Frustrations of an engineering graduate from Pakistan
By: Rohaan Manzoor
Tags: Tech, Frustration, Jobs, Pakistan, Life

Like all kids on the block, I wanted to be a celebrity or an athlete. Footballers and cricketers, these were the guys we would look up to. We’d imitate Saeed Ajmal when playing cricket and Ronaldo when playing football. They just seemed cool. I even thought of becoming a singer, who doesn’t. Fortunately, my best attempts at singing sounded worse than a crow cawing in the afternoon. So athlete it was. At the end of the day, fame and adoration seemed attractive. I don’t say that all athletes work for that, but that’s the thing that appealed to me. But the truth is, deep down, I knew, I was not an athlete, it just didn’t tick with my watch. I wanted to be an athlete because there was nothing else I found mildly interesting. So I was never fully committed. However, I finally found my watch on October 4th, 2011.

Apple was announcing the iPhone 4s and this was me tuning in to watch a keynote for the first time. Everything seemed okay, and then Scott Forstall said: “What’s the weather like today?” At that moment, everything changed. These folks had just created life (or at least what I thought of life back then). I was amazed and blown away. I knew this was the movement I wanted to be part of. The very next day, Steve Jobs died. Now he didn’t mean anything to me but I saw a few tribute videos, and they stirred up something in me I knew not. I just knew I wanted to be part of something like this and it was then that I decided to jump in the pool of electrical engineering.

My decision to pursue a bachelor’s from Pakistan was influenced by a few factors and I have no regrets over that. However I feel weird and speechless about everything else. I completed my bachelor from the best engineering university in Pakistan, NUST with a CGPA of 3.17. While it isn’t anything mind-boggling, I spent my time in university doing a lot of things and so I feel I did well. But these are only good things in this swarm of frustrations.

For starters, I’m jobless. Now I did embark on a job hunt in Pakistan, like many, I couldn’t get anything. These companies they invite you for 10 interviews only to reject you, like seriously? But my frustrations are a bit different. I studied electrical engineering for 4 years hoping to work on electrical engineering tasks. I thought of working in the field of embedded systems and electronics. Yet when the time comes, the top recruiters are Unilever, TetraPak, Shaan, etc. My problem is that I didn’t study engineering to glorify a biryani Masala or a Soap that kills 99.999999% germs. I know some, rather many would like to work here, but that’s wasting everything we did in the past 4 years.

I studied to work for an R&D company, yet what are my options? None! There are a few engineering firms, but they are all restricted to military projects. I thought that one day I would work on consumer products but no, I can’t, simply because there aren’t firms working on consumer tech products. So that dream where you would work in a company that makes cool tech gadgets which are used by everyone is pretty much in the air.

Apart from the work, I just don’t feel comfortable in Pakistan’s engineering firms. These places are more uninspiring than a mechanic’s workshop. They cram you in cubicles smaller than toilets and make you work like a maniac. I do not ask for R&D labs that stretch beyond the human vision, but those military engineering firms need to change things. Working in these firms is working without a purpose or meaning. Brands like Unilever despite selling soaps and such things try very hard to give their employees are a reason to come to the office, “You’re gonna make that kid smile”, “They are living a healthier life because of our work”, and whatnot. These engineering firms, well, they are more like, this is your task, get going. The places are designed to be dull and drive out creativity from people.

Machine Learning and software related jobs are good. They value purpose and innovation. And yes, there are a lot of jobs on the software side and yes many do work on the bleeding edge of tech. But I ask this, is there no room for a transistor in our country? I know several electrical guys who went for machine learning and even web development, but they too did it out of frustration. Like you work with voltages and currents for 4 years only to end up adding layers in a neural network. I know these software guys do some cool things, but web development is not the job of electrical engineers. Kudos to anyone who does it out of free will, but why are we being forced to take android courses. Why are we being forced by the atmosphere to learn machine learning to find a decent purpose-driven job?

Am I asking too much? Is an engineer who studied for 4 years asking for a fitting job too much? Why don’t you search abroad?

Glad you asked. Here’s the problem. I’m a Pakistani and while I can’t say anything about other countries, let me tell you about KSA. They don’t want us. Our reputation is bad. I tried searching for a job here and well, several companies have a policy of not hiring Pakistanis (Discriminatory? yea, do whatever you can). Then they have a new policy that says that only expats with 5 years of experience can work in KSA, so working in KSA is pretty much out of the picture. Moreover, is it wrong to want to work and live in your own country with people of your language?

Why don’t you start your own business? That’s something I’ve heard a few times. Truth is I want to, but the environment has sapped my energy. It’s like this, you talk to your relatives and they insist that you go for a job. Thing is that starting your own business is tough, it’s difficult, it’s challenging and it takes determination. And when people around you downplay your decision to do your own business, doubts do creep in. And doubts are the Ragnarok of startups. For them, it’s simple, get a job, work for a year or 2 and then start your own thing. Problem is that once you get in the job market, it’s very hard to get out. You might go on a hiatus as you get your masters, but if the security of monthly salary has conquered your mind, your business desires are at risk. Our environment is just discouraging for startups. It values a soap glorifying job that nets PKR 70k over true innovation that a startup yields, over the billions a startup can make. For some reason, we are hammered down to cowardness. I know that heeding to such criticism is also my fault, but there is so much a man can endure.

But the most frustrating thing about the situation is the lack of sight, or goal, or plan. I legit like many others have no idea what to do with life. I have no clue as to where I have to go, what I have to do. I don’t know what I will do doing in 1 year from now. This uncertainty is simply infuriating. The worst part is that you don’t see the situation improving. Our government rarely talks about jobs or creating a favorable environment for startups (I’m talking about all governments). We are stripped naked on airports, our visas are rejected despite having acceptance letters from their universities, where do we go? We are not accepted by others, our country doesn’t have a place for us, so where do we go? What do we do?