How transferable is an engineering discipline? (Career advice?) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: harnon
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2012, 10:41:51 am
content: Hey guys,I'm a mech eng student with a side interest in electronics. One day in the very very very distant future I'm hoping to be a chartered MEng. At a recentProdrivetalk, we were chatting to the HR manager afterwards and he mentioned that increasingly they are looking to recruit EEs / Mechatronic/Robotic engineers over mechanical given the importance of electronics in cars/race cars. (For instance, despite it being a talk on amechanicalhybrid flywheel, over half of the talk was about the electronic control systems!)This post/rant (people calling themselves engineers) kind of touches on it - i.e. a lot of replies saying you don't necessarily need a degree to be called an engineer, but I'm curious to see to what extent engineering skills are transferable across disciplines.Are any of you guys working in engineering jobs either without a degree, or working in an area now that differs greatly from your original qualifications? If so, what did you do to convince somebody to take you on in something slightly different? I'm not exactly having a crisis on whether I'm heading in the right direction, more just trying to find a balance between specialisation and breadth of experience/knowledge. I also would have thought many of the base skills are the same across disciplines (maths, basic physics, etc), even if the content is different.Thoughts?Thanks!

author: wkb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2012, 03:35:16 pm
content: OK, I'll bite. I have a BS EE, in a variant that (in translation) calls itself "technical computer science".I had a rather shortlived job as a digital hardware designer. Loved doing that work, but the company stopped hardware development altogether. I moved on to work in software engineering, doing UNIX kernel programming, application integration etc. When that stopped as well I moved on to work in storage engineering (enterprise RAIDsystems etc etc etc). That over the years moved on onto higher, more business-related, levels in which my business card said R&D consultant. Bridging the gap between customers and product development engineering teams. I made use of the technical skills gained over the years, but also more business oriented stuff. Took me all over the world, into board rooms etc. Really, fun stuff! Formeat least, YMMV, a great deal in fact. These days I am contracting in IT infrastructure architecture. Which is again a rather different angle.So.. what I wanted to get to is this: a sound technical background is NEVER EVER a lost investment. But... be flexible, jump on the opportunities on offer. And don't be locked in by the "but I have a BS / MS in <blabla>and not in <fubar>". At some point your formal education gets stale anyway (I recently threw away 20+ year old college notebooks. Made me wonder about me writing all that Fourier and Laplace stuff. Andunderstandingit) Oh, and do not underestimate the value of non-technical skills. Being able to communicate at various levels is key just as well.I never had a dull moment...Hmm, steps off the soapbox...

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2012, 03:40:53 pm
content: I know lots of engineers that are now working in fields some distance away from their original training. It's really not unusual at all.Any reasonably sized organization that does engineering will involve many different engineering disciplines. If you are working for one of those organizations you can drift towards the area that most appeals to you, or often by necessity get assigned to the area where your employer has the greatest need.To aid the process there are many postgraduate cross-training masters level and other courses you can take. So for instance if you want to get into electronics you may locate a postgraduate "electronics for mechanical engineers" course out there (I've no idea if that specific course exists, but you get the idea).In the real world, engineers that can move across disciplines are often the most in demand and most employable. Just like the Prodrive example. Presumably someone competent in mechanical engineering, electronic systems and control theory would be very attractive to that company.

author: harnon
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2012, 09:34:11 pm
content: Thanks for the advice guys... I kind of thought that was the case, but I suppose the trick is to spend my holidays cross-skilling myself! **Reaches for soldering iron**