Become a Manager in Engineering

Hi friends,

                Have a great Weekend!! If you want to become a credible manager in engineering, you’ll first need to prove yourself to be a solid engineer. “Sound engineering judgment builds respect and trust from those with whom you work". 

               “Engineering management is at the intersection of things, people and money.” In other words, your technical skills will help you handle the things part of a future management role, but you’ll need to develop key soft skills to deal with the people part and a big-picture organizational perspective to navigate the money part. Here’s how.

Push Yourself Beyond Your Technical Abilities:

          At its essence, management is about supervising, leading and assessing people with diverse personalities, skills, experiences and motivations in an environment in which you yourself are being scrutinized by higher-ups. If you want to be viewed as ready to take on this challenging assignment, it only makes sense to accumulate a wide array of nontechnical experiences and skills.

         “If your company has an annual United Way campaign or some other charity event, volunteer to lead the committee or some aspect of the campaign,” . “This will help develop your team-building and communication skills and demonstrate to your leadership that you have what it takes to be a successful manager.”

Seek Out Project Management Experience:

            By focusing solely on building your technical skills as an engineer, you risk becoming so cocooned in your own work/role that you overlook or ignore the fact you’re part of a larger team, which is probably part of an even larger organization.

            Companies, and their various divisions, have budgets to worry about, as well as deadlines, customers and clients, political realities and so on. So if you want to move into a management role, you’ll need to be willing and able to not only see the broader context in which your organization operates but factor it into your daily interactions.