Engineering is a very generic education path offering multidimensional possibilities over the entire career span of an Engineer. For most of the engineers if you ask, they will agree that whatever course content they learnt in the colleges was hardly relevant when they entered the real corporate world. One of the reasons this happens because the curriculum is not revised for ages with the exceptions of IITs!!!!! Probably things have changed a bit with lot of colleges like VJTI, COEP becoming autonomous and deemed universities, thereby getting a freedom to change the curriculum as frequently as required to reduce the gap between real world and the academics.
Nevertheless, what most predominantly helps an engineer is not the technical aspect of engineering but the engineering mindset, logical thinking, ability to break a problem into small units and addressing each unit separately and then finally linking the solutions to arrive at resolution of the bigger problem. You will notice that these skills are useful in any role, any discipline, any department of the organization. So what happens is you will find engineers anywhere and everywhere!!!!!!! Take my example, I joined the bank as BPR specialist; then became system implementer, then took over as product manager, changed track again to become quality, ISO specialist, then became operational risk expert, then became COO handling all the operational and support areas in the bank including HR, Administration and IT!!!!! My last posting was in the administration handling real estate, procurement, security. Probably my last posting was the most closest to the engineering field. You also realise that during these jumps from one function to another I moved from worker, to manager to COO- sort of a leader.
What advantage I got is my career till date has become quite multidimensional. I came to know almost all the functions of the bank, not necessarily in depth but I have quite decent global picture. During my career, I was considered for different positions within the bank, about which I absolutely do not have any clue and still be offered the position. Most of the time the verdict would be: Milind is an engineer. He will figure it out!!!!!! Slight digression, but when I moved to Kuwait as Head of Organization and Methods department, I was told on the first date of joining that forget about what we discussed during interviews!!!!!. You will be responsible for organizing documented procedures for Islamic Banking since the new bank has just got permission from Central Bank to convert from existing specialised real estate bank to Islamic bank!!!!!! I said I do not know anything about Islamic Banking!!!!! Well the answer was: You are engineer; you will figure out!!!!!!!!!!! Worst of all, one bright morning somebody in the executive management meeting said why do we need milind's department. Let's outsource his activities (means fire milind!!!!!!) and I was told to prepare RFPs to be sent to KPMG, E&Y to make my own job redundant!!!! Again, I was told, You are engineer; you will figure out how to get job done from consultants!!!!!!!! And I had last laugh. My job was not made redundant at all. On the contrary, I was one of the key members who was responsible for conversion to Islamic Banking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I think this is what is peculiar about an engineer. S/he can fit anywhere and be a star performer. In my banking career, I have seen engineers as my colleagues in Treasury, Back Office, Retail banking, Private Banking, Risk, Finance and Control, Operations, Relationship Management, Real Estate, Administration. You name the department and you will find at least one engineer there!!! And the best part of it is that all these engineers are outstanding performers and are really happy doing what they are doing. This reminds me of all time favourite criticism engineers (including me) get: What the hell are you doing in banking??? And if you wanted to be a banker, why on earth did you waste an engineering seat!!!!! Your seat could have been taken up by a student who was really interested in engineering and India could have got one better engineer!!!!!! The problem is: organization does not care what your qualifications are. Organisation is interested in getting problems solved. And because of sheer multidimensional nature of engineer, s/he can solve problems in any area so they are posted in any area!!!!!!!! So engineers are in different departments and roles, not in spite of being engineers but because of being engineers!!!!!!!!
Another advantage which an engineer gets is moving fast from trainee to officer to manager to head of the department to executive management to CEO. They make these role transitions faster and better. It is natural and common to find engineer being CEO of an manufacturing company or engineering company. But it is equally common to find engineer being CEO of a bank, financial institution, Consultancy firm or for that matter NGO!!!!!!!!
But all the things are not hunky dowry. There is a flip slide to this multidimensional aspect of an engineer. Lets discuss it separately under
Challenges faced by Engineer
Milind Kulkarni
19th April 2010
milindinpanhala@gmail.com
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