Any Engineers who've moved into Project Management?

[a311]

I'm a chemical engineer working in the nuclear sector. I've been fancying trying something new for a little while now and decided a couple of years ago to wait until I had 10 years technical experience before changing career paths which is fast approaching.

In all honesty I've never been a hugely career minded person, until recently where I've began to think where I want to be in the next 5+ years. I've worked for the same company since leaving university and it offers a very good overall package. An opportunity has presented itself where I can take up a PM role whilst still maintaining my current role as senior engineer/technical manager. Seems like a good opportunity to see if I like the work before pushing for a fulltime roll if I do.

I know a few PM's some come from a technical background and others from business. IMHO the former make better PM's it also seems out of the current crop of management/directors the majority have taken the technical>pm route. Salary would initially be the same.

Would be interested to hear from anyone who've been in a similar position. I enjoy the technical work and over the last 4 years have became a specialist/expert in my field however as these areas are decommissioned in the next 4-5 years this won't be overly useful and just fancy a change.

[a311]

Crusoe said:

Might be worth seeing if your existing company want to keep you on and develop you further, have you spoken to your HR department who might have a budget for management training or pay for you to do a MBA or similar to qualify for higher internal positions?

Apologies if I wasn't clear, this would be with the same organisation. I don't know of any PM's that have MBA's. There is a training budget, whether they'd pay for an MBA or indeed how beneficial it would be is another question......