A clue: It's not technical ability; it's business and management skills. As we saw earlier in our Salary chapter, engineers can indeed pass "Go" and collect $100,000-a number of ASIC and deep-submicron IC designers do. But if you're not in the top 5 percent of the profession and in possession of high-demand expertise, then adding business tools to your skills chest is one avenue to higher pay and promotions. And according to data presented earlier in this chapter, some 13 percent of you are eyeing the president/CEO spot, while another 26 percent want to be chief technical officer.
Business Skills: Separate the managers from the engineers
(Figure)
So what will it take to get there?
We asked our 681 readers, "What business skills would you list on your résumé?" and offered them multiple choices. There are certainly other business skills, but these are among the ones that corporations cite most frequently. Looking at the mean, or overall, averages, you get a picture of an EE Times reader who's pretty savvy in a number of areas.
- Budgeting: 32 percent;
- Project management: 67 percent;
- Team leadership: 74 percent;
- Time management of others in my department: 39 percent;
- Hiring: 37 percent;
- Setting of project deadlines: 61 percent;
- Resolution of a technical trade-off: 68 percent;
- Oral presentations: 67 percent;
- Purchasing: 25 percent.
But breaking down the overall numbers reveals the skills that separate the managers from the engineers.
At the top:
- Hiring: Cited by 75 percent of managers, against only 26 percent of engineers.
- Project management: 96 percent of engineering and corporate managers consider this one of their tools vs. 58 percent of engineers.
- Time management of others: 66 percent of managers decide how other people spend their time, vs. 31 percent of engineers.
- Budgeting: Cited by 62 percent of managers, but only 25 percent of engineers.
The great divide is less apparent among the following:
- Setting of project deadlines: 86 percent of managers do this, along with more than half (57 percent) of engineers.
- Resolution of a technical trade-off: 82 percent of managers, 67 percent of engineers.
- Oral presentations: 86 percent of managers get up in front of clients or bosses vs. 63 percent of engineers.
- Purchasing: This function remains largely in the hands of another department, as only 36 percent of managers get involved in purchasing vs. 20 percent of engineers.
Comparing a design engineer against a vice president of engineering, the differences sharpen.
All the VPs have project management experience; only 42 percent of the designers do. More than 85 percent of the VPs have led a team; half the design engineers have. And a mere 10 out of 114 design engineers act as hiring managers. Seven out of 10 VPs have budgeting responsibilities vs. 12 out of 114 design engineers.
Business Skills: U.S. vs. Asia
(Figure)
You'd expect the manager to perform these duties. In fact, it's rather surprising to hear about a design engineer with budget responsibilities. But it's not impossible. In some workplaces, such responsibilities filter down to the people who have to make a product possible.
The breakdown isn't a clean one. To some extent, the performance of these tasks is a function of experience. Many engineers are younger and simply haven't been exposed yet. But this list should provide a guideline for getting to the next level.
Coping with challenges
How well are our readers coping with business issues? We asked you to tell us "which business or management issue involving technology has proven to be the toughest skill to master."
Will it come as a shock that virtually all those who answered this question cited "people" issues as the No. 1 bugaboo? Leading them. Persuading them. Communicating with them. Cajoling them.
As one Texas engineer wrote: "Technology can be mastered or learned; people skills are tough regardless of technology. Convincing someone to complete a disliked task, and complete it well, is the most difficult."
"Working with machines is easy," says an Ohio engineer. "They are 100 percent predictable. Working with people is more challenging, since they are not 100 percent predictable."
So much for the cajoling. Here are some comments about communicating.
"Communication between departments is often overlooked," according to a Wisconsin engineer. "This results in the omission of necessary specifications which leads to redesign and/or delay."
A Georgia technical director's biggest hurdle? "Communicating technical risk of a project to non-technical personnel."
"Oral presentations are tough for me," another wrote.
Return to 1998 Salary & Opinion Survey
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