Sick of my engineering profession

[gouldnm]

I apologize about the length of this post, but I wanted to reply to people's comments.

-- working as an actuary in the insurance industry
-- research in the pharmaceutical industry
-- Wall St. hires lots of statisticians
-- working for major corporations consulting to engineers--both manufacturing and R&D
-- various govt. agencies ranging from Bureau of the Census to DoD
-- teaching at a community college

You wanted to know how to get a job as a consultant at an engineering firm. Since you asked that in response to my comment, I'm assuming that you mean as a statistical consultant:

In my case I was recruited right out of grad school to work at a major oil company as a consultant to chemical engineers. With my background in chem. e, it was a perfect fit. I had virtually no competition for the job, and they were thrilled to find me.

Many large companies have teams of statisticians who effectively function as independent consultants. Since my company had operations all over the world, I had the chance to work on a variety of projects, and I was never bored.

If you go back to school, your professors should have lots of contacts. Another option (in my field, at least) is to use a head hunter. I have also gotten jobs that way.

[Rusa]

I

new2bogle, go to law school at night.

I've thought about this before. The time/money committment is pretty big, plus the lost 2-3 years of work.

I am a patent attorney (biology). I went to a cheap second tier school at night at the age of 36 - 40 while working full time, and have worked in the same city as the school for 15 years. It can be done.

You can become a patent agent without going to law school. Just pass the patent bar exam (you can take a course on-line, highly recommended, although the patent bar isn't as hard as it used to be). As a patent agent, you can do patent prosecution and represent inventors with regard to patent prosecution at the Patent Office. You can't litigate. You can work for a law firm or have your own business. You won't earn as much as a patent attorney (a big law firm patent attorney will get a first-year starting salary that is more than your current salary), but you can make a decent living. If you work for a big law firm, they might send you to night law school on their dime.

Or, work for the Patent Office as a patent examiner. You don't need a law degree or the patent bar to do this. The Patent Office will train you. The Patent Office is always hiring, especially EE. Go to www.uspto.gov for information. The Patent Office is allowing examiners to work outside of the Washington DC area in some cases. Many examiners also go to night law school.

(Editied to add): Some really big law firms will have non-lawyer science specialists in the patent department to assist the patent attorneys. No need to pass the patent bar for this position, but they are rare.

[VictoriaF]

-- working as an actuary in the insurance industry
-- research in the pharmaceutical industry
-- Wall St. hires lots of statisticians
-- working for major corporations consulting to engineers--both manufacturing and R&D
-- various govt. agencies ranging from Bureau of the Census to DoD
-- teaching at a community college

All of these are great suggestions, half of them I've already looked into! One thing I still can't figure out is how to become a consultant to engineering firms??? This would provide me with the being new excitement and keep things fresh every 12-24 months. I just don't know how to go independent and have been trying hard to figure that one out. Ideas?

If you are interested in becoming a consultant to engineering firms, you may want to start by working for a consulting company. That will provide you with consulting experience, you will become familiar with various clients, and at some point you may find yourself capable striking on your own.


Victoria

PS Teaching is a good path, but I would not recommend you teaching at a community college. With a doctorate from a top engineering school (you wrote in another thread that your degree is from University of Michigan) you would be overqualified and people will be forever wondering why you are not teaching at a university.

[MP173]

Sales.

At age 34 I was completely bored and uninspired with my job and left. Twenty years later I am still with the same company and have found it very rewarding.

With EE background, there will be a considerable number of opportunities available for you.

Ed

[gtaylor]

One thing I still can't figure out is how to become a consultant to engineering firms??? This would provide me with the being new excitement and keep things fresh every 12-24 months. I just don't know how to go independent and have been trying hard to figure that one out. Ideas?

I do this in software engineering, in part to provide more variety in my work. My day job is for the large company that bought the small startup I work for. It is reasonably engaging and rewarding, but for historical reasons I have ended up with side gigs.

One ideally consults not to or through engineering firms, but rather to firms with (or indeed without) engineers. The idea is to do a wide assortment of smaller projects, thus getting to do interesting or at least varied work. I find that smaller firms are nicer to work with, but this probably depends mostly on the people involved more than the size of the company.

You need not do it full time; indeed that can be difficult, time consuming, and highly cyclical. Rather, if you were to do it on a moonlighting basis, from time to time, as interesting opportunities arose, it would provide just the sort of work variety you seem like you might need.

Getting useful moonlightable gigs can be a challenge. There is not enough money involved to support the usual infrastructure of headhunters and consulting firms, so it's up to you to find clients. I have found that most of my gigs came from running a useful website on a specialized subject. People needing help with the subject area then tend to get in touch with me, and some small fraction need actual engineering help.


On the broader point here, I'll echo the opinions of the other folks who have said that once you have kids you'll really, really, want to spend lots more time away from work with the family. Solving your current problem with ie law school seems like it would be a bad plan from this standpoint; indeed, any entirely new professional direction will share the same problem. To get *good* at a new vocation people tend to need a) the qualifications and b) 10 years of experience. This is how doctors, lawyers, and engineers are made; heck it's how electricians and plumbers are made, too. So the obvious brute force career switch paths may not suit you at all well if you are about to have kids.

[diasurfer]

I would also recommend playing around with the job search engines on monster.com, dice.com, etc. Whenever I do that, I always seem to come up with a couple of jobs in fields that I never even knew existed. There are jobs out there where they simply want clever think-outside-the-box problem solvers because there are no obvious training programs in some of these emerging, hybrid fields, and a good EE background that shows creative problem solving is as good a training as any. I'm thinking specifically of jobs with companies that get DARPA type projects. Blue sky stuff. Don't limit yourself to what you think is out there, because I guarantee you there is more out there.

[curiousinvestor]

Hello new2bogle,

I was an engineer and worked in industry for about 5 years. I disliked it especially in the last year. I always thought I might become a teacher, so crazy as it was, I did the change and have been teaching in a public school. Yes, it was a terrible hit on my salary (60% pay decrease). Today, in 2010, I am getting paid less than my first job out of college. If we count in inflation, then forget about it (although inflation hasn't been so drastic lately). Anyhow, enough complaining for me.

My point is I had this gut of a feeling about what I would enjoy, and although logically taking a 60% hit in salary, restarting in an entire new industry, going to the bottom of the ladder, etc...seems stupid, it was well worth it. I am very excited about my new career, and there are many different directions I might go now. Although I'm not a total believer in the "do what you love and the money fill follow" idea, I am in the camp that says "do what you love, and do it well". Surely, given some time, you might find something exciting. I read a recent study that showed there are diminishing returns in overall "happiness" for single people making past something like $60,000.

[robot]

And you lose expertise and become 'consultant compelled', the company loses the ability to make its own decisions.

McKinsey was taking £1m+ a month out of the BBC for years.

The process by which consultants 'colonize' a client and generate new and further business is fascinating to watch (in the way watching a predatory insect catch and eat its prey is horrifying to watch).

Consultants work if the client controls them very tightly and scopes the project very tightly and makes use of specialized knowledge and expertise the client lacks.. Big outsourcing projects in my experience create very little public value.

My experience with consultants is that their goals often aren't aligned with the goals of the company. They usually aren't around later when the software doesn't interface with the hardware. And as Valuethinker says, by that time the expertise is gone.

Mike Munger wrote an article on econlib about why we aren't all consultants. Why doesn't the boss wear fuzzy bunny slippers?

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/ ... firms.html

If OP can stand the hit to his finances (and benefits), I'd suggest that he should look at small startups. They are a whirlwind of activity, you get to wear many hats, and the results of your work are immediately evident. And who knows, you may hit it big.

Just be sure to have an exit plan before you start a family.

[Valuethinker]

And you lose expertise and become 'consultant compelled', the company loses the ability to make its own decisions.

McKinsey was taking £1m+ a month out of the BBC for years.

The process by which consultants 'colonize' a client and generate new and further business is fascinating to watch (in the way watching a predatory insect catch and eat its prey is horrifying to watch).

Consultants work if the client controls them very tightly and scopes the project very tightly and makes use of specialized knowledge and expertise the client lacks.. Big outsourcing projects in my experience create very little public value.

My experience with consultants is that their goals often aren't aligned with the goals of the company. They usually aren't around later when the software doesn't interface with the hardware. And as Valuethinker says, by that time the expertise is gone.

Mike Munger wrote an article on econlib about why we aren't all consultants. Why doesn't the boss wear fuzzy bunny slippers?

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/ ... firms.html

If OP can stand the hit to his finances (and benefits), I'd suggest that he should look at small startups. They are a whirlwind of activity, you get to wear many hats, and the results of your work are immediately evident. And who knows, you may hit it big.

Just be sure to have an exit plan before you start a family.

It's a very good article-- well worth reading.

the problem is precisely this, since we cannot contract in advance for outcomes for many types of work (we don't know what the employee will be doing nor what they will be needed to do nor their output) and because we need employees to develop specialized skills and expertise (which only has value to us, the employer) we have to contract with employees as employees, rather than as independent contractors.

Basically as an employee you are a contractor with fixed terms as to your pay and conditions, an indefinite term, and in return your employer owns all your output.

If you can define the outcomes you are looking for closely, and there are not significant externalities (like the specialized expertise that is completely client-specific) then contractors do work. I've been on both sides of that relationship (and being a contractor has its own frustrations, as by nature you are very output oriented, and if the client contact point is de-focused, it can be really frustrating).

But to use big consulting companies effectively, you wind up duplicating the cost structures and controls as if you employed them.

[wisdom]

Hello,

A second tier MBA would not be challenging enough for you and a top tier MBA is not worth the cost. If you are interested in finance, the CFA is the way to go.

[bb]

I have certainly had thoughts along the lines of the OP. I agree there
is a conflict between working to earn a living and doing something
you enjoy. I keep thinking that work should be enjoyable but at
the end of the day earning a living is the only constant I keep
coming back to.

It's a job. If you don't like it go get a different one. If you switch
careers and earn a lot less money is that going to be the seed of
a new dissatisfaction? Is fear keeping you from making a change?

“In the long run, we're all dead.” John Maynard Keynes

[3CT_Paddler]

But to use big consulting companies effectively, you wind up duplicating the cost structures and controls as if you employed them.

I think the term consultant is such a general term it really depends on the field you are referring to. In engineering it usually refers to a company that does the technical analysis but doesn't actually do the construction. So I think this side discussion on the merits of consultants should be field specific.

[new2bogle]

Hello,

A second tier MBA would not be challenging enough for you and a top tier MBA is not worth the cost. If you are interested in finance, the CFA is the way to go.

A second-tier MBA would be just to show that I have business background for a vertical jump into management (rather than a technical based first line manager). I agree that a top rated MBA is not worth the time for me. I did look up the CFA - there is still some question in whether it requires some more of a finance background than I have (which is none)

I have certainly had thoughts along the lines of the OP. I agree there
is a conflict between working to earn a living and doing something
you enjoy. I keep thinking that work should be enjoyable but at
the end of the day earning a living is the only constant I keep
coming back to.

I keep hearing from people how much they enjoy their job - and they're working 50-60 hours a week (and making a ton of money) while having a family. Are these people just lying to me?? I can not imagine working anywhere for 60 hours/week and enjoying it.

[bb]

I would not assume people are lying. My question would be do they
have different expectations or think about work differently than you
do. Obviously my opinions are dominated by my personal experiences.
It has not been my impression that the majority of people that I
have worked with "really enjoy there job". That is not to imply the
majority would have a negative opinion or do not like their job.

This topic can easily can involve a lot of philosophy and/or
psychology. Not sure any of that would apply to you.

What do you mean someone enjoys their job? They are not bored?
Maybe they have external pressures such as deadlines at work.
Maybe their environment is demanding. Such an environment
may not be boring but not necessarily enjoyable.

Are the people you are talking to in their 20's and 30's or 40s and
50s ?

[gouldnm]

I keep hearing from people how much they enjoy their job - and they're working 50-60 hours a week (and making a ton of money) while having a family. Are these people just lying to me?? I can not imagine working anywhere for 60 hours/week and enjoying it.

This makes me think of a conversation I had with my husband when we were still in our 20's. He thought I was unrealistic to expect my job to be completely fulfilling.

I always compared work to getting married: it was just a question of finding the right fit. He disagreed with this analogy. In a marriage, you are dealing with one other person, and that person has a direct interest in accomodating you and making you happy. In a job, you are dealing with multiple people, and there are simply too many variables outside of your control. Bosses change. The economy/business environment changes. Corporate culture changes. You change. And so on...

The two things I hate about my job are:

1. bean counters who won't let me do my job
2. office politics

I have changed my job several times over the course of my career, and those two have always been present.

[555]

.

[blakerj10]

I had to register to make my first bogleheads post to this thread.

One of the posters above made the comment that most engineers get bored with their job as it is there nature to have a continual set of challenges coming at them... I can relate and I think there is some truth to it.

I have a BS in geological engineering, a MS in civil/mining engineering, started an MBA program (3 months left), and passed the PE exam last year. I am 28 and have had 3-4 serious engineering jobs. I like the challenge of doing something different and the moment it settles into routine I get bored.

Another poster also mentioned this is a good time to re-evaluate spending and savings habbits- This rings true because the sooner one can reach some finanical independence, you are no longer at the mercy of typical job issues and can do whatever interests whenever you choose! That concept has kept me off the job search for a while now, but it does not mean I am not bored...

I think a second teir MBA would be great for you. It gives you something else to occupy your mind while at your current job. You have great credentials with your PhD in engineering. Its not like you have a BA in business and need a top school MBA to set you apart from competition. It would be a nice line on your resume just to show you are not all technical. And perhaps your company will foot the bill?

[VictoriaF]

I had to register to make my first bogleheads post to this thread.

blakerj10,

Welcome to the Forum. And thank you for a sensible post. Hope you will post on other topics, too.

Victoria

[VictoriaF]

Mike Munger wrote an article on econlib about why we aren't all consultants. Why doesn't the boss wear fuzzy bunny slippers?

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/ ... firms.html

It's a very good article-- well worth reading.

Thank you for the article. It is very clever, and I learned answers to some questions I did not think of asking.

Victoria

[daydreamin]

One problem is that I make a pretty decent salary here (about 120k)

I wish I had that problem.

easy to fix. just go get your PhD in EE.

Oh, I actually meant I wish I had that problem without having to go spend thousands of dollars and study engineering! As in, I wish tomorrow when I got to work, they told me I am getting a raise to $120k just for being handsome.

Even if they did give raises for that reason, what makes you think you'd get one? 8) justkidding

Oh, but they do give raises for being good-looking! http://www.nber.org/papers/w4518.

Apparently, good-looking people make 5-10% more. Whether or not triple digit golfer is eligible for such a raise is another question...

(sorry for hijacking the thread)

[learnfpga]

What do you do in Semiconductors? Are you designing chips or do you work in a FAB?

I used to be in semiconductors. I have MS in EE. So I know what you are talking about (about getting bored).

One option I have always been fascinatated by is getting in to equity analysis for semiconductor industry. Get a CFA and then work for a financial company and do research on market trends, technological trends etc. Unfortunately you may start at the bottom and will have to work your way up and it will be a while before you make that 120K.

Another option is to leverage your expereince, get an MBA where there is strong engineering focus and shoot for engineering manager positions.

[robot]

I keep hearing from people how much they enjoy their job - and they're working 50-60 hours a week (and making a ton of money) while having a family. Are these people just lying to me?? I can not imagine working anywhere for 60 hours/week and enjoying it.

Here are some gross generalizations to prove a point.

If you sleep 40 hours, commute 10 hours, and work 60 hours during a workweek, then you have 2 hours per day "free" time. During this time, you need to eat, shower, do chores, exercise, and so on. Weekends are for tamping down the fires that spring up during the week. And we haven't talked about how business travel upsets the schedule. But with good time management skills, this is possible, even for long periods of time.

Add kids, and you'll find yourself in a deficit for time. You'll need to buy time by hiring a nanny, contracting a cleaning service, and owning newer consumables (cars, house) that don't require as much maintenance. Or maybe your wife can give up her career to take care of the kids, the oil changes, and the furnace cleanings.

Either way, 60 hours a week probably means you can own a family, but not participate much in one.

Those people may not be lying to you. Some folks I know are very comfortable with that situation, and it seems to work well for them and their family. Not everyone is as happy with the continual time crunch or the other tradeoffs.

[Analystic]

You can be a patent agent:

http://inventors.about.com/od/patentatt ... _agent.htm
You do not have to be an attorney.

You can go to law school and focus on intellectual property in the field of EE.

You can find an EE job you like better - maybe with a small start-up.

You can do anything really.

Maybe you are just depressed.

Check with a doctor. EE may be fine but you are not.

Maybe all you need is some sunshine, some excercise, a pill or two and the world will seem entirely OK.

Just checking ...

[Valuethinker]

What do you do in Semiconductors? Are you designing chips or do you work in a FAB?

I used to be in semiconductors. I have MS in EE. So I know what you are talking about (about getting bored).

One option I have always been fascinatated by is getting in to equity analysis for semiconductor industry. Get a CFA and then work for a financial company and do research on market trends, technological trends etc. Unfortunately you may start at the bottom and will have to work your way up and it will be a while before you make that 120K.

Another option is to leverage your expereince, get an MBA where there is strong engineering focus and shoot for engineering manager positions.

Not that long if you are any good. If you are not any good, you won't make it as an analyst.

A CFA is a worthwhile exercise in intellectual discipline in and of itself. ALmost by definition, anyone interested in William Bernstein's books and the Diehards approach would find much of the CFA interesting. It is a very big commitment, though. I would say an average of 8 hours study, per week, for at least half the year before each exam PLUS 5 intense days of study pre exam.

[Karamatsu]

What kind of options do I have?

A whole world of them, of course! But maybe that's the problem. I do know the feeling. I've worked in engineering for more than 30 years, and like someone else mentioned, I've taken time away several times. I've never left with the intention of coming back to it, but I always run into some new application domain think, "I could make this work better," and so I'm back into it again. Come to think of it, a lot of the engineers I know have done the same thing, but many of them are expats, so it kind of goes without saying.

Take a year to get out in the world and widen your horizons. Recharge.

[Hexdump]

and he was impressive. From his resume it seems that he has a similar career path, a technical degree, work experience in software, then financial planning.

Here is a link to him for info only.

http://www.buschfinancialplanning.com/

I have no connection to him nor his firm other than the one interview to see if we had a fit. We did, but I elected to continue managing our portfolio myself. As an aside, I have left instructions for my wife to call him when I pass.

hex

[saurabhec]

Herminia Ibarra's book on career change is very good. She is a professor at INSEAD business school (for the short form, read her Harvard Business Review article on same).

So too is Po Bronson's more impressionistic book.

Let me second the recommendation on Po Bronson's book. I found it to be very insightful and full of hard-worn truths. I liked the fact that it was not prescriptive but the author spent some time trying to understand and analyze people's choices. In a culture in the US that turns out a lot of fluff "product" when it comes to self-help and career advice, it was something I found authentic and sincere.

I credit it with inspiring me to take the plunge into pursuing B-School full time, even though I did not hate my job, was rather good at it and enjoyed more parts of it than I hated. I was a software engineer, but just didn't see how I could keep making six figures while my bretheren in India were working for a fifth of that. My less than sanguine perspective on software engineers did not pan out however, I was wrong. My bet to go to B-school worked for about 3+ years but fell flat right at the inflection point that would have set it as an unmistakable plus in stone. In many respects, my prospects are less certain than had I continued in my line of work.

That said, I would not change my decision. I chose risk and personal growth over stagnation (or perceived stagnation). I learnt a lot about life and am no longer the same person in many respects. Financially, so far it has actually been a plus despite everything.

My advice to the original poster is not to ignore the questions that prompt his crisis and introspect about them, and resolve them with using the most thought, research and communication with others that he can. There are no guarantees in life, but make sure you involve the wisdom and experience of others. Do not let a belief in your intelligence and superior knowledge keep you from leveraging the insight and wisdom of others, and do not fall into the trap of escapist thinking either.

[G]

I switched from EE (I got to the MS level) to nursing. I don't regret that decision. You might get paid a little less, but you feel like you are doing something meaningful with your life again.

I loved EE school. The challenge was what used to drive me. I sometimes miss the math/science, but the real engineering environment wasn't very fun. Nursing can be challenging and interesting too. Nurses perform a really important function. I never feel like my job is unimportant or boring anymore. Nursing is maybe too stressful for some people.

[mlebuf]

One thing I still can't figure out is how to become a consultant to engineering firms??? This would provide me with the being new excitement and keep things fresh every 12-24 months. I just don't know how to go independent and have been trying hard to figure that one out. Ideas?

I'm not an engineer but one idea is to take faculty a job at a university. It's common for academics in professional fields such as EE to serve as consultants to industry. A 9 month teaching year consists of roughly 32 weeks a year and gives you time to do other things to supplement your income or just recharge your batteries. With a Ph.D. in EE you already have the union card for a faculty job. I have no idea what faculty salaries are for Engineering Ph.D.'s. Perhaps someone on the forum does. I do know that new minted Ph.D's in Finance have an average starting salary of about $120K for 9 months.

I spent 20 years as a business school faculty member. During that time I saw several colleagues leave academia for industry after doing work for a corporate client. The client was so impressed with their work that it resulted in a lucrative job offer.

[jasonp99]

Hello,

A second tier MBA would not be challenging enough for you and a top tier MBA is not worth the cost. If you are interested in finance, the CFA is the way to go.

A second-tier MBA would be just to show that I have business background for a vertical jump into management (rather than a technical based first line manager). I agree that a top rated MBA is not worth the time for me. I did look up the CFA - there is still some question in whether it requires some more of a finance background than I have (which is none)

I have certainly had thoughts along the lines of the OP. I agree there
is a conflict between working to earn a living and doing something
you enjoy. I keep thinking that work should be enjoyable but at
the end of the day earning a living is the only constant I keep
coming back to.

I keep hearing from people how much they enjoy their job - and they're working 50-60 hours a week (and making a ton of money) while having a family. Are these people just lying to me?? I can not imagine working anywhere for 60 hours/week and enjoying it.

I love my job, ironically also in circuit design. Well, used to be called circuit design. I'm a digital designer and we don't do much circuit design anymore - mostly RTL and using massively powerful software tools to build huge complex chips. I've been working for the same semiconductor company for 17 years and it is still rewarding and exciting and the pace of change has only gotten quicker. For most of a project (6-8 months) I work about 40-45 hours a week, but the last two months in the tapeout frenzy are usually 24/7. If I was working 50-60 hours/wk constantly I would not be happy, that's for sure.

[new2bogle]

Thanks for all of the posts.

The two things I am weighing are some sort of MBA (eMBA, night MBA, online MBA) or some sort of law thing (actual degree or patent agent). Right now, the patent agent thing seems most appealing.

I have a few years to think about it as my 401k won't vest for a while yet, but all the suggestions have been really great.

[BCP]

new2bogle, go to law school at night.

Think long and hard about that before you leap..you'll incur a lot of debt and may not make much more $...