What every engineer should know about career management (2009)

WHAT EVERY ENGINEER
SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

CAREER
MANAGEMENT

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WHAT EVERY ENGINEER SHOULD KNOW
A Series
Series Editor*

Phillip A. Laplante
Pennsylvania State University

1. What Every Engineer Should Know About Patents,
William G. Konold, Bruce Tittel, Donald F. Frei,
and David S. Stallard
2. What Every Engineer Should Know About Product
Liability, James F. Thorpe and William H. Middendorf
3. What Every Engineer Should Know About
Microcomputers: Hardware/Software Design,
A Step-by-Step Example, William S. Bennett
and Carl F. Evert, Jr.
4. What Every Engineer Should Know About Economic
Decision Analysis, Dean S. Shupe
5. What Every Engineer Should Know About Human

Resources Management, Desmond D. Martin
and Richard L. Shell
6. What Every Engineer Should Know About Manufacturing
Cost Estimating, Eric M. Malstrom
7. What Every Engineer Should Know About Inventing,
William H. Middendorf
8. What Every Engineer Should Know About Technology
Transfer and Innovation, Louis N. Mogavero
and Robert S. Shane
9. What Every Engineer Should Know About Project
Management, Arnold M. Ruskin and W. Eugene Estes
10. What Every Engineer Should Know About ComputerAided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing:
The CAD/CAM Revolution, John K. Krouse
*Founding Series Editor: William H. Middendorf

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11. What Every Engineer Should Know About Robots,
Maurice I. Zeldman
12. What Every Engineer Should Know About
Microcomputer Systems Design and Debugging,
Bill Wray and Bill Crawford
13. What Every Engineer Should Know About Engineering
Information Resources, Margaret T. Schenk
and James K. Webster
14. What Every Engineer Should Know About
Microcomputer Program Design, Keith R. Wehmeyer

15. What Every Engineer Should Know About Computer
Modeling and Simulation, Don M. Ingels
16. What Every Engineer Should Know About Engineering
Workstations, Justin E. Harlow III
17. What Every Engineer Should Know About Practical
CAD/CAM Applications, John Stark
18. What Every Engineer Should Know About Threaded
Fasteners: Materials and Design, Alexander Blake
19. What Every Engineer Should Know About Data
Communications, Carl Stephen Clifton
20. What Every Engineer Should Know About Material
and Component Failure, Failure Analysis, and Litigation,
Lawrence E. Murr
21. What Every Engineer Should Know About Corrosion,
Philip Schweitzer
22. What Every Engineer Should Know About Lasers,
D. C. Winburn
23. What Every Engineer Should Know About Finite Element
Analysis, John R. Brauer
24. What Every Engineer Should Know About Patents:
Second Edition, William G. Konold, Bruce Tittel,
Donald F. Frei, and David S. Stallard
25. What Every Engineer Should Know About Electronic
Communications Systems, L. R. McKay
26. What Every Engineer Should Know About Quality
Control, Thomas Pyzdek

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27. What Every Engineer Should Know About
Microcomputers: Hardware/Software Design,
A Step-by-Step Example. Second Edition, Revised
and Expanded, William S. Bennett, Carl F. Evert,
and Leslie C. Lander
28. What Every Engineer Should Know About Ceramics,
Solomon Musikant
29. What Every Engineer Should Know About Developing
Plastics Products, Bruce C. Wendle
30. What Every Engineer Should Know About Reliability
and Risk Analysis, M. Modarres
31. What Every Engineer Should Know About Finite Element
Analysis: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded,
John R. Brauer
32. What Every Engineer Should Know About Accounting
and Finance, Jae K. Shim and Norman Henteleff
33. What Every Engineer Should Know About Project
Management: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded,
Arnold M. Ruskin and W. Eugene Estes
34. What Every Engineer Should Know About Concurrent
Engineering, Thomas A. Salomone
35. What Every Engineer Should Know About Ethics,
Kenneth K. Humphreys
36. What Every Engineer Should Know About Risk
Engineering and Management, John X. Wang
and Marvin L. Roush
37. What Every Engineer Should Know About Decision
Making Under Uncertainty, John X. Wang

38. What Every Engineer Should Know About Computational
Techniques of Finite Element Analysis, Louis Komzsik
39. What Every Engineer Should Know About Excel,
Jack P. Holman
40. What Every Engineer Should Know About Software
Engineering, Phillip A. Laplante
41. What Every Engineer Should Know About Developing
Real-Time Embedded Products, Kim R. Fowler
42. What Every Engineer Should Know About Business
Communication, John X. Wang
43. What Every Engineer Should Know About Career
Management, Mike Ficco

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WHAT EVERY ENGINEER
SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

CAREER
MANAGEMENT
Mike Ficco

Boca Raton London New York

CRC Press is an imprint of the
Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

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CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Ficco, Michael.
What every engineer should know about career management / Michael Ficco.
p. cm. ‑‑ (What every engineer should know ; 43)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978‑1‑4200‑7682‑0 (alk. paper)
1. Engineering‑‑Vocational guidance. 2. Engineering‑‑Management. I. Title. II.
Series.
TA157.F48 2008
620.0023‑‑dc22

2008013348

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at

and the CRC Press Web site at


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Contents
What Every Engineer Should Know: Series Statement.............................xi
Preface........................................................................................................ xiii
Author..........................................................................................................xv

Introduction.............................................................................................. xvii

I  The Engineering Career
1

Education.............................................................................................. 3
Introduction....................................................................................................3
The Early Years...............................................................................................3
Emergence of Talent.......................................................................................4
Math and the Sciences...................................................................................4
The Weeding Out Process.............................................................................5
Educational Environment.............................................................................6
Social Interactions..........................................................................................6
Free Time.........................................................................................................7
Getting into a Good College.........................................................................8
Academic Achievements...............................................................................9
Graduate School............................................................................................ 10

2

Framing the Corporate Landscape.................................................. 11
Introduction.................................................................................................. 11
The First Weeks............................................................................................. 12
Corporate Organization and Operations.................................................. 13
Business................................................................................................. 13
Engineering.......................................................................................... 13
Financial................................................................................................ 14
Manufacturing..................................................................................... 14
Marketing............................................................................................. 14
Occupational Safety..................................................................................... 15

Privacy............................................................................................................ 15
Corporate Culture........................................................................................ 16
Power, Dominance Displays, and the Corporate Hierarchy.................. 19
Loyalty versus Ability.................................................................................22
Chain of Trust............................................................................................... 23
Keyhole Management.................................................................................. 24
Democracy..................................................................................................... 26
Rule, or Die Trying....................................................................................... 28
Enlightenment and Reason......................................................................... 29
Irreverence, Malcontents, and Progress....................................................30
vii

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viii

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Contents

3

On the Job........................................................................................... 35
Introduction.................................................................................................. 35
The Role of Experience................................................................................ 36
Understanding the Necessary Level......................................................... 39
Advocacy....................................................................................................... 41

Empowerment and Authorization............................................................. 41
Caesar and the Engineer.............................................................................43
Managers and Motivational Techniques...................................................43
Cheerleading........................................................................................44
Management by Small Progress........................................................ 45
Management by Focus........................................................................ 46
Management by Ambiguity............................................................... 46
Management by Secrecy..................................................................... 47
Management by Misdirection............................................................ 49
Management by Pressure................................................................... 50
Management by Coercion.................................................................. 52
Managing Up................................................................................................ 52
Patterns and Portents................................................................................... 53
Ideas and Designs........................................................................................ 53
Prototypes, Demonstrations, and Products..............................................54
Other Options............................................................................................... 55
Publications, Presentations, and Patents.......................................... 55
Bids and Proposals.............................................................................. 57
Interviewing Job Candidates............................................................. 57
Marketing Support and Collaboration............................................. 59
Image.............................................................................................................. 60
Professionalism.................................................................................... 61
Leadership............................................................................................ 62
Grandstanding.....................................................................................63
Stereotypes...........................................................................................64
Tattletales..............................................................................................64
Success............................................................................................................65
Anticipate Success...............................................................................65
Establishing Dominance..................................................................... 66
Protecting Turf..................................................................................... 66

Accidental Success............................................................................... 67
Incumbents........................................................................................... 68
Advancement....................................................................................... 69
Compensation...................................................................................... 70
Success Breeds Success....................................................................... 71

4

Alternate Career Paths...................................................................... 73
Introduction.................................................................................................. 73
Project Management.................................................................................... 74
First, Do No Harm............................................................................... 75
Failure Is Always an Option.............................................................. 75

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Contents

ix

Elegance, Aesthetics, and Innovation............................................... 76
Just a Prototype, Just a Demo.............................................................77
Project Budgets.....................................................................................77
Project Schedules................................................................................. 78
Project Status........................................................................................ 79
Tricks and Treats..................................................................................80
Excitement, Responsibility, and Visibility....................................... 82
Management..................................................................................................83
Management Training........................................................................84

Your Staff..............................................................................................84
Motivation.............................................................................................85
Passion................................................................................................... 86
Encouraging Innovation..................................................................... 87
Focus..................................................................................................... 88
Senior Management............................................................................ 89
The Stamp of Approval....................................................................... 91
Technical Consulting................................................................................... 91
Approaches to Technical Consulting................................................ 92
Why Are Consultants Hired?............................................................ 92
Pros and Cons of Consulting............................................................. 92
Knowledge Obsolescence................................................................... 94
Independent Consultants................................................................... 94
It’s a Business............................................................................ 95
Headaches Galore..................................................................... 95
Hourly Rate............................................................................... 96
Health Care............................................................................... 98
Intellectual Property................................................................ 99
Starting Your Own Company..................................................................... 99
Types of Companies.......................................................................... 100
Venture Capital.................................................................................. 100
One-Man Show.................................................................................. 101
Pizzazz................................................................................................ 102
Success................................................................................................. 102
Exit Strategy....................................................................................... 103
So Many More............................................................................................. 103
The Engineer as Applications Engineer......................................... 103
The Engineer as Marketer................................................................ 104
The Engineer as Technical Recruiter.............................................. 104
The Engineer as University Professor............................................ 104

5

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Job Searching and Interviewing................................................... 105
Introduction................................................................................................ 105
Active and Passive Job Searching............................................................ 105
When Is It Time to Change Jobs?............................................................. 106
Layoffs................................................................................................. 108
Outsourcing........................................................................................ 108

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Contents
Severance Packages and Retention Bonuses.................................. 109
What Kind of Job Do You Want?.............................................................. 109
Temporary, Permanent, or Part Time.............................................. 110
Joining a Start-Up.............................................................................. 111
Joining a Company in Transition.................................................... 112
Joining a Mature Company.............................................................. 112
Marketing Yourself.................................................................................... 112
Becoming Well Known..................................................................... 113
Networking........................................................................................ 113
Working with a Recruiter................................................................. 113
Applying for a Job...................................................................................... 114
Advertised Jobs.................................................................................. 114
Resume Shopping.............................................................................. 115

The Interview.............................................................................................. 115
Proficiency Tests................................................................................. 116
Other Tests.......................................................................................... 116
Rudeness............................................................................................. 116
Fear of Talent...................................................................................... 117
Seasoning............................................................................................ 117
Typical Interview Questions............................................................ 117
Why Do You Want to Leave Your Current Job?................. 118
Why Do You Want to Work Here?....................................... 118
What Is Your Greatest Strength?.......................................... 118
What Is Your Greatest Weakness?........................................ 118
Tell Me about Yourself........................................................... 118
Tell Me about a Difficult Problem You Solved................... 119
What Are Your Salary Expectations?.................................. 119
Negotiating the Offer................................................................................. 119
Know What You Want...................................................................... 119
Avoid the Low Bidder....................................................................... 120
The Performance Matrix................................................................... 120
Your Level........................................................................................... 120
The Fine Print..................................................................................... 121
Remote Development........................................................................ 122
Noncompete and Invention Agreements....................................... 122
Show Integrity.................................................................................... 122

II  Product Development
6

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Product Development Overview................................................... 127

Introduction................................................................................................ 127
Social Interaction........................................................................................ 128
Product Development Blueprint............................................................... 130

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Contents

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xi

7

Basics First........................................................................................ 133
Introduction................................................................................................ 133
Idea.............................................................................................................. 133
Money........................................................................................................... 135
Strategy........................................................................................................ 138
Costs of Developing the Product..................................................... 141
Costs of Manufacturing the Product.............................................. 142
Special Note on Component Pricing and Schedules.................... 142
Estimation Responsibility Matrix................................................... 144
Hardware Development........................................................ 145
Software Development.......................................................... 146
User Interface Development................................................. 146
System Integration and Testing............................................ 146
Passive Components.............................................................. 146
Memory Components............................................................ 146

Processors................................................................................ 147
Exotic Chips............................................................................. 147
Special Note on Cost-Reduction Activities.................................... 147
More than Engineering..................................................................... 149
Requirements.............................................................................................. 150

8

Plan the Effort.................................................................................. 153
Introduction................................................................................................ 153
The Project Plan.......................................................................................... 153
Special Notes on Project Plans................................................................. 155
A Project Plan Is Not a Design Document.............................................. 156
The Project Schedule.................................................................................. 156
Special Note on Delivery Dates................................................................ 157
Special Note on Project Schedules........................................................... 158
Special Note on Manufacturing Testing................................................. 160
Special Note on Nurturing the Manufacturing Process...................... 161
Project Plan Sign-Off.................................................................................. 162

9

Begin the Project.............................................................................. 163
Assemble the Project Team....................................................................... 163
The Blame Game......................................................................................... 165
Personality, Personality, Personality........................................................ 165
Leadership, Trust, and Talent................................................................... 169
Communications........................................................................................ 170
Properly Equip the Team........................................................................... 173
Design First................................................................................................. 174

10

Manage the Development............................................................... 181
Introduction................................................................................................ 181
Requirements Are Your Friend................................................................ 182
Configuration Management...................................................................... 183

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xii

Contents
Motivating the Team.................................................................................. 183
Shortening the Schedule................................................................... 183
Working Smarter............................................................................... 184
Tangible Recognition........................................................................ 185
Positive Reinforcement..................................................................... 186
Vendors and Subcontractors..................................................................... 187
The Houdini Test............................................................................... 187
Working with the Vendor................................................................. 187
Core Expertise . ................................................................................. 188
Design Reviews.......................................................................................... 189
Pyrite Engineering..................................................................................... 191
Be in Charge................................................................................................ 191
Teflon Management.................................................................................... 193
Schedule Delays, Status Reporting, and Visibility................................ 194
The Myth of Managing to a Schedule..................................................... 199
The Myth of Managing a Vendor............................................................. 203

Schedule Remediation............................................................................... 205
Schedule Revisions..................................................................................... 207
Software Update......................................................................................... 208
Formal Bug Tracking and Metrics........................................................... 209
Formal Testing............................................................................................ 214
Manufacturing............................................................................................ 216

11

Epilogue............................................................................................ 219
Introduction................................................................................................ 219
Early Adopters and the Competitor Boost.............................................. 219
When You Guess Wrong............................................................................ 220
Supporting a Successful Product............................................................. 221
Product Postmortems................................................................................. 221
Lessons Learned, Finger-Pointing, and Accountability.......................223
Let’s Do It Again—and Again..................................................................225

Index........................................................................................................... 227

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What Every Engineer Should
Know: Series Statement
What every engineer should know amounts to a bewildering array of knowledge. Regardless of the areas of expertise, engineering intersects with all the
fields that constitute modern enterprises. The engineer discovers soon after
graduation that the range of subjects covered in the engineering curriculum

omits many of the most important problems encountered in the line of daily
practice—problems concerning new technology, business, law, and related
technical fields.
With this series of concise, easy-to-understand volumes, every engineer
now has within reach a compact set of primers on important subjects such
as patents, contracts, software, business communication, management science, and risk analysis, as well as more specific topics such as embedded
systems design. These are books that require only a lay knowledge to understand properly, and no engineer can afford to remain uninformed about the
fields involved.

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Preface
This book is written to fill the gaps in the background of certain engineers.
These hypothetical engineers, because of education, experience, and general
philosophical orientation, are very good at seeing some things and are completely oblivious to others. Unfortunately, a number of the things that escape
their notice greatly affect their career advancement and even their day-today happiness. My intention is to give a context to the sometimes disconnected and confusing phenomena of the workplace society so that interested
engineers can incorporate it into their particular reality. Once the subtleties of the workplace are recognizable in their view of the world, perceptive
engineers can adapt their behavior patterns to be more successful and much
happier in their chosen career.
This book is broken into two parts. Part I is specifically about the life and

career advancement of the engineer. It starts in school and works its way to
the experienced engineer, exploring various stops, diversions, and alternatives along the way. It also presents a view of the corporation as a living
organism that has a unique personality that responds to stimuli of the world
and evolves or perhaps dies.
Part II discusses engineering projects, product development, schedules,
budgets, and related topics. This portion of the book is not about project
management; rather, it is about the interaction of engineers and management
working on projects in a corporate environment.

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Author
Mike Ficco is a nationally recognized expert in embedded systems and
embedded product development with nearly 30 years of experience in hardware, software, and systems engineering. His diverse background includes
personal expertise and team leadership in the design, development, and
implementation of military and commercial systems ranging from software
products to satellite and terrestrial multimedia systems.
Mr. Ficco has worked in a senior capacity at extremely large corporations,
was president of his own consulting company for 5 years, and participated
in launching several venture-capital-backed start-up companies. In these

capacities, he has invented new technologies, has led the development of
complex systems, and has managed multimillion-dollar projects that productized hardware, software, digital, and radiofrequency devices.
Mr. Ficco has a B.S.E.E. and an M.S.E.E. from the University of Maryland
and has completed the course work leading to a Ph.D. in computer science.
He has attended a variety of industry training courses and has delivered
presentations at major industry conferences. His design of a high-efficiency
multimedia file system was published in the March 2003 issue of Embedded
Systems Magazine.

xvii

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Introduction
I’m an engineer. No, I’m a damn good
engineer. I was born to be an engineer. I
view things logically and believe nature to
be knowable, predictable, and explainable.
My favorite word is “how,” and my second favorite word is “why.” This is not a
matter of training. It is just the way I am.
From my earliest memories I always
wanted to know how things worked.

In elementary school I began asking
my parents for “geek” toys. In the days
before personal computers I had a soldering iron, numerous electronics kits,
and a “killer” chemistry set well before
I entered high school. I also liked to
read—especially comic books and science fiction. I loved building projects,
many of them electronic. Few of my
classmates read as much, and fewer still
were making the chemical explosives,
astronomical telescopes, model rockets, aircraft, walkie-talkies, and other
electronic toys. I was self-entertaining
and could spend hours, days, and even
months in secluded pursuit of my latest
interest. I gravitated to mathematics and
science because they had patterns that I
could recognize. Unlike the disorder of
subjects like art and the arbitrary rules of English, math and science had
“correct” answers. There was no subjective judgment. For me, math and science were very quick and efficient. There was little teacher judgment about
the quality of my work. If the answer was correct, then it was correct.
In high school, counselors encouraged me to choose engineering as an
occupation. Unfortunately, I knew no engineers and wasn’t really sure what
they did. As best as I could tell, they built cool stuff and had a lot of fun
doing it. That was good enough for me. Soon it was off to college to become
an electrical engineer. In college I learned that some math was really, really
complicated. I learned of James Clerk Maxwell, who figured out how to
explain a great amount of the world around us with four “simple” equations.
I learned that 24 points out of 100 could be a “B” on an engineering test. I
xix

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xx

Introduction

even learned that no matter how much you know there are always many
more complicated topics waiting for discovery.
After graduating and working for a few years, I began to see repeating
patterns. Many people simply did not think the right way to get complicated
engineering devices to work reliably. A few people were just plain evil, and
some others were self-promoting to the point of damaging projects. Nothing
in my education had prepared me for the environment I encountered in the
real world. It was composed of all different levels of skill and vastly different
personalities, interests, and ambitions. It was much more complicated and
diverse than I had expected. Indeed, the workplace reintroduced me to topics previously avoided: randomness, capriciousness, and sometimes outright
deceit. It was fraught with the chaos of human behavior and personalities.
In this environment I began the lifelong task of understanding motivations
and goals of individuals and organizations. Some of the understanding was
difficult to achieve because it involved understanding people who thought
very differently from me. As creatures of finite consciousness we have little
option other than to reference our experiences against our own personalities
and backgrounds. I learned through some difficult lessons that not all of
us think the same way or hold the same things to be important. I was quite
surprised as I started to understand how very different some people were.
In the workplace these differences sometimes resulted in superficial communications but left underlying serious misunderstandings. Sometimes these
misunderstandings led to direct conflict with coworkers and with senior
executives of the company. Such misunderstandings are not career enhancing and certainly do not help the project at hand.

As of this writing, I’ve worked for more than two dozen companies, and
the previously described misunderstandings and communications problems
were present to some extent at every one of them. Some personalities common to engineers are especially prone to these misunderstandings. These
people are intelligent, ambitious, and hardworking but occasionally lack
some key personality attributes needed for the successful navigation of the
workplace society. It may take them years, if ever, to understand the complex
and capricious rules of that environment. Some of the personalities around
them are so very different from theirs that it is hard for them to understand
the motivation of some of their coworkers, bosses, and corporate executives.
Like me, many engineers enter the workplace wanting to “build cool stuff.”
Indeed, some of the better engineers I know became engineers for exactly
that reason. Building cool stuff, however, doesn’t always equate to getting
the job done. Worse, many people in the workplace are driven by vastly different objectives. Sometimes the goals and objectives are so different that
the engineer doesn’t understand what his or her superiors really want. This
lack of understanding may lead to direct and career-limiting conflicts with
corporate executives. Understanding the corporate culture and workplace
personalities is so important that some engineers may wish for an owner’s
manual for their career. They may want something to help them navigate the
seemingly random whims of those around them who affect and sometimes

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Introduction

xxi

control their lives. To them I offer this book. With luck, this book will not

only help engineers and prospective engineers understand the workplace
environment but will also allow “normal people” to better understand the
engineers who occasionally think so differently from them.

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I

The Engineering Career
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
Confucius

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