Early Life as an Engineer and my path to Entrepreneurship
I started my bachelor’s in civil engineering in 2001, more than 15 years ago. I wanted to become a civil engineer, design new roads, buildings, power plants, and fancy high-rise buildings. “Design” is a core concept in the civil engineering curriculum, where students learn to calculate loads, predict capacities, and optimize their precise solutions […]
How Fresh Graduate Engineers Successfully Negotiate Salary Increase
As a fresh graduate of any technical course or engineering program, it can be difficult to find a company that accepts applicants without any experienced On-The-Job Training during college or university years, much more than those companies offer a higher than average salary. With that said, I’ve helped several young engineers negotiate an extra […]
6 Must-Have Skills to Make You Marketable in Any Workplace
As industries continue to evolve to accommodate the changing needs and demands of society, the skills being head-hunted by human resources and talent managers are also changing. And considering that job markets are becoming increasingly saturated, it can pay off to learn and master specific skills. Honing these six must-have skills will not only make […]
Delegating Effectively When Working with Engineers
There is a myriad of guides available online that will offer to teach you how to manage your team’s workloads and delegate tasks to your subordinates. Engineers are a slightly different group, though, and as such, there are a few differences in how you should handle delegation in the engineering world. While there are always […]
11 Lessons from Elon Musk that can be applied to your Engineering Career
Elon Musk is the most famous engineer alive today, is the inspiration behind the modern image of “Iron Man”, and is responsible for running five companies (Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, The Boring Company, Neurolink). There is a lot that we can learn from him. His original story highlights include selling a video game at […]
Presentation Visual Aids – Design a Tool, not a Crutch
Engineers use a variety of tools to complete their daily tasks. The list may include a calculator, a computer with the right software, and a book of engineering standards. These tools support the practice of engineering and make for a more productive engineer. They assist the engineer, but they do not replace the practice […]
Ways for Engineers to Give Back to the Community
The work that engineers do is essential. It directly affects people and the community as a whole. This is because their work is to create products and structures that are to be used by people, however it is still important for an engineer to find a way to give back to his or her community. […]
Good Communication Skills- An Engineer’s Career Escalator
The boss and I were talking the other day about hiring a young engineer. The person we were considering checked a lot of the boxes we were looking for and they had a decent interview. There was no doubt they would meet all the requirements we had in the engineering skills job description. During […]
5 Big Mistakes Engineers Make on the Job
Engineers are expected to perform at their best, if not all the time, most of it at least. Room for error in this type of career is small of course, as it can have huge negative impact on an individual project or the lives of millions of people. It is essential to learn from our […]
Recognizing the Time for Change in your Engineering Career
How do you know when it’s time to move on from your engineering job? It’s something that most of us have asked ourselves at some point in our careers, or will at some time in the future. Earlier this week, a coaching client asked me what I thought. Honestly, I didn’t have a solid answer right […]