, dealing with UPS, creating advertising, and so on. We need to offer livelihood to others. It's the Christian thing to do. But I don't want to run the company. I want to be an engineer. Just tell me what you have in mind to offer to the marketplace, give me to tools I need and a budget to break, and I'm in heaven.
Alex, many years ago, at GE, there was an issue with manager vs engineer. We were promoting people to management so that we could pay them what they were worth, but they really didn't (and in some cases couldn't) manage. So, a parallel set of titles was created to parallel all management levels up to Director (just below VP). This worked really well. And at the top level, Engineering Fellow, the pay was quite high. I was in both types of roles at various times. I preferred the Staff Engineer role.
As for the comment from an manager that engineers were interchangable, that is obviously not correct (I was thinking about saying something else). The performance of a design or piece of software or firmware can varry by a factor of over 10,000, depending on how it is designed. I would want the guy who could figure out how to come out on the high end of that curve. Of course, every once in a while I saw engineers who could not design a subsystem correctly. They were alwasy failing the "smoke test". They generally got fired.
Finally, I do see, fairly often, people who own or run a business and are very creative. Becuase they spend too much time on the design part their business suffers. This is the other side of the coin.
24 years in a major US corporation – Starting out doing what I loved—designing new products -- right out of college;but quickly saw that promotion opportunities meant more money, more recognition, and better cubicles, eventually leading to offices with doors!Oh, the euphoria!
What one failed to realize during the monotonous trek up the ladder was that you did less and less of what you were originally hired to do – engineer new product concepts – and more and more of what stressed you out – managing people, markets, budgets, vendors, materials, and so on.
24 years later, the company has massive layoffs due to gross mismanagement in a fledging economy, and everything you worked for was been reduced to ashes.Your job has been eliminated.
By the grace of God, I started over as an independent design consultant and now am back to doing what I absolutely love – designing new products -- but had forgotten the passion while stuck trudging on the treadmill corporate ladder.I no longer desire to have a mahogany door to my office, because I happily work from my home.
Most responses have been written by engineers that are happy doing product development. I did detect a slight note of disdain for managers in some of the comments however having made the transition to manager (and gotten high marks from my engineering team as their boss) I feel qualifed to weigh in on the subject. Some of the areas where my engineering experience has helped include setting up organizing and tracking project progress, developing product specifications, test plans, meeting design-to-cost objectives and helping break engineering design deadlocks. Some of the new skills I've had to acquire include making technical explanations to non-technical people and vice versa, writing reports, setting priorities and understanding the value of "non-engineered" attributes (color, shape, packaging, labels) to the success of a product. For me at least, learning these additional skills has made me feel more connected to the overall success of the organization, but I still get to be an "engineer at heart".
Being an engineering manager can be a difficult road and take you away from what you are really trained to do.At one time in my professional career, I was the engineering manager of productivity which, for that company, was the cost-reduction arm or our design group.Good job but one in which my major function was attending meetings—endless meetings.As the manager, I was on committees for quality, production, reliability, design, field service, etc etc.You get the picture.All of these committees were worthwhile in their own rite but consumed my day and took me away from our real objective—redesigning, or having redesigned, subassemblies that saved money or facillited assembly on the factory floor. My supervisor was not an engineer.He was an accountant by training and only looked at the numbers.We had a quarterly target we were measured against and heads did roll when we fell short of our goals.It was not always fun and the work load was truly burdensome.I now own my on company and work as an engineering consultant which allows me to pick and chose the projects I wish to work on.Much better arrangement.
Engineers or creatives who can manage effectively have a special combination of talents that most people just don't have.
Most designers and engineers are doers. They like to be in the trenches. And, frankly, some have too much ego to manage others and allow someone who may even be more talented/created to grow. A good manager may not know exactly how it works but does know who the right people are to get it done. The quote in the article from Chuck Blevinssays it best from my experience.
To naperlou's point, it's not one vs the other. Both are needed for success.
I would say both the job is tough, since Engineer's job is to planing, designing and implementing whereas Manager's job it to arrange all the thing according to particular engineer. So both carry eual importance.
1-Gives proper and honest credit as due. 2-Manages people by asking them the right questions. 3-Foresees problems before they become problems. 4-Divides the workload fairly to promote individual growth.
Technical people tend to have a different skill set than do good managers. We do well with things, and we are less adept at the "people" things. Its not a bad thing, its just what makes us good at what we do. We can work with the specs of a bunch of different components and jury rig a fix until the right parts come in, we can listen to some obscure and intermittant sound and tell someone which wire to wiggle, or bolt to tighten. But people can drive us nuts!
The problem with most managers is that they don't have much knowledge of what we do, or why. But a good manager can handle the peole side of things and enjoy it and be fulfilled. Just like an engineer can when the project it finally works perfectly and teh customer is delighted with the end result.
If you can get a manager that has the great people skills, but has been trained in some of the field which he is managing, it is a wonderful experience.
While sitting in my cube one day at a local govt (military) contractor who shall remain nameless I was on the phone with a hardware (screw) supplier. In the mean time the director of R&D walked up and was waiting for me to finish the call. I mentioned to the person on the phone "six thirty two screw". When I finished the call the first thing the "director" asked me was "what does six thirty two mean?"
He was about 3 pay grades above me.
Obviously he was smarter than me because he was MY boss and not vise versa. I've never been able to figure out what I've been doing wrong all these years.
On top of that "engineers" aways do all the work and the "directors" generally get the credit when the thing works and transfer the blame when the thing doesn't.
On the other hand in China I guess you just kill yourself when things go wrong so may be things are not so bad after all.
Good managers and good engineers are BOTH needed for the continued success and health of a technical organization. It's a wonderful thing when one person can be good at both engineering and managing.
In addition to being results-oriented, a good manager/engineer also needs to be 'relationship-oriented'.
@Greg: I agree with you completely. I think some people are better suited for the creativity and focus of doing the discrete function that they love (design work, writing, coding), while others who have a knack for those same skills, but who also have aspirations and skills that others don't have nor would be happy with.
As Greg and others outline, being able to manage projects, handle personnel issues, keep teams motivated and engaged, and facilitate the day-to-day firefighting that goes along with any management post is no easy task. Many are simply not cut out for the job and should stick to their knitting and not look back.
Beth, I agree that some people are better-suited to the jobs that involve creativity and focus, and are best left out of management. I also agree with engineer Chris Pollard, who is quoted in the story as saying that being a manager is a dangerous occupation. There tends to be more job security at the non-management levels.
I started my career designing high voltage primary surveillance radar. Most days I couldn't believe the company actually paid people to do such work. Engineering is my passion and I almost feel guilty taking the money doing something that's so much fun. Over the years, I almost go caught in the management trap but quickly realize it wasn't for me. I grew up on a farm and like getting my hands dirty. It's the excitement of seeing my design working or just rolling up my sleeves troubleshooting something in the lab. While it takes all types to make the world go around my time as a leader makes it easy for me to say that management sucked all the fun out of engineering for me. So with that being said management just isn't my cup of tea.
Having been blessed with both managerial and engineering abilities - I thoroughly enjoyed my stint as test engineering manager. I was still low enough in the organization to keep working on projects, yet I was able to direct and mentor our department and implement motivational strategies that increased productivity while keeping everyone happy. My supervisor was non-technical so I played a key role in helping him to interact with the other departments, while I had the freedom to manage test engineering, assign projects, write P.O.s and while my responsibilties involved project management - I thoroughly understood our team's capabilities and encouraged cross-training which enabled us to have a lot more flexibility as people learned more skills. And I still had my own projects to work on...It was fun!
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