Engineer and proud?

[Tuna]

Prompted by the discussion in Nervy's thread, how many of us would describe themselves as engineers, and is it a good career? What counts as engineering? Automotive, aerospace, electronic, software, civil...?

[Tuna]

ewenm said:

However, what you're describing is surely any "professional" job. A teacher, for example, has to "use their brains to design, create, perfect, craft, see produced and ultimately solving problems" for their lessons and pupils, so is a teacher an "educational engineer"?
No, that would be farcical. An engineer is someone who qualifies for membership of one of the Institutions (IMechE, IEEE, etc) and I agree that these institutions should protect the label "Engineer" much more closely.

As a software developer/consultant/designer/engineer (whatever the client wants to call me), I use a Modern Language (PL/SQL mainly at the moment) and good project management techniques to solve problems, essentially fulfilling all your keywords above, yet this does not make me an Engineer. Getting it to work correctly is mostly a matter of using the correct vocabulary and syntax, hence it's a Languages discipline.

Hmm.. well I'm a software engineer, with an engineering degree. I'm not a member of one of the Institutions, because they offer absolutely b-all to me or the profession, which being relatively young and dynamic is still full of cowboys and the incompetent. Saying that an engineer is someone who qualifies for membership of an institution just shifts the onus on the institution to decide what an engineer is.

As a software engineer, modern language does not encompass the requirement that you should be able to formulate and implement a structured, logical algorithm to produce results as defined by a client's requirements. Being able to speak french does not qualify you to be able to understand why an encryption technique might be insecure or to be able to implement a massively parallel data analysis algorithm. This is one of the reasons software engineers are of such variable quality - whilst it is easy to check if someone understands syntax and grammar, there are few reliable tests for the ability for abstract computational thought. It's even harder to check if someone is capable of invention, or merely comprehension of existing systems.

To my mind an engineer is someone who is capable of independently following the engineering process - obtaining requirements, analysing possible solutions, investigating new techniques, designing a response, following some appropriate methodology to implement the solution, identifying problems with the finished product, correcting those problems and if appropriate the methodology. Hopefully there should also be the ability to communicate in there somewhere, but sadly that's not necessarily a skill many engineers are blessed with.

Old joke time: In the Yellow Pages, you used to be able to look under 'B' and find an entry for 'Boring'.. under which it said "See Civil Engineers".

[Tuna]

ewenm said:

Here's a problem, here's where we are, we need to get there, what's the most logical way to do it with these resources given these constraints - to me "engineers" have to be able to do that, but if you can do that, it doesn't mean you're an "engineer". All professionals need to be able to do that, teachers, doctors, lawyers (well maybe not them ), accountants, bankers. Do you see what I mean?

I do, and I understand why you feel that way, but disagree with your assesment. Other professionals follow processes that have been developed over decades, or even centuries. The teacher may be teaching an entirely new subject but they still go through the same process of identifying the curriculum to be taught, picking out key facts, designing a lesson to communicate those fact etc. etc. An engineer should be capable of designing the process from scratch. Engineers designed space ships when no-one had previously left the earth's atmosphere. Teachers could tell you how they did it, but they could not make the creative steps either to design the space ship, or set up the teams that could implement such an ambitious programme. Doctors, lawyers, accountants and bankers don't suddenly leap from their desks crying "Hey, I've thought of a whole new way to do this!" (at least not if they don't want people to look at them funny).

In software, you can be a programmer and follow patterns in current languages to implement variations on standard functions. Get data from A, manipulate, store new data in B. I guess in traditional mechanical engineering that would be equivalent to the technician's role. You can also be an engineer and develop an entirely new architecture for manipulating data, or devise the tools, methods and team structures to handle that new technology.

[Tuna]

swilly said:

In my graduate days, i learnt very early on that the "I've been doing it for 20 years" brigade typically had been doing it for 20 years, exactly as they had done 20 years ago, and not changed or updated at all.

And the attitude that another person has no valid input simply cos they are new is bollox, imho. I meet all sorts with 40 years exerience in various areas that can still be told something new.

Very true, but to counter that you get the ones fresh out of Oxbridge who have been told they are the best of the best for years. In science in particular they are never put in a situation where their experiments fail or their ability is seriously questioned. The subsequent arrogance has to be beaten out of them as quickly as possible

[Tuna]

olf said:

Well as a software 'engineer' I would imagine that yes, they are meaningless to you. Good point well made.

That was rather rude of you. The software bodies at present suffer from the double blow that engineering is poorly regarded in this country and that software is poorly regarded in engineering (thanks, olf). As a relatively immature branch, our institutions have little to offer - the 'quality' of an engineer is hard to measure when the tools and techniques they use are obsolete in a few years and the abstract processes they use are not something you can easily test for. Software has such a broad scope and is such a fast moving target that we're only just beginning to settle on best practice and standard techniques and even those will be superceded in time. As such, what exactly are the institutes meant to represent?

Civil, structural, mechanical and chemical engineers use abstract analysis to develop systems and processes that meet certain criteria. If you can identify how that differs from software, then you can be snide about something that I would imagine you rely on every day, unless you carry out your 'real' engineering with a slide rule.

[Tuna]

olf said:

BEng CEng

or

BSc TVR

Which one is going to win your next contract?

In my case, my long list of clients and regularly extended contracts. I am good at my job and can point to companies who agree. Accreditation in software is a joke at this stage and the agile and successful companies that I end up working with have never once required or expected it.

[Tuna]

olf said:

Tuna said:

olf said:

BEng CEng

or

BSc TVR

Which one is going to win your next contract?

In my case, my long list of clients and regularly extended contracts. I am good at my job and can point to companies who agree. Accreditation in software is a joke at this stage and the agile and successful companies that I end up working with have never once required or expected it.

Good for you, now what about youngsters coming into your field? That's when accreditation is most valuable.

I'm not sure it is - more courses just after you've finished the last lot aren't that beneficial. When I'm looking at CVs I'm most impressed by those people who've had at least some industry experience - degree courses that link up with relevant companies show that the educators are aware of the real world, and their students aren't living in a bubble.

Unlike mech eng., software guys have the luxury that the basic tools are cheap and readily available, so projects undertaken on their own initiative show a real passion for the work and an interest in trying things out.

So put those two together, and a degree course with industrial placement, followed by projects done at home come far above accrediation if you want to get a job. These show that they are practical and enthusiastic, whereas accreditation implies that they are career minded and have their eye on their salary. Huge generalisation I know, and most definately a view of the software world in my area rather than engineering in general, but there you go.

Edited by Tuna on Friday 13th October 15:36