How many engineers?

[Jim Sims]

"Many everyday problems can be now solved with more concentrated technology that requires fewer actual degreed engineers. There are engineering firms that now have technicians taking the places of what PE's used to do(PE's still sign and stamp the plans after review)."


The problem is too many of these companies now have no degreed engineers. If the work gets much beyond getting the "drawings out of the drawers" and copying past work they produce technical disasters. Numerous times we've had to bail out vendors who's management thought they could do engineering with technicians - if the theoretical and analytical knowledge is lacking, the efforts degrade into "monkey see, monkey do." When we ask where the engineering staff is, we find they were allowed to retire without being replaced or were laid off! The so called concentrated technology merely permits sooner and more in-depth disasters. If PE's are signing off on engineering work done by non-engineers without throughly reviewing it (which means essentially doing it over in these cases) they and their employers are assuming significant legal and professional risk.

[einreb]

Originally Posted by Jim Sims

Numerous times we've had to bail out vendors who's management thought they could do engineering with technicians - if the theoretical and analytical knowledge is lacking, the efforts degrade into "monkey see, monkey do." When we ask where the engineering staff is, we find they were allowed to retire without being replaced or were laid off!

Jim,

What do you do in Los Alamos? A buddy of mine works 'behind the fence' and I absolutley fell in love with the area... but I never really followed up on relocating. Is everything pretty much focused around lanl?

-bernie

[Jims5543]

These guys seem like their busy.

[p911dad]

Jim, the latest thing we are seeing in the government sector is a drive for diversity, which is tough on engineering groups as most are heavily male, a few females, and almost no minority groups represented, and none in the employee pipeline. This means one thing-hire diversity candidates with little or no engineering background and train them from entry level techs in order to get the numbers up. Meanwhile, the total number of engineering group employees is a zero-sum number, and won't rise overall-you can figure out the math on that. This is an admirable social goal, but will take forever, and will modify the common denominator to a new level. Why can't engineering schools attract and retain these candidates and get them into the pipeline, and make the engineering pool more reflective of society overall?

[Jim Sims]

Bernie, I personally mostly work on the mechanical engineering aspects of magnets and electromagnetic devices. My team and group does diverse mechanical engineering work: NASA space probes, apparatus for testing materials in radioactive environments; fission reactors for space power, hardware for particle accelerators (for materials and physics research plus medical isotope production), devices and hardware for contained glovebox work, hardware supporting high temperature superconducting research, electromagnetic launchers and numerous other areas. Los Alamos is a "company town" and most but not all technical work here relates to the "Lab". There are small startup companies but all of them combined only amount to a few percent of the "Lab" in terms of budget and people. We are currently in a hiring freeze as the Laboratory sorts out what to do about declining nuclear weapons budgets.

[einreb]

Originally Posted by Jim Sims

We are currently in a hiring freeze as the Laboratory sorts out what to do about declining nuclear weapons budgets.

Thats my understanding of it. Recent rumors of the lab going away and being split between livermore/sandia and the savanah river facility as I recall.

I dont actually want to work... thats the problem. I want to get up and have a breakfast burrito with green chilies and then climb, mtn bike or ski... depending on the weather.

[MotoSook]

Originally Posted by einreb

Thats my understanding of it. Recent rumors of the lab going away and being split between cali and the savanah river facility as I recall.

I dont actually want to work... thats the problem. I want to get up and have a breakfast burrito with green chilies and then climb, mtn bike or ski... depending on the weather.

That's why there's an engineer shortage! People of your generation are lazy and don't want to contribute to a better world! So sad.....

[Jim Sims]

"Thats my understanding of it. Recent rumors of the lab going away and being split between livermore/sandia and the savanah river facility as I recall."

Rumors are just rumors; there are still ~8000 people working here. In the NW consolidation, some work is leaving and some work is coming here. Lab is not very likely to be shutdown as there are some very unique, very expensive and extremely difficult to license facilities here. There is not the funding to move them or rebuild them elsewhere. This is not the place to come if you do not want to work (at least on my team and in my group); people here play hard but they also work very hard - getting something new/difficult figured out and done is very stimulating.

[RWebb]

"There's no emphasis on math and science anymore, and I blame the continual "dumbing-down" of our society."

- I will double-bingo that. It is also one of the main reasons I quit as a science professor. Even the damn graduate students were essentially illiterate. And don't forget the lack of funding for research - both basic and applied.

[HarryD]

Originally Posted by Jim Sims

"Many everyday problems can be now solved with more concentrated technology that requires fewer actual degreed engineers. There are engineering firms that now have technicians taking the places of what PE's used to do(PE's still sign and stamp the plans after review)."


The problem is too many of these companies now have no degreed engineers. If the work gets much beyond getting the "drawings out of the drawers" and copying past work they produce technical disasters. Numerous times we've had to bail out vendors who's management thought they could do engineering with technicians - if the theoretical and analytical knowledge is lacking, the efforts degrade into "monkey see, monkey do." When we ask where the engineering staff is, we find they were allowed to retire without being replaced or were laid off! The so called concentrated technology merely permits sooner and more in-depth disasters. If PE's are signing off on engineering work done by non-engineers without throughly reviewing it (which means essentially doing it over in these cases) they and their employers are assuming significant legal and professional risk.

Jim,

You can say that again.

As a Chemical Engineer (formerly in the Semiconductor business), I have seen
"Vendorneering" as a dangerous thing.

If it works, you are married to them forever since you do not really know what they did in that black box, and if it fails, you are left hung out to dry since they have already left Dodge.

Several of my former employers have tried this approach, and ultimately, we had to bring it back in house and engineering (me) and our technicians had to sort out the mess. In a worst case example, our management bought into a hot idea sold by a slick sales guy. They built and installed the equipment only to find it did not work. When you examined the actual data, the process was totally unworkable. Unfortunately they had already committed to this technology and we had to rebuild an entire new system in 30 days to allow us to run our factory. Mucho pain and very little gain.

It is a shame our career does not have the Glamour.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Agreed on replacing engineers with techs, it's sad but true. A company I contracted for until recently loved to do this, except they used VoTech school drafting grads. Nothing against VoTech, they were all good AutoCAD drivers. But as soon as drawing transitioned to design, they got scary. Pretty bad when simple concepts like moments and stress are met with a blank stare.

People have commented on the lack of opportunity for young people in engineering, and this confuses me. Many of my fellow AE students had multiple out of state job offers. I could have easily gone to work for any of the 5 aircraft companies in Wichita, or one of the many smaller subcontractors. I'm happy where I'm at, so I didn't pursue it, but there is a LOT of opportunity out there. While engineering doesn't pay at doctor levels, it's just about the most you can make with a BS straight out of college. Furthermore, engineering is projected to have above average demand for the next 15 years according to Dept of Labor projections.

[Porsche_monkey]

Originally Posted by gmeteer

Maybe all we need is 70,000 degreed engineers..

If true, that should be a cause for concern. They're likely not required because your manufacturing base is disappearing. I guess that's why they more engineers in China.

[einreb]

Originally Posted by Jim Sims

This is not the place to come if you do not want to work (at least on my team and in my group).

Classic example of an engineer's "sense of humor".

[cgarr]

Originally Posted by PBH

You can quote scenes from any Monte Python movie.

KEEPER: Stop! Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me
these questions three, 'ere the other side he see.

LAUNCELOT: Ask me the questions, bridge-keeper. I'm not afraid.

KEEPER: What is your name?

LAUNCELOT: My name is Sir Launcelot of Camelot.

KEEPER: What is your quest?

LAUNCELOT: To seek the Holy Grail.

KEEPER: What is your favorite color?

LAUNCELOT: Blue.

KEEPER: Right. Off you go.

[FOG]

My bachelors are in ME and Poly Sci. I joined the Marine Corps so never used either in the civilian world. The most lucrative offer out of college at the time was from a think tank due to a paper I wrote on the then Soviet Union.

I am a graduate of Cal State Fullerton. A couple of other factors that drove people out of the engineering schools were directly related to profs/instructors. Both negatively impacted the ability to learn,

Among my friends one of the biggest pet peeves was the instructor getting out of his lane and ranting on politics or social issues while ignoring why we sitting in that class room. Then the rant finished the unhinged professors would tend to challenge the students to comment, and your grades did suffer if you did not parrot their bizarre thoughts.

The other pet peave was lack of focus on the part of professors. In other words they did not realize what the professor was there to teach. It was a common occurrence to have professors berate students if they did not have a pre-requisite the professor had just made vice the students meeting all the catalog requirements. The classic was a professor berating a class for their lack of calc skills (three semesters of calc was the requirement) when a student raised his hand and reminded the professor he had just finished his masters in mathematics and Fluor was sending him back for some more classes and even he had no idea what the professor was doing.

The favorite instructors were the ones from industry who were out doing the job. They were far better teachers and actually wanted open discussions and lacked to be challenged.

Remember this was over 20 tears ago so…

S/F, FOG

[onewhippedpuppy]

Almost without fail, "those that can't do, teach" applies to engineering professors. At least for the tenured full-time professors.

[tubbedf100]

Two major problems with engineering:

Management styles in most companies don't allow the opportunity for those "go getters" to be really proactive and aggressive with their thinking. This drives those engineers to move into other roles such as consulting or buisness owners.

Most companies now are low balling the market to lower costs. In salary, raises, and true goal driven bonus programs. This drives out those that want to move forward with their careers and keeps the every day non innovative people in place. It also forces HR to lower costs so they get inexperenced people right out of school, which is just a stepping stone. And they fill engineering roles with people that have non-engineering related degrees.

All in all I feel engineering has slowly progressed into a non-technical group, especially in the automotive environment. It is easy for everyone to pick up a phone and outsource problems to some sort of supplier. More engineers end up being nothing more than a project manager instead of a problem solver. Another bad thing I have experienced, is that most in management have very little technical background. This makes it hard to provide clear goals and structure to a group of engineers.

[Porsche_monkey]

Originally Posted by tubbedf100

Two major problems with engineering:

Management styles in most companies don't allow the opportunity for those "go getters" to be really proactive and aggressive with their thinking. This drives those engineers to move into other roles such as consulting or business owners.

Most companies now are low balling the market to lower costs. In salary, raises, and true goal driven bonus programs. This drives out those that want to move forward with their careers and keeps the every day non innovative people in place. It also forces HR to lower costs so they get inexperienced people right out of school, which is just a stepping stone. And they fill engineering roles with people that have non-engineering related degrees.

All in all I feel engineering has slowly progressed into a non-technical group, especially in the automotive environment. It is easy for everyone to pick up a phone and outsource problems to some sort of supplier. More engineers end up being nothing more than a project manager instead of a problem solver. Another bad thing I have experienced, is that most in management have very little technical background. This makes it hard to provide clear goals and structure to a group of engineers.

That's correct, but if you don't play by those rules in the automotive environment you'll be out of business.

Everything is looked at as a commodity, engineers included, there may be a benefit to having good engineers on staff, but no one will pay you a premium just because you do.


And I fixed your spelling errors, part of a 'full service' engineers job description.

[Danimal16]

Fog

I'm a Fullerton Grad as well, class of 81. Recalled to active duty with the SEABEES in July. Off to Iraq soon with the MEF! Great group to serve with! Love those Leathernecks!

There are other things that my career has taught me and that is the engineering profession is dangerous to those in business, especially big international engineering firms. My career path has lead me to down an interesting path in engineering and construction. I do design and construction. But my big, and very unexpected career path is in claims. I work alot with regulators (usually against them) and meet a ton of attroneys. Engineering was my aptitude due to a desire to build and make things better especially in the environmental arena (water quality) , but as I get older I have become more and more disallusioned by the profession. There are a lot of reasons for this but it comes down to the business aspect of engineering or simply put its about the money and generally not about doing the right thing. I could go on for a lifetime on the secrets of civil engineering but the big issue is the profession itself. I have thought, even at my advanced career (over 31 years) about getting a law degree and just mixing it up with the folks that are really messing up the civil engineering world, but than I am tired of jousting at windmills. But I digress and I am starting to rant. Off to Iraq to make a difference.

Originally Posted by FOG

My bachelors are in ME and Poly Sci. I joined the Marine Corps so never used either in the civilian world. The most lucrative offer out of college at the time was from a think tank due to a paper I wrote on the then Soviet Union.

I am a graduate of Cal State Fullerton. A couple of other factors that drove people out of the engineering schools were directly related to profs/instructors. Both negatively impacted the ability to learn,

Among my friends one of the biggest pet peeves was the instructor getting out of his lane and ranting on politics or social issues while ignoring why we sitting in that class room. Then the rant finished the unhinged professors would tend to challenge the students to comment, and your grades did suffer if you did not parrot their bizarre thoughts.

The other pet peave was lack of focus on the part of professors. In other words they did not realize what the professor was there to teach. It was a common occurrence to have professors berate students if they did not have a pre-requisite the professor had just made vice the students meeting all the catalog requirements. The classic was a professor berating a class for their lack of calc skills (three semesters of calc was the requirement) when a student raised his hand and reminded the professor he had just finished his masters in mathematics and Fluor was sending him back for some more classes and even he had no idea what the professor was doing.

The favorite instructors were the ones from industry who were out doing the job. They were far better teachers and actually wanted open discussions and lacked to be challenged.

Remember this was over 20 tears ago so…

S/F, FOG

[Danimal16]

Read the book "The World is Flat" it provides spot on and accurate insight into what is happening in the technical arena. But it does not resolve some of the regulatory and political problems that prevent engineers from delivering quality products that are within cost, on time and within tolerance. And by the way, spell checking is important but in this arena, a forum, conveying the thought at the right time is more important. Pen and ink changes are ok as long as the communications is made.

Originally Posted by PBH

That's correct, but if you don't play by those rules in the automotive environment you'll be out of business.

Everything is looked at as a commodity, engineers included, there may be a benefit to having good engineers on staff, but no one will pay you a premium just because you do.


And I fixed your spelling errors, part of a 'full service' engineers job description.