Prestige of Engineers

BassDad
Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:26:06 +0000

Now you are coming nearer the mark when you say that much of what passes for high end consulting at premium prices is smoke and mirrors and marketing. That model works for a while, makes a few people rich and drags down the rest of the system. Eventually someone points out that the Emporer is naked and then they hire a different set of charlatans. You may dislike communism, but this is an example of capitalism at its worst.

In terms of products, I do not begrudge paying a premium for a product that delivers premium performance when I actually need premium performance. Personally, I do not think a product like the iPod qualifies as such, but I will admit that a lot of people own the things. iPods provide lower sound quality than a CD player at a higher initial cost. What makes them popular is that they look really nice, have a slick user interface, provide convenience by being small and carrying many hours of music and video. What really makes them popular is that they allow users to steal >90% of the material they used to have to buy with very little chance of ever being caught. As a musician as well as an engineer, I have some issues with that business model.

I have certainly seen the phenomenon where one engineer seems to be more productive than his or her colleagues, but I think you are oversimplifying the situation. If a company could simply hire another productive worker and fire a half dozen losers, they would do just that. In fact many have tried it at some point. What they generally find is that they have not really been measuring productivity and that at least four of the people that they thought were losers were actually pretty important to the company in some way. They wind up with a couple of prima donnas who do not get along very well and are producing exactly what is being measured and nothing else, then they have to go out and rehire people who see and do what is really needed rather than whatever it is that is being measured this month.

You got yourself a chicken and egg conundrum when you ask why engineering firms get established in high cost of living areas. As you point out, even average engineers have it better than most Americans. If they can afford to live and work in a nice place, why shouldn’t they? If companies want upscale workers, they have to locate in places that will attract them. Those places tend to be higher cost of living areas. As more companies enter those areas and start paying salaries that allow even more workers to afford to live there, you take another spin around the inflationary spiral. Eventually you get Manhattan or Silicon Valley and things get so ridiculous that the companies that really do not need to be in those places either move out voluntarily or get forced out by the costs.

When you say that an engineer cares about nothing more nor less than his or her own career, I find that offensive. Indeed there are some individuals who are that greedy and short sighted, but to tar the entire profession with that brush goes too far. If you really believe that statement, I think that you are far more pessimistic than I am. Personally, I have to believe that what I am doing has some greater good. I think that the vast majority of the engineers with whom I have worked would agree with that concept.

I have no argument that startups can be a very attractive way to either start a career or to continue a successful one. Again, we are necessarily talking about a small portion of the entire industry. I have also said right along that engineers who want any sort of job security must be prepared to move on when the conditions demand it. From my viewpoint, the process of corporate evolution appears to be speeding up. It takes much less time than it used to to run a successful industry leader into the ground and there are entirely too many people around who would happily contribute to that process for personal gain. Heaven help us if all the engineers want to join in the feeding frenzy rather than doing something more useful.