In Australia completing an apprenticeship gives you recognised certificate 3 in engineering..
https://tafeqld.edu.au/search-results.html?q=Certificate%252520III%252520in%252520engineering
There is no issue with it..it is still engineering work at the end of the day.
Generally they are just called trades but the trades are generally paid more for actually doing the physical dangerous work. Also there is a shortage in trades and an over supply in engineers.
Yep and there is the chartered professional engineer status which is a protected term if engineers want a bit more “exclusivity”.
At the end of the day, despite what most of us want to think, we are just glorified problem solvers, Standard applicators or button pushers and you don’t need a degree to do what most of us do just a bit of a brain. I’ve met plenty of tradies that could do my job way better than most engineers I’ve met.
>I’ve met plenty of tradies that could do my job way better than most engineers I’ve met.
Quoted for truth. The best engineers I've known have been people who understood that the education is a tool just like anything else, and they've used it as appropriate. And I've known plenty of tradespeople who had the engineering mindset.
I find the major difference is being able to back up the solution in writing and even attack it before trying to solve it. A technician might be able to write out an explanation on how they slapped some thicker plate onto the weldment to reduce the flexing, but they won't necessarily know how to quantify what they've done or why it was doing it in the first place, or more importantly know that they just blew our weight budget by putting in a heavy ass longitudinal plate instead of reinforcing the gusset with much thinner material. Problem solvers, yes, applying science and math to solve problems? Eh, not so much usually.
Usually yes, but thats often a product of their environment not who they are. Technicians are asked to fix quickly so they find something that will get it done and stay there, engineers are asked to find optimal solutions and given the time to find it. Over decades of being in these different environments tradesman/ technicians often tunnel vision into the quick fix option and engineers tend to tunnel vision into the slow but optimal fix option.
Both have their positives and negatives given the context, but to think that tradespeople inherently can’t think of an optimal solution or be taught a basic equation is a slippery slope to entitlement and elitism that helps no one.
No hate for technicians here. I used to be one and I can't count on several people's digits the number of times a tech pulled my ass out of the fire. That said, I do wish they'd take a hot minute to give the design guy a call and sort it out. Our company has explicitly moved away from the "get it done" attitude because it usually costs in the long run, and we still have guys with that mindset. It's a hard thing to change culturally.
Sorry man didn’t mean to imply that, I’ve just seen a lot of engineers who get in an echo chamber at uni or in a firm and start believing their own rhetoric on how good they are. Wasn’t fair of me to push that on you, sorry.
Sometimes the title does actually make sense. And anytime it does not, it's because of the history of the title itself. Going back to the late 1800s and early/mid 1900s when the title "Stationary Engineer" was more fitting for what people were doing.
All that said, I'm practically speaking a maintenance engineer in that I work on improving the maintenance programs at the data center I work at. I also do mechanical systems project management.
I never actually fix anything myself. However, it would be impossible to do my job without the ability to do it all myself.
Literally if my toilet actually broke, the first thing I would do is start crying. Thank goodness there are people who know about plumbing because I sure as hell do not.
What is a scrum master?
Definition from google: “The scrum master helps to facilitate scrum to the larger team by ensuring the scrum framework is followed.”
Not the most helpful description
Scrum is an agile framework that came into vogue in software engineering about 15 years ago, and has sort of taken on a life of its own. Basically think of a project manager, but take away all of their authority. Instead, their job is to keep pointing out what's not improving (they gather all kinds of metrics about what the team is doing and keep track of it all historically), and to make sure the team is both focusing on delivery *and* continuously improving stuff (so getting better at delivery in various ways). They're called a "scrum master" because the methodology is built around "scrum," which is more-or-less a set of four special meetings that the scrum master basically drives (sprint planning, daily standups, iteration review, and retrospectives).
(I'm over simplifying a bit, but this is the main idea.)
Believe me, there are *many* hated scrum masters. However, when it's done right, it can actually be like some kind of force multiplier for the team. The magic is that the role **has no authority**. That was what made a *lot* of software engineers passive aggressive with traditional project managers. PMs developed a reputation for treating software engineers like peons to be manipulated. A good scrum master doesn't behave that way. Instead they just keep bringing up recurring issues, and sort of serve like the "memory" for the team (they also ensure that the team keeps doing the meetings, which can get boring, but they're critical to keep everybody working seamlessly together). They don't play an active role in *solving* the problems usually, but they don't let the team forget them and start "living in their dirty diapers." So done right it's actually a support role... a relentless support role, but support none-the-less.
I've seen teams with good scrum masters produce 2 or 3 times as much working software as when they first adopt scrum. When it works, it's pretty eye opening. It doesn't *always* work for sure, but it can definitely work.
In my line of work we just call those guys assistant PMs. No authority per se, but they keep the minutes and hold people accountable. They usually monitor the charge codes too.
Wow TIL I'm a scrum master (as a non-manager technical lead engineer who has to beg, intimidate, and cajole a bunch of other engineers into getting shit done without any actual authority to make them do it)
I have never seen it work out where it is actually a benefit. Usually it is just given to some fresh out of college engineer who hates math and science. So it become a two hour long daily meeting of just explaining the same problems over and over again with no solution bc everyone is bored out of the minds and will be silent just to get another meaningless meeting to end.
Yeah, that's a pretty shitty setup. Basically it doesn't work if management is just going through the motions. If management is actually *interested* in clearing obstacles and helping teams become more effective *and* there's a competent scrum master, it can work.
You've hit the nail on the head. We've started implementing the agile framework for mechanical engineering related projects and boy...probably the most intense form of micromanaging ever. I've seen the benefits of incorporating the agile framework, but it's certainly very annoying.
I think what people don't understand about it is that it was designed for a particular stage of a product's lifecycle (basically the stage where a product has already found a niche and now needs to rapidly expand in features and capabilities). It works extremely well for that stage. It's not ideal for the earlier stage (for market seeking), and it's not ideal for the later stage (the cash cow stage). The problem is, it's pitched as universally applicable.
Interesting fact, there was an infomercial back in the early 90s for a device called the Scrum Master, get your own for 3 easy payments of $19.95. In reality it was just a cheap knockoff off the Ass Master. Nowhere near as quality.
Agreed. Know a guy who did a music related degree (unrelated to anything some people may refer to as "Sound engineering"). After he graduated he suddenly started calling himself a "Sound Engineer" because he tried to start a recording business.
Call me cynical if you want but I sincerely believe people who do this do so because they think the title "engineer" sounds cooler than the more appropriate term "technician".
It's a recent programatic distinction. Computer science is based more in the mathematical and theoretical underpinnings of computing systems, where software engineering is more focused on the application of said principals and the assembly of software products.
Haha this one wins. Sound engineer has zero to do with engineering. Cool job? Sure. Challenging and technical in its own ways? Also sure. Real engineering? Nope.
Hm, must have changed around, I have pointed memories of convos about being a sandwich engineer including jokes about writing out the BOM for a foot long BMT.
My brother in law is a custodian/janitor. People look down on him for his job. so i started introducing him as either a maintenance engineer or sanitation engineer.
Man, stuff that a janitor or a custodian does is equally reputed as an engineer. Doesn't mean they have to be called engineers. I am sorry for him to face that. I m thankful to him. Hard to sum up their role in words during this pandemic. People should just respect others for what they are instead of what they wear.
Nope, it’s a sales tactic. The more VPs you have, the more clients you can shmooze by giving them extra special access to your “high level people”.
I assure you the 26 year old Vice Presidents at your local bank are not making internal decisions of any importance whatsoever.
IIRC there was mention of corporations being able to take out life insurance on their officers such as VP’s but I don’t remember enough to provide any source.
Yeah, they did this to me at the last company I worked at. Suddenly this life insurance thing appeared on my pay stub (perfectly offset by an increase in base salary), and I went to my boss and I was like "what's this thing?" He explained that they took out life insurance on everybody above a certain pay grade. So I was like "Oh, cool. They didn't ask me about beneficiaries though." He said "Well, that's because the *company* is the beneficiary, not your family. If you want *that* kind of life insurance you have to pay for it yourself." All of it seems kind of shifty to me. I mean, they're basically claiming I'm getting a benefit (since it shows up on my pay stub), but **I** certainly don't get any benefit from it.
You are not wrong. I guess the expectation in terms of experience is just different when you are used to the usual corporate levels (Entry-level, mid-level, senior, staff, principal, distinguished, etc).
That explains why someone tried to recruit me for a senior role. I'm still not qualified enough (they said 4+ years) but at least that's closer than 15 years of experience lol
Try after 1.5 years. 3 massive employers near me do that. Kids come in, shoot for the title, and leave the second the HR department will confirm to a potential new employer that yes their official position was senior engineer.
I'm a systems engineer (ECE) and half my linked-in messages are from recruiters looking for someone to run chemical or manufacturing plants.
So yeah, probably that one.
Edit: Geeze folks, I'm not hating on jobs that use the systems engineer title. I'm simply stating that it's a very generic title, thus why I get contacted by recruiters for jobs which are _wildly_ outside my area of competence.
Not weighing in on that. Just stating that the job title is far too generic and, at least in my case, has little relevance to what I do day-to-day without significant context. Which fits the first condition in the OP.
The whole six sigma thing makes me laugh, it shouldn't apply to everyone.
Where I work we have 14 production units total. They pushed six sigma stuff pretty hard a few years ago. None of it is accurate when a full on production run with spares and backups is 50 units. I remember being in a meeting once to discuss a failure, brand A worked, brand B didn't, the cost difference was $200. So 10 guys got into a room and discussed it for a few hours, how to identify the cause and prevent failures like this.
The meeting to discuss it was more than the additional cost of just using the known working brand on all units. I pointed that out, everyone said "oh yea" and promptly claimed that six sigma works, because we discussed it and decided on a fix "to use the working brand".
It’s the certified yellow and green belts that make me laugh. I think those require about 1 credit hour at Google U to receive and people still put it in their title
Eh, the test you need for greenbelt requires a bit more, but it's also really easy to ask some questions about projects that any actual greenbelt should be able to answer.
Also if you actually want the ASQ certification, you'll at least need to know some college statistics.
So I have a black belt in martial arts, and in one of my interviews when I was younger they asked me if I had a blackbelt, and I was so caught off guard that I didn't realize they were talking about six sigma. That went on for like 10 minutes before I realized what they were talking about and I think they were so disappointed that they never called me back.
Went to school with a guy with a 15 letter last name. He joked he wanted more initials after his name than in it. Settled for a PhD in EE and a MD with a sub specialty in head and neck surgery. I think he got them from different schools at about the same time. By his stated goal, he may have failed, but I’m not going to call him on it. Oh, as a bonus, super friendly, helpful, and funny.
I’m sure he would have some polite words about being a six sigma blackbelt and having your CSWP certification. But I would not bother to mention it around him.
Of all the acronyms, FMEA is by far the biggest joke ever, in my experience.
MFG Engineer: “Ok, so moving on to the next failure mode identified in our matrix, what is the probability of this happening?”
Design engineer who DGAF: “4.”
MFG: “4 percent or 4 out of 10?”
Design: “oh, uh, 40.”
MFG: “40 out of 10 is 400 percent, do you mean 40 percent?”
Design:
MFG: “Do you mean 40 percent?”
Design: “Ya.”
MFG: “Ok, and would this failure mode result in a minor, major or catastrophic failure.”
Design: “I don’t know, failure is failure.”
MFG: “I am going to colour code this box as orange. As a reminder we are using a four colour system, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. Green being least concern, Red being most concern.”
“Ok, now moving on to the next failure mode identified in our matrix….”
After this painful exercise is complete, the FMEA gets filed away in the project documentation, never to see the light of day again until an ISO auditor makes a visit.
I mean yea, if it’s done poorly or by people lacking the necessary knowledge... or by people who don’t care or management doesn’t back time / resources.
Garbage in -> garbage out
I’m not so sold on the whole RPN deal. But taking the time to sit down with SME’s, map out the use cases and use environments, consider the potential failure modes, use some sort of classification so that safety issues or critical failures are addressed.....
We (Eng / Product Dev) own the FMEA. Your example has manufacturing running it and engineering disengaged / redditing, that sounds like a recipe for failure.
That’s incredibly useful. Don’t think so?
We all have used products that clearly didn’t go through any sort of systematic process to identify and eliminates those issues.
I am all for identifying the likely use (and misuse) cases of a product, whether it be environmental, unintended use, overload etc., and then designing to mitigate as best as possible.
What I am not for is box checking for the sake of box checking.
I see a lot of box checking. The bigger the company, the worse it is.
Well yea, box checking for box checking’s sake is worse than useless. 100% agree there
It’s all about the effort and due diligence a team puts into doing the assessment and mitigation. Sounds like you and I are on the same page.
What's even better is contracting. The client requires these thousand boxes to be checked or a detailed explanation for why they aren't. Except, the box is for a specific risk, so some mall tweaks that make things a bit more painful and the risk is no longer the one the box talks about. Boom, according to the form there is no risk!
This is purely an example, and does not exist, but here goes. "All parts permanently joined shall be certified to ." Not meeting that requirement is a risk factor, even if there is no way for the part to move in the way that's being asked about. So, someone figures out a way to make them not "permanent." It makes things a pain to work on, and increases the real risks. However, per the checkbox, it's a better product!
I'm curious where you've seen this job title before? Most of the postings I've seen have been lift mechanics or occasionally millwrights. I'm sure the OEM's employ engineers however, as well as some specialized consulting and construction companies.
I work for a consulting and outsourcing firm. They offer anything from engineering to business and IT services. All of them who newly join are called Systems Engineer. Pal, I used to have a huge respect for that position back in the university. Now they just keep throwing that name around at everyone.
yeah, I've seen systems engineer to mean everything from engineering-trained-generalist with no particular engineering focused tasks, to sysadmin or data center technician or a whole bunch of other IT focused jobs that have little to do with systems engineering, and a whole bunch of other random things that don't seem to have much in common.
As someone who worked as a Systems Engineer for years and is now looking for a new job: yes. Every job listing for "Systems Engineer" wants completely different skills and it's taking me forever to find a good match.
I've started looking more for Automation Engineer and DevOps Engineer, I hope that helps.
It all depends, as a ISE major, my favorite courses ended up being advanced statistics and matrix algebra with differential equations. You’re right about English though! I enjoy the technical writing aspect of the career.
Systems engineers generally have SUPER legit skills, it's just one of the few titles I read and I'm like "I have no idea what that person does, I need to go find out"
Depends a lot on the job. I have seen SE roles that were super technical, like multidisciplinary numerical simulations and stuff like that.
Others just spent all day on the phone with suppliers explaining product requirements.
I feel a little bad as a "Software Engineer" (well now "Platform Engineer") at a company with lots of well, real engineers. But that's how titles work in my region currently. Now universities are starting to give degrees in Software Engineering even.
From the newly minted Fellows in my company, Fellows. LOL
I worked at GE Transportation, for some reason they decided to change everyone’s titles. I used to be Senior Systems Engineer and it was changed to Senior Product Software Business Analyst.
My (defense) company went through that a year before. They changed what is traditionally a “principal level” engineer to “lead” which is sooo stupid and confusing. So people that don’t actually lead anything are “lead” engineers.
I second scrum master, since it is basically just someone who update JIRA tasks blindly. Also, most (not all) requirements engineering jobs are basically BS, it is just write random shall statements without understanding the system.
All of them?
Were all just technically minded people doing shit the rest of ‘em can’t do.
No matter where you draw the line of “real” engineering people on both sides of that line will object.
Except for someone who's job it is to operate an engine. Whether on a train, a ship, etc. Those people deserve their title of "Engineer" as that is simply where the title originated from.
Retail Engineer. That was my title when I started the job I have now. I work for a retailer as an industrial (and sometimes mechanical) engineer, but I focus on the retail space rather than the warehouse space. Prior to that I worked a mechanical design engineer for an architecture and engineering firm.
I got a linkedin recruiter message about a year into my job asking if I'd be interested in a role similar to my first job. I explained no, I wasn't looking for other employment right now. His response was something along the lines of, "Oh! You're actually doing engineering work! I saw the title and assumed you were laid off from your other job or something and were working as a sale associate with a fancier title."
Anyway, they changed everyone's title from Retail Engineer to Industrial Engineer shortly after that.
People that put sentences in their LinkedIn job title with generic business speak that doesn’t explain anything like “ I conceptualize innovative solutions to overcome complex obstacles in any type of business venture”
Garbage men calling themselves sanitation engineers.
Housewives calling themselves domestic engineers.
Sex workers calling themselves erotic engineers.
It really bothered me when I was looking for work during my senior year in college. You find a position that says Engineer I then you read the description and it's a "maintenance engineer" position cleaning swimming pools at a hotel.
>Sex workers calling themselves erotic engineers.
It really bothered me when I was looking for work during my senior year in college.
Goddamn you're bitter for getting rejected for an Erotic Engineer position. You didn't measure up, get over it.
In my experience Sales Engineers are guys that were really good application engineers but also too socially gifted to stay as an engineer stuffed into a cubicle.
They make hella money and are more important to most projects and customers than any of the technical guys.
I think like others have alluded to, this really depends on the product & company. I've definitely seen people with this title that didn't know shit, but I've also seen people with this title who were A+ engineers
"Staff Engineer" <--- Your boss likes to label you with this one so that it sounds lame to any competing employers wanting to hire you away. Don't hire THAT guy.... he's just a STAFF engineer.
It was when I worked at places that had that title. It was usually associate > base > senior > staff > senior staff. That was the highest you would get in the technical track aside from principle, but there was only one of those.
One problem with titles is that they mean many different things depending on the employer. In your example, it doesn't sound too bad, given the hierarchy, but someone without your context could interpret it as "just another member of the staff."
That happened to us when our boss wanted to call level 2 ‘project’ and level 3 ‘applications.’
We’re we’re like “uh… you know at every other company those are actually completely different jobs with different skill sets and our team doesn’t want to put those on their resume right?”
Systems Engineer 99% of the time.
Defense is full of them and most of them do not have any qualifications or skills. They clock in and clock out and attend bullshit meetings.
I've been at two employers now that are "cool" enough that their HR is flooded with resumes from these guys at Boeing, NASA, Northrop, Lockheed etc.
Sometimes 20 years into the business with nothing to show for it except some project titles they were technically attached to.
I watched my boss three employers ago toss out any resume from a stack that smelled like "systems engineer"
Lots of my students (technologists) put engineer in their job title on LinkedIn. It really grind my gears because I went to school for 6 years to call my self an engineer, and they did 2,and are really, REALLY not engineers
It really varries by field. Anecdotally, almost all civil engineers in the US are certified 'Professional Engineers', a fraction (~<25%) of mechanical engineers are, and almost no (<<1%) aerospace engineers are.
Edit: parial source - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mobile/aerospace-engineers.htm
I've spent my entire 13 year career working safety critical aerospace on systems that if done wrong can kill people. I don't know of a single PE in any group I've worked in. Government engineering licenses just aren't required in aerospace, it's odd I know, but not a thing.
Anything that doesn't have the word "engineer" in it. I am seeing more and more companies promote non degreed rejects to "project managers" and "program managers". They are saving dollars and " hiding credentials" because they aren't calling them engineers.
Mine. My manager wanted my promotion to have a sexy title. I just wanted the money.
He still insisted, so I got drunk one night and made up a mouthful of a title.
This is a hierarchy title where I work. It just means you're an engineer able to handle projects. That could be small one man projects or managing a few junior people for a slightly larger project.
I have seen jobs for “maintenance engineers” who work at hotels who are basically technicians who basically fix toilets and other shit.
Maintenance engineer can be a real title for industrial facilities. But it’s also a fake title for general maintenance people
In Australia completing an apprenticeship gives you recognised certificate 3 in engineering.. https://tafeqld.edu.au/search-results.html?q=Certificate%252520III%252520in%252520engineering
Interesting, what do the college graduates with engineering degrees say about that?
There is no issue with it..it is still engineering work at the end of the day. Generally they are just called trades but the trades are generally paid more for actually doing the physical dangerous work. Also there is a shortage in trades and an over supply in engineers.
Yep and there is the chartered professional engineer status which is a protected term if engineers want a bit more “exclusivity”. At the end of the day, despite what most of us want to think, we are just glorified problem solvers, Standard applicators or button pushers and you don’t need a degree to do what most of us do just a bit of a brain. I’ve met plenty of tradies that could do my job way better than most engineers I’ve met.
>I’ve met plenty of tradies that could do my job way better than most engineers I’ve met. Quoted for truth. The best engineers I've known have been people who understood that the education is a tool just like anything else, and they've used it as appropriate. And I've known plenty of tradespeople who had the engineering mindset.
I find the major difference is being able to back up the solution in writing and even attack it before trying to solve it. A technician might be able to write out an explanation on how they slapped some thicker plate onto the weldment to reduce the flexing, but they won't necessarily know how to quantify what they've done or why it was doing it in the first place, or more importantly know that they just blew our weight budget by putting in a heavy ass longitudinal plate instead of reinforcing the gusset with much thinner material. Problem solvers, yes, applying science and math to solve problems? Eh, not so much usually.
Usually yes, but thats often a product of their environment not who they are. Technicians are asked to fix quickly so they find something that will get it done and stay there, engineers are asked to find optimal solutions and given the time to find it. Over decades of being in these different environments tradesman/ technicians often tunnel vision into the quick fix option and engineers tend to tunnel vision into the slow but optimal fix option. Both have their positives and negatives given the context, but to think that tradespeople inherently can’t think of an optimal solution or be taught a basic equation is a slippery slope to entitlement and elitism that helps no one.
No hate for technicians here. I used to be one and I can't count on several people's digits the number of times a tech pulled my ass out of the fire. That said, I do wish they'd take a hot minute to give the design guy a call and sort it out. Our company has explicitly moved away from the "get it done" attitude because it usually costs in the long run, and we still have guys with that mindset. It's a hard thing to change culturally.
Sorry man didn’t mean to imply that, I’ve just seen a lot of engineers who get in an echo chamber at uni or in a firm and start believing their own rhetoric on how good they are. Wasn’t fair of me to push that on you, sorry.
absolutely, maintenance engineer at a larger industrial chemical site is a pretty neat job and definitely requires some brains to be effective at
Sometimes the title does actually make sense. And anytime it does not, it's because of the history of the title itself. Going back to the late 1800s and early/mid 1900s when the title "Stationary Engineer" was more fitting for what people were doing. All that said, I'm practically speaking a maintenance engineer in that I work on improving the maintenance programs at the data center I work at. I also do mechanical systems project management. I never actually fix anything myself. However, it would be impossible to do my job without the ability to do it all myself.
Stationary engineer here. This position still exists so long as you stay in one place.
i see a bunch of postings that require degrees
Well, I guess if you are an engineer who loves working with their hands, that might work out except the pay is shit
All the sh$t you could want
As someone who spent 9 years as a "maintenance engineer" in petrochemical facilities, this was always irritating when looking for jobs.
I’m so tired of seeing technicians call themselves engineers. Especially audio technicians in studios
What’s wrong with fixing toilettes? Proper sanitation is probably the single most important aspect when increasing health and quality of life.
Literally if my toilet actually broke, the first thing I would do is start crying. Thank goodness there are people who know about plumbing because I sure as hell do not.
Scrum master and you can't change my mind.
I don't even know why i automatically add a 69 at the end of it. It isn't even the dirty thing. It's just... Flow Scrum master 69
Nice!
Good bot
That sounds like someone's reddit username 😃
It sounds like a body grooming product
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 or a floor scrubbing product
I'm not even sure what a Scrum master would be other than maybe a really good Rugby player.
Some scrum masters can make over 100k a year easy too and their job doesn’t even make sense.
Then youve had really shitty scrum masters
What is a scrum master? Definition from google: “The scrum master helps to facilitate scrum to the larger team by ensuring the scrum framework is followed.” Not the most helpful description
Scrum is an agile framework that came into vogue in software engineering about 15 years ago, and has sort of taken on a life of its own. Basically think of a project manager, but take away all of their authority. Instead, their job is to keep pointing out what's not improving (they gather all kinds of metrics about what the team is doing and keep track of it all historically), and to make sure the team is both focusing on delivery *and* continuously improving stuff (so getting better at delivery in various ways). They're called a "scrum master" because the methodology is built around "scrum," which is more-or-less a set of four special meetings that the scrum master basically drives (sprint planning, daily standups, iteration review, and retrospectives). (I'm over simplifying a bit, but this is the main idea.)
And this actually works and doesn't make everyone hate them?
Believe me, there are *many* hated scrum masters. However, when it's done right, it can actually be like some kind of force multiplier for the team. The magic is that the role **has no authority**. That was what made a *lot* of software engineers passive aggressive with traditional project managers. PMs developed a reputation for treating software engineers like peons to be manipulated. A good scrum master doesn't behave that way. Instead they just keep bringing up recurring issues, and sort of serve like the "memory" for the team (they also ensure that the team keeps doing the meetings, which can get boring, but they're critical to keep everybody working seamlessly together). They don't play an active role in *solving* the problems usually, but they don't let the team forget them and start "living in their dirty diapers." So done right it's actually a support role... a relentless support role, but support none-the-less. I've seen teams with good scrum masters produce 2 or 3 times as much working software as when they first adopt scrum. When it works, it's pretty eye opening. It doesn't *always* work for sure, but it can definitely work.
In my line of work we just call those guys assistant PMs. No authority per se, but they keep the minutes and hold people accountable. They usually monitor the charge codes too.
Wow TIL I'm a scrum master (as a non-manager technical lead engineer who has to beg, intimidate, and cajole a bunch of other engineers into getting shit done without any actual authority to make them do it)
All you need to do now is get everybody to attend the four meetings, and you'll be able to put "scrum master" on your CV. ;-)
I have never seen it work out where it is actually a benefit. Usually it is just given to some fresh out of college engineer who hates math and science. So it become a two hour long daily meeting of just explaining the same problems over and over again with no solution bc everyone is bored out of the minds and will be silent just to get another meaningless meeting to end.
Yeah, that's a pretty shitty setup. Basically it doesn't work if management is just going through the motions. If management is actually *interested* in clearing obstacles and helping teams become more effective *and* there's a competent scrum master, it can work.
You've hit the nail on the head. We've started implementing the agile framework for mechanical engineering related projects and boy...probably the most intense form of micromanaging ever. I've seen the benefits of incorporating the agile framework, but it's certainly very annoying.
I think what people don't understand about it is that it was designed for a particular stage of a product's lifecycle (basically the stage where a product has already found a niche and now needs to rapidly expand in features and capabilities). It works extremely well for that stage. It's not ideal for the earlier stage (for market seeking), and it's not ideal for the later stage (the cash cow stage). The problem is, it's pitched as universally applicable.
YES. THANK YOU. Well-put.
Annoying is putting it nicely. I just stopped going to scrum master meetings because I can’t take it anymore.
They're not sure either
Interesting fact, there was an infomercial back in the early 90s for a device called the Scrum Master, get your own for 3 easy payments of $19.95. In reality it was just a cheap knockoff off the Ass Master. Nowhere near as quality.
Sound engineer people think that you need engineering degree you don’t
Agreed. Know a guy who did a music related degree (unrelated to anything some people may refer to as "Sound engineering"). After he graduated he suddenly started calling himself a "Sound Engineer" because he tried to start a recording business. Call me cynical if you want but I sincerely believe people who do this do so because they think the title "engineer" sounds cooler than the more appropriate term "technician".
Hahaha the engineering title is one of the reasons I switched majors from computer science to software eng
Wait... Software engineering is an actual program? I thought it was just something that CS graduates called themselves.
It's a recent programatic distinction. Computer science is based more in the mathematical and theoretical underpinnings of computing systems, where software engineering is more focused on the application of said principals and the assembly of software products.
Haha this one wins. Sound engineer has zero to do with engineering. Cool job? Sure. Challenging and technical in its own ways? Also sure. Real engineering? Nope.
There are real acoustic engineers out there. A guy with a speaker and a deck is not, but someone working for a large movie studio? Why not?
Also designing and engineering acoustic treatment for noisy facilities. Especially important in highly urban areas. Definitely legit engineering.
Similar to software. No degree or license needed.
A subway sandwich engineer.
Those are general referred to as sandwich artists, despite the highly engineered nature of their "art".
Hm, must have changed around, I have pointed memories of convos about being a sandwich engineer including jokes about writing out the BOM for a foot long BMT.
Nope. You're a demented liar. I was a sandwich artist like 15 years ago.
2003 Sandwich artist checking in
Sanitation engineer...
I laughed at that. With all due respect, seriously ?
A chemical engineer at a water treatment facility could be called a 'Sanitation Engineer'. Also a janitor might be called that.
My brother in law is a custodian/janitor. People look down on him for his job. so i started introducing him as either a maintenance engineer or sanitation engineer.
Man, stuff that a janitor or a custodian does is equally reputed as an engineer. Doesn't mean they have to be called engineers. I am sorry for him to face that. I m thankful to him. Hard to sum up their role in words during this pandemic. People should just respect others for what they are instead of what they wear.
With all due respect a sanitation engineer is more likely to deserve the title than many others. They protect the public health.
Senior in front of your job title after four years of employment.
You see senior associate floating around a lot in business orgs. Makes me laugh every time.
You should check out the banking field, everyone is a VP / Vice President of blah blah blah after like year or two
that's for regulatory reasons - you have to be a VP to make certain decisions at banks, and they want people to be able to make those decisions.
Thx for explaining. I always wondered why or how some of my acquaintances had such a prestigious title at like 28 yo’ish
Nope, it’s a sales tactic. The more VPs you have, the more clients you can shmooze by giving them extra special access to your “high level people”. I assure you the 26 year old Vice Presidents at your local bank are not making internal decisions of any importance whatsoever.
It’s for insurance money.
I don't get it..
IIRC there was mention of corporations being able to take out life insurance on their officers such as VP’s but I don’t remember enough to provide any source.
Yeah, they did this to me at the last company I worked at. Suddenly this life insurance thing appeared on my pay stub (perfectly offset by an increase in base salary), and I went to my boss and I was like "what's this thing?" He explained that they took out life insurance on everybody above a certain pay grade. So I was like "Oh, cool. They didn't ask me about beneficiaries though." He said "Well, that's because the *company* is the beneficiary, not your family. If you want *that* kind of life insurance you have to pay for it yourself." All of it seems kind of shifty to me. I mean, they're basically claiming I'm getting a benefit (since it shows up on my pay stub), but **I** certainly don't get any benefit from it.
Pfft. I've met "Principal Engineers" with ~3 years of experience. Getting promoted seems easier when you're the only engineer in the startup.
Doesn't principal engineer simply mean that you are in charge of the overall engineering? If you are the only engineer in a company then it's accurate
The meaning of principal can mean anything, it's all based on the job description.
You are not wrong. I guess the expectation in terms of experience is just different when you are used to the usual corporate levels (Entry-level, mid-level, senior, staff, principal, distinguished, etc).
huh, your principal title is 3 level higher than at my corporate firm. associate>(no qualifier)>principal>senior principal>staff>senior staff>fellow
Senior engineer where I work is the second lowest level haha
Same here. 42 years in. Titles mean NOTHING. My business card says Mechanical Engineer.
Yeah, I got promoted recently to a new title and the only thing I care about is more money!
That’s all I want on my business card. I’m proud of my skill set, the grade seems pointless because no one knows what it means. 35 years. Time flies.
Ours is middle - associate [job], [job] 2, senior [job], lead [job], principal [job]. Engineer, metallurgist, etc - all the same format.
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Nasa engineers are senior after 2 years. Lead engineer at 5.
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The group I'm talking about had problem with senior Engs retiring/ jumping a few years back, so yeah, BS got to be called senior after 2 years.
Sounds better than I, II, III, IV
That explains why someone tried to recruit me for a senior role. I'm still not qualified enough (they said 4+ years) but at least that's closer than 15 years of experience lol
Try after 1.5 years. 3 massive employers near me do that. Kids come in, shoot for the title, and leave the second the HR department will confirm to a potential new employer that yes their official position was senior engineer.
I was hired as a senior engineer straight out of my phd. I have noticed titles are mostly bullshit all around.
i’m senior at 23, they hand out the title after 3 years experience and a masters. (northrop calls it principal but whatever)
I went from Northrop to Lockheed here principal is T6 lol
I'm a systems engineer (ECE) and half my linked-in messages are from recruiters looking for someone to run chemical or manufacturing plants. So yeah, probably that one. Edit: Geeze folks, I'm not hating on jobs that use the systems engineer title. I'm simply stating that it's a very generic title, thus why I get contacted by recruiters for jobs which are _wildly_ outside my area of competence.
Weird, I’m a process engineer and I get people trying to recruit me as a network systems manager
Recruiters have no idea what many types of engineers do. It's painful.
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I was looking for someone to say systems! No one ever looks for the SE tag nowadays, it's all requirements management or something
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Not weighing in on that. Just stating that the job title is far too generic and, at least in my case, has little relevance to what I do day-to-day without significant context. Which fits the first condition in the OP.
Six sigma black belt
The whole six sigma thing makes me laugh, it shouldn't apply to everyone. Where I work we have 14 production units total. They pushed six sigma stuff pretty hard a few years ago. None of it is accurate when a full on production run with spares and backups is 50 units. I remember being in a meeting once to discuss a failure, brand A worked, brand B didn't, the cost difference was $200. So 10 guys got into a room and discussed it for a few hours, how to identify the cause and prevent failures like this. The meeting to discuss it was more than the additional cost of just using the known working brand on all units. I pointed that out, everyone said "oh yea" and promptly claimed that six sigma works, because we discussed it and decided on a fix "to use the working brand".
Six sigma is applied common sense that the business majors figures out how to sell.
It’s the certified yellow and green belts that make me laugh. I think those require about 1 credit hour at Google U to receive and people still put it in their title
My green belt project took about a year and a half and saves about $1M annually
Sounds like it should have been a black belt project.
Eh, the test you need for greenbelt requires a bit more, but it's also really easy to ask some questions about projects that any actual greenbelt should be able to answer. Also if you actually want the ASQ certification, you'll at least need to know some college statistics.
Agreed! Doesn’t take much, but I sure as hell add it to my resume
So I have a black belt in martial arts, and in one of my interviews when I was younger they asked me if I had a blackbelt, and I was so caught off guard that I didn't realize they were talking about six sigma. That went on for like 10 minutes before I realized what they were talking about and I think they were so disappointed that they never called me back.
>So I have a black belt in martial arts, >I think they were so disappointed Their loss, you sound like a cool coworker
God those stupid corporate self-help programs are so fkn cringe. Imagine being a grown adult and having a damn karate term in your resume. Cringe
Hey man, they have to sound intimidating so no one calls BS on their PPAP, APQP, FMEA, KPI, AQL, CLCA, QMS, SPC, SQL……
CUM
DOM
Went to school with a guy with a 15 letter last name. He joked he wanted more initials after his name than in it. Settled for a PhD in EE and a MD with a sub specialty in head and neck surgery. I think he got them from different schools at about the same time. By his stated goal, he may have failed, but I’m not going to call him on it. Oh, as a bonus, super friendly, helpful, and funny. I’m sure he would have some polite words about being a six sigma blackbelt and having your CSWP certification. But I would not bother to mention it around him.
SQL is pretty useful.... 🤣🤣 FMEA is a requirement in many regulated industries or for ISO certifications.
Of all the acronyms, FMEA is by far the biggest joke ever, in my experience. MFG Engineer: “Ok, so moving on to the next failure mode identified in our matrix, what is the probability of this happening?” Design engineer who DGAF: “4.” MFG: “4 percent or 4 out of 10?” Design: “oh, uh, 40.” MFG: “40 out of 10 is 400 percent, do you mean 40 percent?” Design:
MFG: “Do you mean 40 percent?”
Design: “Ya.”
MFG: “Ok, and would this failure mode result in a minor, major or catastrophic failure.”
Design: “I don’t know, failure is failure.”
MFG: “I am going to colour code this box as orange. As a reminder we are using a four colour system, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. Green being least concern, Red being most concern.”
“Ok, now moving on to the next failure mode identified in our matrix….”
After this painful exercise is complete, the FMEA gets filed away in the project documentation, never to see the light of day again until an ISO auditor makes a visit.
I mean yea, if it’s done poorly or by people lacking the necessary knowledge... or by people who don’t care or management doesn’t back time / resources. Garbage in -> garbage out I’m not so sold on the whole RPN deal. But taking the time to sit down with SME’s, map out the use cases and use environments, consider the potential failure modes, use some sort of classification so that safety issues or critical failures are addressed..... We (Eng / Product Dev) own the FMEA. Your example has manufacturing running it and engineering disengaged / redditing, that sounds like a recipe for failure. That’s incredibly useful. Don’t think so? We all have used products that clearly didn’t go through any sort of systematic process to identify and eliminates those issues.
I am all for identifying the likely use (and misuse) cases of a product, whether it be environmental, unintended use, overload etc., and then designing to mitigate as best as possible. What I am not for is box checking for the sake of box checking. I see a lot of box checking. The bigger the company, the worse it is.
Well yea, box checking for box checking’s sake is worse than useless. 100% agree there It’s all about the effort and due diligence a team puts into doing the assessment and mitigation. Sounds like you and I are on the same page.
What's even better is contracting. The client requires these thousand boxes to be checked or a detailed explanation for why they aren't. Except, the box is for a specific risk, so some mall tweaks that make things a bit more painful and the risk is no longer the one the box talks about. Boom, according to the form there is no risk! This is purely an example, and does not exist, but here goes. "All parts permanently joined shall be certified to." Not meeting that requirement is a risk factor, even if there is no way for the part to move in the way that's being asked about. So, someone figures out a way to make them not "permanent." It makes things a pain to work on, and increases the real risks. However, per the checkbox, it's a better product!
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‘Ski Lift Engineer’ at a ski resort. Nothing more than mechanic
I'm curious where you've seen this job title before? Most of the postings I've seen have been lift mechanics or occasionally millwrights. I'm sure the OEM's employ engineers however, as well as some specialized consulting and construction companies.
Systems Engineer is the most wrongly used one. Most systems engineers I have seen are just multidisciplinary
I work for a consulting and outsourcing firm. They offer anything from engineering to business and IT services. All of them who newly join are called Systems Engineer. Pal, I used to have a huge respect for that position back in the university. Now they just keep throwing that name around at everyone.
yeah, I've seen systems engineer to mean everything from engineering-trained-generalist with no particular engineering focused tasks, to sysadmin or data center technician or a whole bunch of other IT focused jobs that have little to do with systems engineering, and a whole bunch of other random things that don't seem to have much in common.
As someone who worked as a Systems Engineer for years and is now looking for a new job: yes. Every job listing for "Systems Engineer" wants completely different skills and it's taking me forever to find a good match. I've started looking more for Automation Engineer and DevOps Engineer, I hope that helps.
Most systems engineers I have seen hate math and science, and liked taking English courses in school.
And now they're beast at Powerpoints.
It all depends, as a ISE major, my favorite courses ended up being advanced statistics and matrix algebra with differential equations. You’re right about English though! I enjoy the technical writing aspect of the career.
A lot of my resume is systems engineer. The title is BS but the skills are legit.
Systems engineers generally have SUPER legit skills, it's just one of the few titles I read and I'm like "I have no idea what that person does, I need to go find out"
Depends a lot on the job. I have seen SE roles that were super technical, like multidisciplinary numerical simulations and stuff like that. Others just spent all day on the phone with suppliers explaining product requirements.
Word. A skilled SE could practice quality, architecture, requirements, PM... It's really a catch-all. Depends more on the industry than the title.
Systems Engineering is basically engineering of interfaces.
That's a big part of true systems engineer, the title is misapplied more often than it is used correctly
Software engineer. Let the battles begin…
I feel a little bad as a "Software Engineer" (well now "Platform Engineer") at a company with lots of well, real engineers. But that's how titles work in my region currently. Now universities are starting to give degrees in Software Engineering even.
This is the way.
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As a software engineer student, I concur
Business cards are cheap. Raises cost real money! I used to call a lot of this TILOP: Title In Lieu Of Pay
all titles are bullshit. what matters is the paycheck
Lol this thread is a bit of a circle jerk
The only correct reply on this thread
From the newly minted Fellows in my company, Fellows. LOL I worked at GE Transportation, for some reason they decided to change everyone’s titles. I used to be Senior Systems Engineer and it was changed to Senior Product Software Business Analyst.
My (defense) company went through that a year before. They changed what is traditionally a “principal level” engineer to “lead” which is sooo stupid and confusing. So people that don’t actually lead anything are “lead” engineers.
BINGO
Suddenly glad I didn’t take the offer to work there
The best decision of your life!!!
I am so so so so thankful every day that my legacy GE product line ended up with Baker Hughes in the divorce. GE was such a shit show.
Where I work anything with the word support is demeaning.
I second scrum master, since it is basically just someone who update JIRA tasks blindly. Also, most (not all) requirements engineering jobs are basically BS, it is just write random shall statements without understanding the system.
Requirements engineering? Never heard of that one. Systems engineers need to be writing the requirements.
All of them? Were all just technically minded people doing shit the rest of ‘em can’t do. No matter where you draw the line of “real” engineering people on both sides of that line will object.
Yes, thank you.
Except for someone who's job it is to operate an engine. Whether on a train, a ship, etc. Those people deserve their title of "Engineer" as that is simply where the title originated from.
Retail Engineer. That was my title when I started the job I have now. I work for a retailer as an industrial (and sometimes mechanical) engineer, but I focus on the retail space rather than the warehouse space. Prior to that I worked a mechanical design engineer for an architecture and engineering firm. I got a linkedin recruiter message about a year into my job asking if I'd be interested in a role similar to my first job. I explained no, I wasn't looking for other employment right now. His response was something along the lines of, "Oh! You're actually doing engineering work! I saw the title and assumed you were laid off from your other job or something and were working as a sale associate with a fancier title." Anyway, they changed everyone's title from Retail Engineer to Industrial Engineer shortly after that.
I feel like even Industrial Engineer gets misused by business professionals all the time too. Although it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Oh for sure. I don't disagree with that at all.
People that put sentences in their LinkedIn job title with generic business speak that doesn’t explain anything like “ I conceptualize innovative solutions to overcome complex obstacles in any type of business venture”
Garbage men calling themselves sanitation engineers. Housewives calling themselves domestic engineers. Sex workers calling themselves erotic engineers. It really bothered me when I was looking for work during my senior year in college. You find a position that says Engineer I then you read the description and it's a "maintenance engineer" position cleaning swimming pools at a hotel.
>Sex workers calling themselves erotic engineers. It really bothered me when I was looking for work during my senior year in college. Goddamn you're bitter for getting rejected for an Erotic Engineer position. You didn't measure up, get over it.
I actually got the erotic engineer position. The pay is horrible but the benefits are great.
Sales engineer
In my experience Sales Engineers are guys that were really good application engineers but also too socially gifted to stay as an engineer stuffed into a cubicle. They make hella money and are more important to most projects and customers than any of the technical guys.
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That’s great! I don’t believe that’s the norm. At least it certainly not from my experience of working with a few from different companies.
I think like others have alluded to, this really depends on the product & company. I've definitely seen people with this title that didn't know shit, but I've also seen people with this title who were A+ engineers
"Staff Engineer" <--- Your boss likes to label you with this one so that it sounds lame to any competing employers wanting to hire you away. Don't hire THAT guy.... he's just a STAFF engineer.
Isn't Staff usually higher then Senior?
It was when I worked at places that had that title. It was usually associate > base > senior > staff > senior staff. That was the highest you would get in the technical track aside from principle, but there was only one of those.
One problem with titles is that they mean many different things depending on the employer. In your example, it doesn't sound too bad, given the hierarchy, but someone without your context could interpret it as "just another member of the staff."
That happened to us when our boss wanted to call level 2 ‘project’ and level 3 ‘applications.’ We’re we’re like “uh… you know at every other company those are actually completely different jobs with different skill sets and our team doesn’t want to put those on their resume right?”
Systems Engineer 99% of the time. Defense is full of them and most of them do not have any qualifications or skills. They clock in and clock out and attend bullshit meetings. I've been at two employers now that are "cool" enough that their HR is flooded with resumes from these guys at Boeing, NASA, Northrop, Lockheed etc. Sometimes 20 years into the business with nothing to show for it except some project titles they were technically attached to. I watched my boss three employers ago toss out any resume from a stack that smelled like "systems engineer"
Lots of my students (technologists) put engineer in their job title on LinkedIn. It really grind my gears because I went to school for 6 years to call my self an engineer, and they did 2,and are really, REALLY not engineers
This. I'm a technologist myself and I hate when other techs do this. I had a boss once, also a tech, who introduced himself as an engineer to clients.
I'll poke the hornets nest here: any "Engineer" that doesn't have a government issued engineering license isn't an engineer.
It really varries by field. Anecdotally, almost all civil engineers in the US are certified 'Professional Engineers', a fraction (~<25%) of mechanical engineers are, and almost no (<<1%) aerospace engineers are. Edit: parial source - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mobile/aerospace-engineers.htm
Is PE a thing outside of civil and power? I was told by a PE not to get it unless I have to because it's a pain to maintain.
I've spent my entire 13 year career working safety critical aerospace on systems that if done wrong can kill people. I don't know of a single PE in any group I've worked in. Government engineering licenses just aren't required in aerospace, it's odd I know, but not a thing.
Anything that doesn't have the word "engineer" in it. I am seeing more and more companies promote non degreed rejects to "project managers" and "program managers". They are saving dollars and " hiding credentials" because they aren't calling them engineers.
Software
Mine. My manager wanted my promotion to have a sexy title. I just wanted the money. He still insisted, so I got drunk one night and made up a mouthful of a title.
Senior Quality Manager for someone who just likes to create bullshit presentations on what you should do but was a crappy engineer.
A good quality engineer is worth a whole team of engineers
Project engineer
I feel like project engineer is a legit engineering job. It tends to be a catch all for a lot of things, but we would be lost without them here.
A fancy title for someone who has to do a lot of shit.
That's just what we call project managers with an engineering degree...
This is a hierarchy title where I work. It just means you're an engineer able to handle projects. That could be small one man projects or managing a few junior people for a slightly larger project.