How to become a better Engineer

[Julio Chadrone]

I recently graduated a year, ago and am currently at a job I enjoy. I for a while was the only electrical engineer and was nervous about having so much responsibility as a fresh graduate even though I interned here. I got a huge ego about my skills since once I was given more responsibilities (I was interning under an engineer I was given very little to do) I go to learn a lot about practical engineering. Like dealing with cost efficiency, how important connections to both suppliers and clients are, and the actual engineering aspect.

Then my company finally hired an old veteran since they were looking for senior engineer and he has been a total joy to work with an being decades old veteran just blows me away at how just how much background knowledge he has about everything. He has a lot of connections and more importantly he can look at a process that my company is doing and instantly knows how to improve it. Not instantly but I digress he has great ideas.

I see the amount of respect and trust my boss has for him, and I love that for him, and it inspires me to improve. I always wanted to get much better at my craft even without him but know that I have a measuring stick to compare myself to I can see how much more I can improve.

My real dilemma is I have no idea how to do it. If it comes to designing a panel a customer brings to me, I am good at providing them what they need, but when it comes to ideas of my old, I am drawing a blank. Like do I just look up conferences for electrical engineers in my area and rub elbows is that how people improve? or do I just job hop to job hop when I think I learned enough. I enjoy my job they are very open to engineers starting their own ideas if they can pitch it well enough.

TLDR Engineers how did you improve as an engineer to a point where you felt comfortable in a senior role?

 

[rambojoe]

Time. Constant self educate- with books in many fields of engineering and engineers of late. Its not the easy stuff that will be your measuring stick, its the hard issues that will be a measure.
You have a love of your field and that is most important.
I found a book about the building of the golden gate bridge (the same firm that built the brooklyn bridge- one of the ny bridges, dont qoute me on that) completrly different field but the book documents the problems and solutions they came up with... so great. I love thst stuff.
Also found a book on the u.s.interstate project and construction of hwy passes across the sierra nevadas...
Metro water supplies are interesting to research to. It all very much relates to ground up engineering and design.

 

[Julio Chadrone]

Time. Constant self educate- with books in many fields of engineering and engineers of late. Its not the easy stuff that will be your measuring stick, its the hard issues that will be a measure.
You have a love of your field and that is most important.
I found a book about the building of the golden gate bridge (the same firm that built the brooklyn bridge- one of the ny bridges, dont qoute me on that) completrly different field but the book documents the problems and solutions they came up with... so great. I love thst stuff.
Also found a book on the u.s.interstate project and construction of hwy passes across the sierra nevadas...
Metro water supplies are interesting to research to. It all very much relates to ground up engineering and design.

Thanks for that response, somehow the thought of reading about books of old engineering projects never crossed my mind. I agree I do love the work. I actually was passed up by 2 jobs, partially because during the interview they asked "you seem to really like your job why are you looking for a new one."
But yeah, I think going from purely educational/theorical academic books to books about previous great engineering achievements will give me lots of real-world reference.

 

[petersonra]

Continuous learning.

 

[Julio Chadrone]

Continuous learning.

Any type of learning you feel helped you more than others, i.e., books, finding a mentor, joining engineering groups, or finding jobs that were demanding?

 

[zbang]

First off, don't job hop, it looks bad; OTOH if the current job is unfulfilling or the management is toxic, that's when to move on.

Like the others said, read a lot, study previous projects, and ask questions in a way that won't question the others' judgement. If something doesn't make sense, find out why- and "why" might be "one month lead time for this part vs four for the other" or "If the client wants to add two more machines, and they probably will, the transformer will be overloaded". "Why" could also be "That's what the NEC says ,it doesn't have to make sense" .

Oh, and read these forums a lot in where a member asks how to do something uncommon.

Types of learning.... they're all worth trying because people learn differently, I read but hate videos that take ten minutes to give me 4 paragraphs of info; I also know folks that are just the opposite. With the current job, can you offer to take on more complex and interesting projects?

 

[Julio Chadrone]

First off, don't job hop, it looks bad; OTOH if the current job is unfulfilling or the management is toxic, that's when to move on.

Like the others said, read a lot, study previous projects, and ask questions in a way that won't question the others' judgement. If something doesn't make sense, find out why- and "why" might be "one month lead time for this part vs four for the other" or "If the client wants to add two more machines, and they probably will, the transformer will be overloaded". "Why" could also be "That's what the NEC says ,it doesn't have to make sense" .

Oh, and read these forums a lot in where a member asks how to do something uncommon.

Types of learning.... they're all worth trying because people learn differently, I read but hate videos that take ten minutes to give me 4 paragraphs of info; I also know folks that are just the opposite. With the current job, can you offer to take on more complex and interesting projects?

Thanks for the info, I will implement that question technique more often. To see if there are "invisible" decisions being made that could give me a better understanding. Yeah, my boss is awesome I asked me a couple months ago if I could offer my services to other teams, and he was on board to do so when I'm not busy. I think I will try reading more. The more complex jobs come in rarely, unless we have ideas on how to improve existing products, but yeah the books/videos will help give me ideas/experience when I am doing regular grunt work

 

[don_resqcapt19]

One of my son's engineering professors told him that you will probably use about 95% of what we teach you, but we are only teaching you about 5% of what you need to know to do your job.

 

[Hv&Lv]

You have half the battle won already with your positive attitude. You know you need to learn.
It’s a job in itself going to conferences, networking, constantly reading some engineering journal, but it’s all part of being better.

 

[jim dungar]

Expand the type of engineering projects you get involved in.

If all you do is designing MEP for school districts you may never feel comfortable working with cutting edge industrial. If possible look over senior engineer's shoulders and ask 'why', but not necessarily 'why not'.

 

[rambojoe]

The great pyramids of gaza were built with water (for level) string and the formula 3-4-5.. a formula we use in the feild to make a square off of a hub.

Google earth shows the pyramids a few degreez off of true north. Check it out!

 

[suemarkp]

It comes with time and experience. Keep working with the old veteran and hope each job is different with different problems. Understand his solutions. At some point ask why he didn't do it such and such a way (once you know it isn't a stupid way to do it) to learn more fine points about why he chose a particular way. You can also observe work by others if you ever see other sites your company didn't do. I try to look at any electrical install whenever I'm at a place under construction to get ideas. Then if you can talk to people after the fact that have used it for a while and find out what they like and don't like, that can help you shape your future designs. But you'll rarely make everyone happy, as different people have different preferences.

 

[Julio Chadrone]

One of my son's engineering professors told him that you will probably use about 95% of what we teach you, but we are only teaching you about 5% of what you need to know to do your job.

I feel this statement so hard. Early one I had huge culture shock after finishing a design of a panel, my boss came back and stated the parts I spec'd were too expensive or had a long lead time. It hit super hard when I realized politics affected my job, since U.S. had an embargo against some countries. I was informed to make sure whatever parts I spec'd in a quote would not be affected by it and we could actually obtain them in timely manner.
I learned that engineering is more than just can you make a circuit that makes sense electrically

 

[Julio Chadrone]

You have half the battle won already with your positive attitude. You know you need to learn.
It’s a job in itself going to conferences, networking, constantly reading some engineering journal, but it’s all part of being better.

Thanks yeah, I am now learning engineering is more than just showing up 9-5.

 

[Julio Chadrone]

Expand the type of engineering projects you get involved in.

If all you do is designing MEP for school districts you may never feel comfortable working with cutting edge industrial. If possible look over senior engineer's shoulders and ask 'why', but not necessarily 'why not'.

I am good about this when working with the senior engineer on my team, but I will try and impliment this too when working with senior engineers on other teams, to branch out

 

[Julio Chadrone]

The great pyramids of gaza were built with water (for level) string and the formula 3-4-5.. a formula we use in the feild to make a square off of a hub.

Google earth shows the pyramids a few degreez off of true north. Check it out!

I will, thanks for the recommendation

 

[Julio Chadrone]

It comes with time and experience. Keep working with the old veteran and hope each job is different with different problems. Understand his solutions. At some point ask why he didn't do it such and such a way (once you know it isn't a stupid way to do it) to learn more fine points about why he chose a particular way. You can also observe work by others if you ever see other sites your company didn't do. I try to look at any electrical install whenever I'm at a place under construction to get ideas. Then if you can talk to people after the fact that have used it for a while and find out what they like and don't like, that can help you shape your future designs. But you'll rarely make everyone happy, as different people have different preferences.

thanks, feedback from clients is something I would love to get more of. Only time I really get to hear from this is during the designing and if they need help getting something to work, but I would like to hear how they like using it, what works well, what they would like improved etc. Observing other peoples designs will give me perspective on that too,

 

[Besoeker3]

Hi Julio
One of the things that helped me was on different projects by myself and in different locations.

 

[Julio Chadrone]

Hi Julio
One of the things that helped me was on different projects by myself and in different locations.

Oh like you working on variety or projects by yourself, so that you had to figure stuff out on your own without being able to ask a senior engineer?

 

[ggunn]

Oh like you working on variety or projects by yourself, so that you had to figure stuff out on your own without being able to ask a senior engineer?

If you work on your own all the time without consulting anyone, you risk making uncorrected mistakes that can run from building something too expensively and/or overly complex to something that will fail catastrophically. If you work under heavy supervision all the time and never make any decisions on your own you may have your development into a better engineer stifled.

There is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.