Engineers Explained

In order to better understand engineers and business men let me offer the following hypothetical situations:

An engineer walks into a room and finds a bag of money. He thinks: This is crazy. Anyone could walk in here and take this money.
A business man walks into a room and finds a bag of money. He thinks: What's the worst thing that could happen if I just took this money?

The engineer is a producer. He wouldn't think of taking money that wasn't payment for production. The business man is an analyst. The situation is simply an opportunity with possible consequences.

Incidentally, this is why engineers think up all manner of startup opportunities without pursuing any of them. -- WardCunningham

Another interesting spectrum is the one that ranges from engineer to scientist. And having the title of engineer doesn't make you one.

ThomasAllen? has done dozens of organizational studies and describes a spectrum that goes from engineers on one end to scientists on the other. His studies conclude that engineers:

Are conservative and motivated by financial stability for themselves and support for their families;
Are (therefore) loyal to their companies;
Seek rewards for that loyalty, such as promotion;
Tend to migrate quickly from technical work to managerial or formal "leadership" roles

Scientist, on the other hand:

Are motivated by the love of knowledge for its own sake;
Are motivated by peer group approval and validation, acceptance by others who are working in the same area irrespective of corporate affiliation;
Tend to remain technical further into their careers

ThomasAllen?, Managing the Flow of Technology, MIT Press, 1977.

-- JimCoplien

Wow . . . I don't agree with assessment of engineers in general. I think it's probably true for x-amount of engineers out there, but it sort of ignores the passion one can feel for a subject area with a great potential for "real" results. Science is so theorhetical and investigative, and some folks just want to "build" something real (which happens to have greater value in general and adds the financial stability bit to engineering). I guess the overall logic seems to valorize scientists in the same way "suffering" artists are better than comfortable people who create art. --Metadude (11-14-2000)

I don't think the categorization is based on people's job titles. Call them Type S and Type E if you like. There are Type E programmers as well as Type S programmers. Having the title of engineer doesn't make you an 'Engineer' in the sense intended above.

Engineers are problem solvers by their very nature. (I think.) I do this because I like it. How many people do you know who can truthfully say that they enjoy their work and that they would do it for no gain? Some of us want to do the technical stuff forever. I work with lots of engineers who are busy getting their MBA or some fluff like that because they want to "move up." Where does moving up put you? Behind a desk in the front office? Far away from the lab, the computers, the soldering irons, and the sound of Dremel tools? Blech. If I can't get my hands dirty doing this job then I don't want it. Oh, and pay me scads of money, too. -- MartySchrader (greedy little bastardo)

So, Marty is a scientist. He just doesn't know it.

Hey! I heard that! No, I'm not a scientist. I had a gig out at Fermilab a year and a half ago. Those people are scientists. They had guys sweeping the floor with more brains than me. Kind of humbling to be in the presense of so much raw processing power, if you get my drift. <nudge, nudge, wink, wink> I'll never measure up to that. I know my limitations (which a man's gotta know) and I work within them.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm no dummy. I'm very good at what I do. I just realize that engineers fit a certain crevice in society reserved for purest geekdom. Not brite enough to be scientists, not patient enough to be laborers. Too much flab for that anyway. No, I like being an engineer, because God designed me that way. And He's the best engineer out there. Eh?

Engineers tend to migrate quickly from technical work to managerial or formal "leadership" roles

Engineers are some of the worst managers. They are totally different skill sets. Good companies (even small ones) actually have management training courses for the engineers they promote. These are the same companies that think of human resources as something more than a glorified tax form administration, I guess. -- SunirShah

See DilbertsSalaryTheorem