I have often wondered what makes a good engineer. And the answer that comes to my mind is :
A good engineer is someone who genuinely cares. Everything else can be learnt.
But I don't think this is a complete answer. And needs to be extended a bit. This post in a way is a personal reminder for myself for the days I feel lost and defeated and am not sure why I am doing what I am doing. I also hope it will help new graduates and young students realise their true potential and not get disheartened with the impending tryst with the '9 to 5' life. It does not have to be like that.
Curiosity I believe is the second ingredient to this mix of essential elements. Mix a person who genuinely cares about solving a certain problem, with another who is curious about how things work or don't, and there you have quite a powerful combination.
Next comes dedication and determination. It is all very good to want to solve a problem and want to find out about how you can do it, but what is the use of it all, if you cannot keep at it. Not every problem can be solved quickly. Not every curiosity lead to answers. It is easy to run into dead ends and lose enthusiasm. Personally for me one of the key quality of a good engineer is to be able to persevere in spite of the road blocks, discouragements, and multitudes of challenges that one is sure to face. And these challenges need not even be solely technical. I find it important at such times to filter out the surrounding noise and focus on the real problem that I am trying to solve. And this is where 'caring' helps. I find that if I genuinely care about solving the problem, it makes it easier to ignore all the noise surrounding it.
The next essential ingredient that comes to my mind is the passion to learn and humility. No matter how smart a solution you think you have come up with, it is possible that someone else can do it better than you. In fact keeping an open mind is very important in order to better evolve in an industry/world where new technology/talent/ideas are being born every second. You cannot keep up in the long run, if you don't learn and adapt quickly.
And while talking about learning and adapting, the complementary skill I would add to achieve a healthy balance is innovation. Thinking out of the box, taking risks (because of what you believe and not just to be 'different') and having the courage and confidence to go against the flow of existing way of things is absolutely essential for a good engineer. At the end of the day, the reason we exist is to hopefully add some real value to the world and in some way create our own little legacy. The bigger the impact, the greater the value addition. Although this is not to say solving small problems is not an achievement in its own right. Because it most definitely is. And it may well be a stepping stone to solving much bigger problems in future.
There are a few more personal favourites that I would like to add to this 'super engineer' mix.
One of them being automation. An engineer should be able to identify what can be automated and optimized and what needs concentrated brain power. If a machine can be made to do what you are doing, then you are not really adding a lot of value.
The second one is to be able to switch between stepping back to understand the big picture and then zooming into the details and nitty-gritty of the problem itself.
The third for me is to ask why and to challenge myself at every point. Why do I want to solve this particular problem? What is the benefit? Is it quantifiable in any way? This gives more meaning to the work I do and it adds to the reasons to 'care'.
I am sure there are several other key ingredients, but the last one that I will add in my list today, is good communication skills. This is not last on the list, because it is less important, but more because I have seen cases where people lacking many of the above key ingredients get away in life only on the basis of being able to 'speak well'. The harsh reality of life is that it is not enough to simply care about solving the problem, but you also have to know how to sell your solution. If you genuinely believe that you have something valuable to contribute to the world, you have to take the pain and the effort and speak up, and speak well. Or else it will be lost to the world with you.
And finally as a personal test, maybe all we need to do is ask ourselves this question:
Do I get high on solving problems?
If the answer is yes, it probably is a good starting point. The rest of above ingredients are just nudges in the right direction.
p.s.These points can be extended to what makes a good professional, but I have chosen engineers in particular here as I want to establish a firm boundary for the context of this post, and stick to the set of humans, that I relate to the most.
Updating this as I learn more...Sometimes just being a good engineer is contrary to being able to survive in the current state of corporate world. Caring may make us good engineers, but caring too much makes us vulnerable and open to hurt. I am not saying hence we must not care. I am just laying down the consequences as is.
A good engineer is someone who genuinely cares. Everything else can be learnt.
But I don't think this is a complete answer. And needs to be extended a bit. This post in a way is a personal reminder for myself for the days I feel lost and defeated and am not sure why I am doing what I am doing. I also hope it will help new graduates and young students realise their true potential and not get disheartened with the impending tryst with the '9 to 5' life. It does not have to be like that.
Curiosity I believe is the second ingredient to this mix of essential elements. Mix a person who genuinely cares about solving a certain problem, with another who is curious about how things work or don't, and there you have quite a powerful combination.
Next comes dedication and determination. It is all very good to want to solve a problem and want to find out about how you can do it, but what is the use of it all, if you cannot keep at it. Not every problem can be solved quickly. Not every curiosity lead to answers. It is easy to run into dead ends and lose enthusiasm. Personally for me one of the key quality of a good engineer is to be able to persevere in spite of the road blocks, discouragements, and multitudes of challenges that one is sure to face. And these challenges need not even be solely technical. I find it important at such times to filter out the surrounding noise and focus on the real problem that I am trying to solve. And this is where 'caring' helps. I find that if I genuinely care about solving the problem, it makes it easier to ignore all the noise surrounding it.
The next essential ingredient that comes to my mind is the passion to learn and humility. No matter how smart a solution you think you have come up with, it is possible that someone else can do it better than you. In fact keeping an open mind is very important in order to better evolve in an industry/world where new technology/talent/ideas are being born every second. You cannot keep up in the long run, if you don't learn and adapt quickly.
And while talking about learning and adapting, the complementary skill I would add to achieve a healthy balance is innovation. Thinking out of the box, taking risks (because of what you believe and not just to be 'different') and having the courage and confidence to go against the flow of existing way of things is absolutely essential for a good engineer. At the end of the day, the reason we exist is to hopefully add some real value to the world and in some way create our own little legacy. The bigger the impact, the greater the value addition. Although this is not to say solving small problems is not an achievement in its own right. Because it most definitely is. And it may well be a stepping stone to solving much bigger problems in future.
There are a few more personal favourites that I would like to add to this 'super engineer' mix.
One of them being automation. An engineer should be able to identify what can be automated and optimized and what needs concentrated brain power. If a machine can be made to do what you are doing, then you are not really adding a lot of value.
The second one is to be able to switch between stepping back to understand the big picture and then zooming into the details and nitty-gritty of the problem itself.
The third for me is to ask why and to challenge myself at every point. Why do I want to solve this particular problem? What is the benefit? Is it quantifiable in any way? This gives more meaning to the work I do and it adds to the reasons to 'care'.
I am sure there are several other key ingredients, but the last one that I will add in my list today, is good communication skills. This is not last on the list, because it is less important, but more because I have seen cases where people lacking many of the above key ingredients get away in life only on the basis of being able to 'speak well'. The harsh reality of life is that it is not enough to simply care about solving the problem, but you also have to know how to sell your solution. If you genuinely believe that you have something valuable to contribute to the world, you have to take the pain and the effort and speak up, and speak well. Or else it will be lost to the world with you.
And finally as a personal test, maybe all we need to do is ask ourselves this question:
Do I get high on solving problems?
If the answer is yes, it probably is a good starting point. The rest of above ingredients are just nudges in the right direction.
p.s.These points can be extended to what makes a good professional, but I have chosen engineers in particular here as I want to establish a firm boundary for the context of this post, and stick to the set of humans, that I relate to the most.
Updating this as I learn more...Sometimes just being a good engineer is contrary to being able to survive in the current state of corporate world. Caring may make us good engineers, but caring too much makes us vulnerable and open to hurt. I am not saying hence we must not care. I am just laying down the consequences as is.
