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there is not one single professional engineering company that is going to hire you to "manage" engineers if you don't know anything about engineering. this is undeniable. knowing stuff about finance and accounting does not an engineering manager make. engineering manager means you manage engineering projects, therefore. you must be an expert in engineering.
Perhaps not small mom and pop engineering companies, but your large ones (Fluor, Bechtel, Honeywell, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman) will have non engineering degreed people managing engineers. Perhaps part of this is the level of management. You may see a simple team or project lead as a 'manager'. Most of us don't. No one is saying that the manager doesn't know anything about engineering, we're saying they don't have to be a degreed engineer with 20 years of experience and can only manage other engineers with less years of experience. You seem to have a very unionized point of view.
In larger organizations, a team is formed for a project and a project or team lead is is appointed. That project lead, and all the team members, report to a manager that manages multiple projects. Often this person will be a PMP. The manager will interface with the project leads to ensure the projects are properly on schedule, on budget, and meeting the requirements. They will perform yearly performance evaluations of the team members often with team lead input. They will ensure that all their reports are properly meeting the company goals and guidelines. My project lead is not my manager. He's a peer, that is responsible for not only working the project, but assigning tasks and ensuring deadlines are met. He's often selected not by his/her years of service, but by ability to perform the task. But at most large companies, he's not considered a manager as he doesn't have final control over anything about my job other than assigning a particular task. Managers typically have a larger span of control.
I personally have worked in organizations where you have a very matrixed management structure, both along technical lines as well as product and regional lines. This can lead to being pulled in different directions, but it can allow the company to manage and realize opportunities from different angles. This is part of the science of organizational theory.
Location: South Carolina - staying with brother in Columbia
596 posts, read 937,418 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IsNull
Perhaps not small mom and pop engineering companies, but your large ones (Fluor, Bechtel, Honeywell, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman) will have non engineering degreed people managing engineers. Perhaps part of this is the level of management. You may see a simple team or project lead as a 'manager'. Most of us don't. No one is saying that the manager doesn't know anything about engineering, we're saying they don't have to be a degreed engineer with 20 years of experience and can only manage other engineers with less years of experience. You seem to have a very unionized point of view.
In larger organizations, a team is formed for a project and a project or team lead is is appointed. That project lead, and all the team members, report to a manager that manages multiple projects. Often this person will be a PMP. The manager will interface with the project leads to ensure the projects are properly on schedule, on budget, and meeting the requirements. They will perform yearly performance evaluations of the team members often with team lead input. They will ensure that all their reports are properly meeting the company goals and guidelines. My project lead is not my manager. He's a peer, that is responsible for not only working the project, but assigning tasks and ensuring deadlines are met. He's often selected not by his/her years of service, but by ability to perform the task. But at most large companies, he's not considered a manager as he doesn't have final control over anything about my job other than assigning a particular task. Managers typically have a larger span of control.
I personally have worked in organizations where you have a very matrixed management structure, both along technical lines as well as product and regional lines. This can lead to being pulled in different directions, but it can allow the company to manage and realize opportunities from different angles. This is part of the science of organizational theory.
I'm anti union.
Bechtel is an atypical company and they are really more of a construction company that tries to do some engineering work but not all that well. They are known for their screw-ups.
You can have project managers who are managing the overall project and contract with a client but they are no way involved in the engineering stuff. The engineering manager is the guy managing mulitiple engineering projects. Imagine that, an engineer managing engineering projects.
If you are getting reviewed by somebody who is not an engineer and you are an engineer, that is a messed up company. Probably Bechtel. Your performance review should always be done by an engineer if you are an engineer unless you are the very top engineer in the company. that shouldn't be a mom and pop thing. You can't have some business guy guiding your career if you are an engineer.
I'm done talking about this because some guys on here just want to believe what they want to believe.
Location: South Carolina - staying with brother in Columbia
596 posts, read 937,418 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GSP101
FYI, there are CPA's reporting to non CPAs.
you are missing the point but I'm not surprised. accounting is a niche field of the business world and so yes it makes sense that they will be reporting to business guys who are not CPAs. it's still the same general field of business. it is not crossing over into a completely different occupation.
it is a category error to suggest that engineers reporting to business guys is the same as a CPA reporting to business guys.
Location: South Carolina - staying with brother in Columbia
596 posts, read 937,418 times
Reputation: 188
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeorgiaTransplant
Yep, some guys want to believe whatever they want to believe in the presence of personal experience and data to the contrary.
Well, some guy, anyway.
i didn't go to Colorado Boulder which had a reputation as being a pothead slacker kind of engineering program, and you computer guys aren't really doing traditional engineering.
I think it is kind of arrogant for a computer scientist who appears to do programming kind of stuff to lecture a mechanical engineer about his profession but whatever floats your boat, brother.
I don't answer to you and that is a good thing. you like to project yourself as my judge and jury.
Last edited by SwampFox35; 03-07-2013 at 09:31 AM..
This is like talking to my 8yo who is convinced that winged horses exist because she's seen pictures of them on the internet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SwampFox35
I think it is kind of arrogant for a computer scientist who appears to do programming kind of stuff to lecture a mechanical engineer about his profession but whatever floats your boat, brother.
You, of all people, think GeorgiaTransplant who appears to 'do programming kind of stuff' vs a engineer that does 'mechanical kind of stuff' is arrogant? Have you read your own posts? We've literally gotten to the point where everyone is wrong but you. That the organizational structure of some of this nation's biggest firms that do projects from nuclear weapon reprocessing centers to commercial aviation are all wrong.... but you.... You're right.
It really calls into question your argument that Clemson's engineering program is as good as MIT's.
you are missing the point but I'm not surprised. accounting is a niche field of the business world and so yes it makes sense that they will be reporting to business guys who are not CPAs. it's still the same general field of business. it is not crossing over into a completely different occupation.
it is a category error to suggest that engineers reporting to business guys is the same as a CPA reporting to business guys.
You like talking down to people. Accosting is a specific discipline. It is completely different in nature than Econ. Marketing etc.....and, non CPAs do manage CPAs.
Location: South Carolina - staying with brother in Columbia
596 posts, read 937,418 times
Reputation: 188
Quote:
Originally Posted by IsNull
This is like talking to my 8yo who is convinced that winged horses exist because she's seen pictures of them on the internet.
You, of all people, think GeorgiaTransplant who appears to 'do programming kind of stuff' vs a engineer that does 'mechanical kind of stuff' is arrogant? Have you read your own posts? We've literally gotten to the point where everyone is wrong but you. That the organizational structure of some of this nation's biggest firms that do projects from nuclear weapon reprocessing centers to commercial aviation are all wrong.... but you.... You're right.
It really calls into question your argument that Clemson's engineering program is as good as MIT's.
dude, you may want to try going to a school better than USC-Aiken and USC-Columbia before you start telling me what the good engineering schools are and especially before you start dumping on Clemson which I know is much more selective than USC is. you will never manage engineers in your career, brother. why do you consider that a personal insult? I am not insulted if a CPA tells me I will never be an accountant and manage other CPAS. I never going to manage economists. I never going to manage finance people. So what is the problem? I'm Simone Cowell on American Idol telling you that you can't sing. accept it. You have to have the right education and work experience to manage engineers at consulting firm. It's not a business, finance, accounting kind of role. You seem real confused about that out there. I'm sure you will do great in the business world but you won't be managing engineers. Feel free to apply to Fluor and CH2M HILL and Jacobs and other firms out there and see if they will give you a job managing engineers with nothing but a business degree. I don't think it works like that but you are free to prove me wrong.
Last edited by SwampFox35; 03-07-2013 at 12:30 PM..
Location: South Carolina - staying with brother in Columbia
596 posts, read 937,418 times
Reputation: 188
Quote:
Originally Posted by GSP101
You like talking down to people. Accosting is a specific discipline. It is completely different in nature than Econ. Marketing etc.....and, non CPAs do manage CPAs.
how am i talking down to you when I express my opinion as a mechanical engineer based on my own work experience? You are NOT a engineer, you don't know anything about the profession but you call me arrogant for having an opinion about who manages engineers?
you don't know what you are talking about, because you aren't an engineer. i don't talk about other professions that I don't work in. that is what you and your buddies do on here.
If you can get a job where they allow you to manage engineers, more power to you. I don't think it's crazy or arrogant to assert that engineers are generally managed by engineers, b/c you have to understand the "technical weeds" and you guys seem to flip that the technical stuff off as almost irrelevant to being engineering manager. You MUST understand the engineering stuff at an advanced level to be an engineering manager.
Again, CEOs and CFOs are not engineering management but you guys keep asserting that this is engineering management.
You guys seem to be confusing interface with supervision.
Last edited by SwampFox35; 03-07-2013 at 12:12 PM..
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