Engineering Careers Come in Four Varieties

by Vern Johnson

During the past half-century, I have observed at least four different engineering career types. Decade by decade, it seems, engineers have been characterized as being corporate engineers; learning engineers; contract engineers; and finally, skilled or global engineers. As each “new” career type emerged, it seemingly brought with it more independence for the engineers than its predecessor types. It didn’t replace the others; it usually modified them somewhat, and a sizeable part of the engineering workforce could be described by its characteristics. Engineers now comprise each of the four career types, but the fourth is growing rapidly, and has a significant impact on most of today’s career searches.

Engineering professionals today probably identify with the characteristics of more than one type. Which type or combination fits you?

The Corporate Engineer: Career-Long Allegiance

During the 1950s and 1960s — and maybe before — most engineers planned on enjoying a lifelong career with a single company; had access to an understandable career ladder; received ample health and other benefits as well as a retirement plan; dealt with relatively slow changes in technology; and didn’t have to defend quality to the extent they do today.

Companies invested in their employees’ success by providing training that would help workers maintain their value to the company and that would ensure profitability. Engineers produced products with a focus on performance, and companies sold what they could produce best, often without significant competition.

The Learning Engineer: Keeping Up With New Technologies

During the 1970s, new technologies hit the industry with more frequency and more urgency than they had in the decades before. Suddenly, engineers had to participate in some form of continuing education just to maintain employment. The engineers of the 1970s had to become “learning professionals.”

As old technologies gave way to new, improved ones, many engineers felt the need to change employers to advance their careers. Gone were the days of the one-company career; the average engineer could now plan to work for four to seven employers before retiring. In addition to learning activities, the career plan concept emerged to help engineers during their transitions from employer to employer.

The Contract Engineer: Dealing Creatively With Unemployment

The corporate downsizing of the late 1980s and early 1990s helped to create the third engineering career type: the contract engineer. During this time, many unemployed engineers found work as consultants — or at least referred to themselves as such. During their job searches, they didn’t want to tell prospective employers they were unemployed, so they purchased business cards with the title “consulting engineer” on them. In turn, sometimes rather than being offered consulting jobs or full-time employment, these engineers secured temporary employment contracts.

For many, being a contract engineer offered a degree of local and technological stability. These engineers didn’t need to sell their homes and move away, and they could focus their continued learning activities on improving both their competencies and their personal interests. They did, however, have to become more independent learning professionals, as most contract employers did not feel obligated to train their contract engineers. In addition, contract engineers had no real career ladder to follow, and they needed to provide for their own health and retirement needs, not to mention plan for a loss of income between contracts. Some acted accordingly on their own, while others banded together under the management of contracting firms to broker their services and coordinate their benefits. All in all, the contract engineer option worked for many.

Employers seemed to like using contract engineers, too; they could hire the skills they needed when they needed them, without making a long-term commitment or shelling out continuing education expenses and costly employee benefits. As a bonus, when contract engineers left their employment, companies didn’t have to deal with reputation-damaging PR related to layoffs. They simply kept a small number of full-time engineers on staff to ensure leadership and continuity, and they offered contracts to the rest.

The Skilled or Global Engineer: the Contract Engineer Extended

New technologies are now rapidly replacing old ones and corporate globalization is on the rise. As a result, the contract engineer type has developed into yet another career type — the skilled or global engineer. More and more, employers are hiring skills rather than people. This trend suggests that companies today are finding it more valuable to hire contract engineers, rather than full-time employees.

Rapidly changing technology means a constant stream of new products and accompanying new business techniques. As a result, the need for expensive skills to match the more complex technical environment is constant. Salaries have spiraled and companies are offering what at least appears to be more permanent employment for those who possess the right skills. The current economic downturn has slowed this process a little, but the trend is still happening, and will likely accelerate again as the economy rebounds.

But a problem remains. Skyrocketing salaries bring with them the expectation that employees deliver exactly what employers need, and they provide justification for laying off employees who don't produce at appropriate levels, or don't have the skills to match the next generation of products. So, some employers have shied away from offering contracts to ensure being able to hire engineers with new skills when they need them. And, they have begun using layoffs as a management tool, of sorts. Economists refer to this growing industry practice as churning: hiring employees with one set of job skills, while firing those with another.

Corporations have also become more global in reach. Some have their headquarters in the United States, but have more employees outside the country than within. At the same time, many Pacific Rim and European corporations now have U.S.-based plants. Although many corporations are managed outside the country, they employ U.S. citizens. In other cases, U.S. and foreign corporations have merged, making it nearly impossible to determine whether they are domestic or foreign firms. They are both, and they are neither; they are truly global.

Why are so many companies going global? They do it to ensure a marketplace for their products — and to find highly skilled labor at the lowest possible cost.

Success in the 21st Century

What can we learn from this "evolution" of the engineering profession?

All Engineers Need to be Independent Learners

To succeed, engineers need to be independent learning professionals who can determine gaps in their learning, plan career and education activities, and proceed independently. Over the past half-century, engineers have migrated from being working professionals with structured careers focused on corporate success, to being independent learning professionals with careers focused on personal success. Many were not ready for the career changes that happened to them, nor were they trained in the skills needed to cope with these changes. However, change is always present in all career fields. As universities are starting to offer asynchronous master’s degrees directed at practicing engineers, education is becoming available when and where it's necessary to support engineers’ needs in remaining technically vital.

Career Planning is Key

Engineers need to develop strategic career skills, and become experts in career planning and job searching skills. Plenty of good jobs with good pay exist for technically current engineers who have valued skills, are flexible enough to adapt, and have strategic career plans firmly in place.

Plan Actively for Retirement

Engineers need to take charge of retirement planning activities, so they can ensure their own long-term security.

How do you measure up? We want to know...   What engineering career type best describes your career? What continuing education needs would support your career best? Send your comments to todaysengineer@ieee.org or click here to complete a short online survey. Thank you in advance for sharing this information with us.

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Vern R. Johnson is Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and is IEEE-USA's Career Activities Editor.