Prestige of Engineers

sakky
Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:14:51 +0000

Quick note about engineering as job insurance, I’m not convinced that that’s so easy. Hiring managers have told me that even ex-engineers have a hard time going back, ie one who has turned to management and wants to return after a few years. They company has moved on, hiring and grooming new grads and they’re not limited to the rusty or the degree holders with no related experience.



Well, nobody is saying that it’s “easy” on an absolute scale. What we are saying is that it is *relatively *easy, that is, relative to other undergrad majors you might choose.

And besides, that context in which you are using the word ‘insurance’ is not the way I was talking about it. I was talking about insurance in the sense that if you can’t get a consulting/banking/whatever job right after college, you can still get an engineering job. THAT is the ‘insurance’. Contrast that if, say, you had an English degree, and you don’t get a consulting/banking offer. What are you going to do now ?



Every Intel CEO since its birth has been a PHD engineer.



Uh, no, that’s false. Current CEO Paul Otellini does not hold a PhD, has never worked as an engineer, and does not hold an engienering degree. He has a bachelor’s in economics and an MBA from Haas, and his background is in sales/marketing.

Other Intel CEO’s were not PhD engineers, at least in the sense that they don’t hold engineering degrees. . Robert Noyce, the first Intel CEO (and co-founder) does not hold any engineering degrees. His degrees are in physics. Gordon Moore, the second Intel CEO (and the other co-founder) also does not hold any engineering degrees. Rather, his degrees are in chemistry and physics.



The google/ms early employees could have easily gotten non-engineering finance/consulting job



Well, THAT I don’t know about. Have you seen the early Microsoft employees? Do you really think they could have all gotten jobs in finance or consulting? Honestly? Just look at them:

http://i5.■■■■■■■.com/14ni5op.jpg

Be honest, how many of these guys really would have fit in in an environment like a management consulting firm or an investment bank? Let’s face it. These guys were deviants. And I don’t mean deviants in a pejorative way. Rather, they were deviants in the sense that they couldn’t fit into a regular business environment, and in fact, that is precisely why they were able to thrive in a startup.

This is especially true of a guy like Gates. Part of the genius of Gates is that he is simply not willing to abide by the status quo. He is always looking to do things differently. That’s part of what makes him such a successful entrepreneur. As said by Paul Graham.

“Someone like Bill Gates can grow a company under him, but it’s hard to imagine him having the patience to climb the corporate ladder at General Electric—or Microsoft, actually.”

But in general, I happen to agree with you that entrepreneurship and startups are an exciting path that more engineers should consider.



Can you crack the top 100 wealthiest in the world in your 30s doing consulting?



But the rejoinder is that you can’t crack the top 100 by joining the large established engineering firm of the kind that BassDad and I have been discussing. Can you really become a billionaire in your 30’s by working as an engineer for GE? Or Boeing? Or Ford?

Heck, can you become a billionaire by joining Microsoft now? In the 1970’s or 1980’s, sure, but now? I think we can all agree that Microsoft’s days of hypergrowth are long past.

[The Power of the Marginal](The Power of the Marginal)



Look at the management teams of tech companies. Many will be dominated by engineers.



Actually they aren’t. Not really. I wish they were. But they aren’t.

To whit:

Microsoft - CEO Steve Ballmer is not an engineer and never was. He’s really a marketing and general management guy.
IBM - CEO Sam Palmisano is not an engineer and never was.
HP - CEO Mark Hurd is not an engineer and never was. He’s really a finance and accounting guy.
Cisco - CEO John Chambers is not an engineer and never was. He’s really a sales guy.
General Electric - CEO Jeff Immelt is not an engineer and never was
General Motors - CEO Rick Wagoner is not an engineer
Boeing - CEO Jim McNerney is not an engineer
Oracle - CEO Larry Ellison is not an engineer and didn’t even graduate from college. His 2 Co-Presidents (Phillips and Katz) are former investment bankers
Sun Microsystems - CEO Jonathan Schwartz is not an engineer. He’s a former McKinsey consultant.
Intel - CEO Otellini is, again, not an engineer
Apple - CEO Steve Jobs is not an engineer, heck, he didn’t even graduate from college.
Dell - Michael Dell didn’t even graduate from college.
Verizon - CEO Ivan Seidenberg is not an engineer

Now, to be fair, there are other engineering firms that are headed by engineers. But not as many as you might think. That’s actually part of the problem. People see that and realize that if they want to make it to the top of even an engineering firm, maybe they shouldn’t be engineers. In fact, many engineers I know have expressed frustration that they management jobs that they coveted were instead given to outsiders who parachute in from the consulting/banking industries who have never worked a day in their lives as engineers. For example, one of my friends, who works as an engineer at a major company (which shall not be named) just learned recently that his new manager is a guy who came in from BCG. Now my friend is grumbling that he should have worked at BCG instead of as a consultant.



Sure, there are exceptions like Carly Fiorina but these are exceptions.



Uh, Carly isn’t the exception. In fact, she is the norm. For example, Carly was replaced by another non-engineer (Mark Hurd).



Salary wise, since the discussion seems targed at upper-echelon positions, I’d say it’s hard to discern who does better. An engineering student could easily get through undergrad debt-free with internships. Do a simple numerical comparison between that and a 3-4 year mega-loan for medical or law school, paired with undergrad loans at expensive colleges



Uh, we’re not talking about that. We are comparing engineering vs. consulting/banking. You can easily graduate debt-free through consulting or (especially) investment banking internships even if you go to an expensive school.



Do we want to compare a 50-60 hour work week to an 80-100 hour workweek?



I think you’ve confused the comparison. Plenty of engineering jobs are grinds. You mentioned working for tech startups. Well, tech startups are notorious for long hours, to the point that an 80 hour work week might be considered a vacation. Heck, even to this day, Microsoft and Google are not exactly known for short hours, and they’re not startups anymore.

As another case in point, Electronic Arts became so notorious for long hours that they were sued for violating labor laws.

[Electronic Arts faces overtime lawsuit | CNET News.com](CNET: Product reviews, advice, how-tos and the latest news)
[Gamasutra - Programmers Win EA Overtime Settlement, EA_Spouse Revealed](news)

The point is, we need to keep in mind that plenty of engineering firms demand long hours too. And they do so without even paying the sorts of salaries that consulting or banking firms do. Many people figure, quite reasonably, that if they’re going to be working consulting/banking hours anyway, they ought to be paid consulting/banking salaries.