Advice Regarding Early Career Directional Decision 2

[cm566]

I graduated with my BSME about 1.5 years ago and took a job with a large company. It's an operational role with a limited amount of technical depth. I think that I would rather be working in design/test/R&D, but I've been given an interesting proposition. Normally at my company you are expected to stay in a role for 2 years and then find something new. My boss has approached me with an offer to make me and one other engineer more senior team members (the current team structure is flat, everyone equal reporting directly to the same boss). The primary reason for this is to increase operational quality and also to facilitate future expansion of the organization. I was approached because I am a top performer and just generally more engaged than others. My boss understands that this might not be a totally desirable role for me, but is willing to support me pursuing technical interests as much as is possible, and will give me a decent raise (more than I will be able to make job hopping to another team in the company).

My concern is that I'm getting away from the technical side of things where I think I want to be. Nonetheless, I think this is a unique opportunity. I'm 24 years old with a little under 2 years of post-graduation experience, am I really at risk of getting pigeonholed into less technical managerial/operations roles by taking this job? I have a really good boss and right now it looks like the pay will end up being mid-high 70ks (which feels like a lot to me given my relative inexperience).

 

[GregLocock]

I must admit I took the line of least resistance and ended up getting a couple of promotions and running a lab rather than moving around gaining technical expertise in other areas. This did rather result in my being pigeonholed, albeit in a very attractive pigeonhole, for the next 20 years.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[JohnRBaker]

Yea gotta go with your gut, and what you think is best for your personal situation. If you've got a family then you have to give extra consideration to the financial side of this situation. However, if you're single or only have a spouse/significant other to worry about you can be more flexible.

In my case I stuck with the technical role for 11 years moving from product group to product group until I finally ended-up in a pure R&D group for the last 2 years. Granted I was never offered a management opportunity although in retrospect I suspect that the director of engineering, the guy who hired me, that he was training me for his job (we both graduated from the same engineering school, just 20 years apart) all along, however that all changed one sunny day when I was introduced to something new and exciting. Our company was an early adopter of CAD/CAM technology and in 1977 they bought a system and I was part of the first group to be trained. After using it everyday for three years and after there was a change in upper management at my company where my mentor got squeezed out, I decided that I would change direction as well. I left my 11 year position, took my vested pension (which I'm not collecting), and moved my family across the country and took a job with the company that had sold us our CAD/CAM system three years earlier. That was nearly 35 years ago now and I've never regretted it a minute.

Now what's the point of me telling my story? Just that no matter what you do it's completely up to you but keep your eyes and ears open because an opportunity may come along that may not look like much at the time but it could lead to bigger opportunities as yet unknown. Granted, I just happened to be there when an enormous paradigm shift was starting to take place in our industry and I was lucky enough to get in early and ride the wave. But who knows what's going to happen next.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[rotw]

I think it is up to you and it really depends on your gut feeling and personal situation as previously mentionned.
for instance my career goal has always been to grow my technical skills while turning down any advancement in hierarchy so really trying to move downward in the career ladder and hope reaching one day the rock bottom...
so you see we all have very different perspectives...




"If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill".

 

[oldestguy]

Staying with technical part may be fun and interesting. However, generally speaking, going on to management will not require many technical aspects, but pay level is usually much better in the long run. Also, running your own company requires skills not usually learned in college, but on the job, and it takes more effort, but nothing good comes easy. Not everyone can run his (her) own company (or be a good manager) successfully. That's down the road, but worth thinking about now.

 

[TLHS]

If it's a newly created position, and you're technically minded, there's no reason you can't keep technically engaged. It's a little harder when someone else has already defined the position, but if you're effectively a technical team leader you can organize things how you want. Make sure you're involved with the fun stuff, while still keeping an eye on the people, management and money. You can very much find a style of management where you get to do the fun bits.

Also, you get to pawn off the boring and repetitive parts of the technical side, so there's definite pluses.

 

[cm566]

Thanks for the input everyone. I ended up accepting the position, though it's not official yet (still doing the HR finangling). I essentially made the decision for reasons along the line of what TLHS said. At any rate, even if it doesn't work out, I'm still young and resilient.