It takes more than tech

By Robert Bellinger

Sam knew he was the best engineer in his office. No one could decipher tangled specs faster or design a better power supply. But Al, in the cubicle next to his, was promoted yesterday and Sam was feeling pretty down about it. Al was good but Sam was better at engineering. OK, so his presentation went over like a lead balloon the last time out, and he had to ask Al for help in preparing the last proposal. But he was an engineer. Isn't technology enough?

No, no and no. The engineer of today has to be able to communicate, like Al in the fictional scenario above. He or she has to speak well, write forcefully and nail business skills early in a career if he wants to advance. As noted by one design engineer responding to the EE Times "1999 Salary & Opinion Survey," communication skills are vital to "being able to correctly specify technical requirements across different organizations."

"Dealing with nontechnical people in technical management positions" requires a unique ability to communicate, according to a department head. "It's difficult to discuss the benefits of an IC program with someone who does not know what an OR gate is."

The 503 poll respondents have got their technical skills honed to a T. Here are the percentages of readers who have those skills. (Virtually all gave multiple responses.):

• Digital design: 67 percent;
• Systems integration: 58 percent;
• C and C++: 57 percent;
• Circuit design: 55 percent;
• Logic design: 54 percent;
• Analog design: 46 percent;
• DSP: 25 percent;
• ASIC design: 24 percent;
• Wireless design: 18 percent;
• Network design: 16 percent;
• Java: 11 percent;
• Deep-submicron IC design: 11 percent.

For engineers, technical skills are a given. What they don't have today, they'll learn tomorrow. However, business skills are another matter, as evidenced from the replies to the survey question, "What business or management skill has proved to be the toughest to master?"

"Writing," one engineer said. "I dodged it in high school because I thought engineers only worked math problems. Clear, concise, fast-written report generation is a difficult art and skill to learn from a book."

"Managing other people, cross-functional teams and vendors," a California group leader said.

For a Northeast technical director, it was "scheduling of human resources; e.g., maximizing product development team efficiency and speed vs. technical mentoring and education for team members."

Another very real business skill that isn't taught in MBA programs is "managing the political environment," a senior engineer said. "Representing team/project to management in the informal/unstructured arena of hallway meetings and closed offices."

Project management

Laying down the law on deadlines vexes this engineering manager. "It's hard to set deadlines when your project depends on other vendors and suppliers who may miss their deadlines."

Project management comes up on this engineer's survey "because of the need to balance quality of design work with the business objective of time-to-market." Engineers have a tough time letting go-they know it can be done better. Perhaps the next design cycle.

A technical director agrees that he has found project management a bear. His complaint, a not uncommon one: "Even medium-size software projects that involve 10 to 100 engineers can have hidden dependencies that bite you."

"Managing 30 software engineers," moans one vice president of engineering, "is best described as trying to herd cats."

It's not so easy dealing with other departments, either, according to a senior engineer. His most trying hurdle is achieving "cross-functional commitments and deliverables. Getting what you need from other groups when you need it."

One respondent is challenged by "Pricing/costing technology development and products for OEM customers."

One of the key differentiating business skills that separates the higher paid managers from engineers is hiring and firing responsibility. But what engineer took human resources courses or Interviewing 101? Not this Oregonian, who lists "personnel hiring" as the toughest business skill to master. "[It's] so hard to find capable software engineers who have not bloated their resumes with hard-to-assess skills."

In the survey, 78 percent of the managers list personnel hiring as one of the business skills in their toolbox, but only 23 percent of engineers do. With this responsibility comes higher wages: $83,800 on average vs. the $75,500 mean. It's the only business skill where the mean salary comes in much higher than the overall mean. Still, some of these duties derive by definition from being a manager, so it's not so much the acquisition of the skill that leads to bigger paychecks but the promotion to a management supervisory position.

Here are some other skills that separate managers and staffers:

• Budgeting. Three-quarters of the managers vs. 29 percent of the staffers oversee spending in their workplaces.

• Time management of other people in their department. Some 66 percent of managers perform this task vs. 31 percent of engineers.

• Setting of project deadlines. A key duty for 92 percent of the managers, but only half the staffers.

• Oral presentations. Some 88 percent of managers speak publicly vs. 64 percent of staff-level people.

• Written reports for outside publication. This task can be burdensome to some engineers, but larger corporations credit their employees for such work. Some 57 percent of supervisors have written for trade publications such as EE Times vs. 38 percent of engineers. Just about everyone has prepared reports for internal use and participated in resolving technical trade-offs.

• Project management. One of the most challenging supervisory duties, it is performed by 92 percent of managers and 63 percent of engineers, indicating its importance across all levels, high and low.

Likewise, only a few engineers who replied to the survey-mostly under 35-have not yet had the opportunity to lead a team. Earlier surveys have confirmed what almost everyone in the business knows: much of the engineering work today is done in teams, usually all-technical ones. A minority of respondents have been part of cross-functional teams made up of other departments and/or outside partners.

The one business skill that relatively few engineers (22 percent) and managers (41 percent) lay claim to is purchasing. A senior engineer regards purchasing as a difficult task. "Engineers don't grasp the process; they usually blow off purchasing as a necessary evil." Fortunately, in many companies, another department dedicated to sourcing and negotiating parts and services handles the "necessary evil."

College-age respondents give an idea of what to expect in the way of technical and business skills when they hit the job market. If you wonder how 24 percent of them could claim to have resolved a technical trade-off before they've officially entered the field, remember that some are master's candidates who have been in the real world and that most students have served as interns or co-op employees at engineering companies. Here are some of the business skills they say they would list on their resumes:

• Writing skills: 69 percent;
• Oral presentation: 67 percent;
• Team leadership: 64 percent;
• Project management: 48 percent;
• Setting of project deadlines: 39 percent;
• Written reports for outside publication: 36 percent;
• Time management of other people: 30 percent;
• Resolution of a technical tradeoff: 24 percent;
• Budgeting: 17 percent;
• Purchasing: 15 percent.

While the students appear to be acquiring some vital nontechnical skills early in their careers their technical skills aren't too shabby, either. Some 25 percent say they have studied Java and network design, along with engineering basics such as C and C++, digital design and circuit design.

By contrast, only 11 percent of the 503 experienced EEs and managers who answered the questions work with Java, and 16 percent design networks.

Respondents follow the pattern of past surveys in describing their hardware/software orientation. Some 53 percent call themselves hardware engineers, 18 percent work primarily in software and the remainder have a foot in each camp.

Of course, universities can't cover all bases. For instance, there's the art of persuasion.

"When someone with no technological knowledge but lots of power tries to make technological decisions, it is hard not to show my irritation," a veteran technical director writes. "Political manipulation of others is the very opposite of what comes naturally to those in a team-oriented environment."

Also difficult is learning how to pump up your work force. The hardest thing for a California consultant to do is to motivate "all types of people to want to do a good job as opposed to just showing up for work." It's not so easy to inspire an assembly worker earning $8 an hour to solder the product perfectly and quickly.

Another reader struggles with "resource allocation-assigning people to the best-fitting job and keeping them happy." Those very important business skills can't be learned in business school-people skills, learned on the playground called life.

The design cycle has been seriously shrinking. Some 18 percent of design and development engineers report their latest end-to-end project lasted six months or less. Another 14 percent said the specification-to-production cycle took six to eight months. And the mean length of projects among the 503 U.S. respondents is a year, pretty short considering that one-fifth of the sample work in the military/aerospace arena, notorious for projects that last years.

This compression of design time is one reason that despite all the advances in tools, everyone seems to be late. In 1993, 79 percent of U.S. EEs in the survey reported their projects were delayed; six years later, 75 percent are behind despite automation, software modules, faster PCs, networked servers and all the other productivity paraphernalia.

Some 83 percent of the Japanese respondents ran into delays in the past 12 months. Nearly one-third report spec-to-production cycles of less than six months, while a staggering 75 percent wrapped up their last project in 12 months or fewer.

To buy time and save money, engineers are using different resources. One change in the U.S. design and development world is use of outside intellectual-property, predesigned and verified blocks intended for design reuse. Some 20 percent of the respondents say they use IP cores.

"We don't have time to reinvent the wheel for each design," says an MTS from a military-aerospace company. "If IP cores are available that meet our needs, we'll use them."

Not everyone likes IP. One Texas senior engineer says, "It's actually costing us time in hidden problems and workarounds. It costs more in production than internally developed parts."

Other outside help comes in the form of contractors, consultants and job shoppers, called in to ease backups or solve a particular problem. Still, 6 out of 10 respondents don't perceive any increase in allocation of design work outside their companies. However, 16 percent have noticed more use of outside design consultants; 8.8 percent think contract manufacturers are picking up more business and 4.5 percent see greater use of system or semiconductor companies to perform design tasks.

Return to 1999 Salary & Opinion Survey