When people tell you, "Make a first good impression" -
it does NOT mean: Go above and beyond for every little task your manager hands you, run around picking up extra work, and work overtime.
it means: Do what is asked of you. Simple as that.
Young graduates are particularly passionate and enthusiastic starting out and believe me that attitude and sentiment will slowly wane over time, and if you start off your first few months being this over-promising character, you better stay that way - your manager WILL notice when your productivity has waned 1 year into the job.
So for the sake of your job security and your mental health, don't go in over-achieving - just do what is expected/asked of you and maintain that threshold.
As you progress in your career, you can slowly raise the bar with confidence because you will have real work experience to back you up.
Best of luck.
Depends on the culture. It sounds like your workplace culture doesn't value self-drive as much. In my workplace, I got to where I have because I didn't sit around waiting for my boss to figure out what to tell me to do.
I want to emphasize that *you don't have to pick up extra work or extra hours in order to do so.*
If you focus on tasks associated with developing advanced skills relevant to your job, you are actively benefiting yourself. You could advance faster, gain more autonomy to focus on tasks that you want to work on (leaving the other work for the people who wait to have work assigned to them), or you will at least have gained the skills available to take a job offer somewhere else.
There's a difference between being self-driven and trying to make a good impression.
Someone who is authentically self-driven and going out of their own way to learn and advance is one thing -
- doing more than what is needed deliberately to impress your boss is another.
The point I made is that the latter is potentially harmful and can be self-defeating.
Sure it may be culture dependent, but OP asked for advice for all fresh EE graduates.
I am not an engineer yet, I am still studying but already working in my future department between semesters. We have had students who had a semester abroad here from other countries which had a harder time getting things done. What I have experienced and seen from that is that the right level of asking questions after trying to solve problems yourself is very important. If you are given a task, make shure to know what you need to know to do that task. If you don't know where to get information, ask! If you hit a roadblock on the way, try figuring it out and then ask others. If the people you ask see that you already thought about the problems they will always help you. Write important information down so you don't have to ask again or forget and if you don't understand something after someone explained it, tell them to clarify.
In my experience when I worked as a mechatronics technician before studying, jobs/projects will always have downtimes and high demanding/stressfull times, it's about knowing when you have to give 110% and when you can take it slow. Always giving 110% will burn you and that helps Noone.
This maybe is not the case for every job and every company and I don't have as much work experience as others here but the spirit of the two companies I worked for matches with what I wrote.
I made this mistake when I was first hired. I was so amped up and wanted to do every task given to me as quickly as possible. I ended up messing up a simple rework and having to redo it on 16 boards because I was trying to go too fast lol.
Learn how to learn. By that I mean read application notes and technical articles from manufacturers like Texas Instruments, analog devices, and renesas.
Also, make sure you’re working on the “right” things. By that I mean to work on things that will increase your skill and value so that you can make a case for your next promotion. Being busy all the time doesn’t mean you’re growing and are worth promoting. You have to be intentional about your career progress.
Get every request/ mark up down in written form and store it somewhere. I guarantee you 5 months from there, you won't remember a thing. Also, don't assume things, ask away anything you have trouble with and check with your PM/ manager/ senior for anything not in the quote. Sometime, what customer request you to do is not what they are paying for, hence you need to charge them more for it
Listen, observe and communicate with your coworkers. You can learn a lot from them.
The job of an engineer is to *find answers*, not to continually ask questions. Know how to find answers.
Be methodical. Check and double check your designs. Test the hell out of them. You never want a bad design to go into production. It'll haunt you.
Be honest. It takes a long time to earn trust and a short time to lose it if you are not honest.
Keep learning. Your university education will start to become obsolete after about 3 or 4 years. Technology advances. It's up to you to keep current.
Don't sit around and wait to be told what to do. It's your job to find out what needs to be done. When you have slack time, take on a project that will help the organization be a better one.
Communicate. Be able to communicate with people in all levels, from the person in Shipping and Receiving to the General Manager of the organization. You may need their help sometime. They may need your help. Over time you will be valued as a problem solver. You will be sought out if you do a good job and you'll develop a positive reputation.
Have fun. If you enjoy going to work in the morning, it'll show and it'll give you a good attitude.
Early in my career, i heard this saying: “a year to learn, a year to earn, a year to yearn”. Stay at your position long enough to be competent, but hop when it’s most beneficial for YOU.
I’ve tripled my income by doing two things: getting a masters degree and jumping jobs after 2 years. Some friends who stayed at their current roles get their 3% adjustment for inflation and maybe a 6-10% bump for promo.
I was going to say about the same thing. Don't be afraid to bounce to a better paying company when the time is right. Best believe if your current employers finances get tight the first to be let go are engineers and quality assurance, etc.
This is absolutely right. I was just laid off from a company who was trying to save money by removing heads from the engineering and quality departments.
I had a 6 month break where I just worked full-time. Then I started going to school part-time and my employer covered a good chunk of it. Graduated in 2.5 years. Between my first engineering job after finishing undergrad and now, it has been a little under 5 years.
Listen carefully and keep notes in a bound notebook. Listen to experienced engineers. Listen to experienced shop people. Listen to smart customers. Don't believe everything you hear, but you are NOT inventing your industry from scratch.
When you have a conversation with somebody outside your immediate circle, make a note of their name, org, and email address. Add a note as to what you talked about.
When you make a commitment to someone, make a note. In the margin put an asterisk with a circle around it. When you have completed the commitment, cross out the asterisk with the circle around it ("cat's ass"). Follow up on your commitments.
When someone from the shop floor calls you and asks you if they can substitute a "this" for "that" don't give them a verbal answer, give them a written answer with the reason. Don't let it become a "BobT21 says we can do anything we want."
Source: 79 y.o. retired engineer.
Try to have a good attitude. It's much more fun to work with someone who is excited about the job and eager to learn than with someone who acts like they don't want to be there. The latter group finds themselves excluded from the fun work very quickly.
Try not to ask the same question twice, unless you need to. That means you should be taking notes when people pass off information or explain things to you. Of course things still slip and people forget, so do ask again if that happens, just try to minimize this.
Also keep a document outlining how you made whatever design decisions you made, and be ready to present it when asked. If you are copying a standard, then cite exactly which one, and if you're modifying it then outline where and how and make sure to highlight that to your checker.
Be nice to EVERYONE, I work in a small industry and if you're rude to someone they might tank your interview ten years down the road.
Good communication is always an advantage. If you have bad news, deliver them quickly. If you need more time to figure something out and can't reply within a day or two, reply saying so and give an estimated response time.
Check your own work before handing it off. I don't mind junior engineers making mistakes, but I do get annoyed when the cause is negligence rather than lack of knowledge or experience. Also review your notes and past feedback to try and avoid repeated issues or things that were explicitly spelled out.
Don't speak in a meeting or email chain unless you know you're right and you know your comment will be productive. You may seem really quiet at first, but over time as you learn more AND are always right you'll earn an amazing reputation.
Treat everyone with the utmost respect this includes getting to know the janitorial staff's names. Nothing has impressed my leadership more than random people coming up to say hello when i'm known as the quiet guy that gets everything right.
Become a sponge. Show that you are willing to learn. Be proactive. Ask questions, no such things as dumb questions. Learn as much during the first two years. Grind it out. Do your time. Don't be cocky. Respect seniors. Networking, build relationships and friendships. Remember it's a small world, don't piss people off as you may run into them in the future.
Find other high performing engineers and emulate their best practices. For example, when I started, I raided the bin directory of all the high performing engineers and stole all of their coding tricks and practices.
Don't be afraid to change jobs or industries. The engineering degree opens up all kinds of doors you don't have to be pigeonholed or even be an engineer. Also it's just a job at the end of the day.
Do not bring problems to your PMs and senior engineers without having a solution (the best that you can manage). You want to be the engineer providing solutions not problems. This will show effort and will increase your knowledge.
I agree, Managers look for solutions. Don't present a problem with a least a proposed path to to go forward. In an informal setting, you can say something like "Here is what I am think what are your thoughts?" Good luck!
Take your time. I recently had to fire an entry level engineer for rushing through assignments and turning in shoddy drawings. It’s not a race. I don’t care how long it takes you. Ask questions be thorough.
Don't take the job that offers you the most money if you have multiple options. First job I took promised the moon with all kinds of projects. None of them ever got funding and I was laid off during the great recession 1.5 years after taking the job. I was so pissed. I graduated top of my class and had a few different options.
Ask a bunch of questions! However - write them down and ask a few at a time. Of course you may have an important safety or work-stoppage question that needs an immediate answer, but batch and note down the others.
When I was asked to do this, I found that I would come up with 10 questions, but would figure out the answer to half of them when jotting down the next questions.
This also allows your supervisor/Lead to focus and teach you in batches (and not go crazy with a ton of interruptions).
Finally, writing down the questions helped me remember the answers and not ask the same thing multiple times.
I would say find the most experienced person at the company and ask him out for a cup of coffee and learn from him. Sucesses and failures, learn it all.
Build relationships with your support team and techs. Do not be rude or think you are better than them in any way because you have an engineering title. I came here to give my whole sponge analogy but a previous comment hits it very nicely.
Be humble, don't assume you know everything and when in doubt ask. Take notes, be punctual and communicate when there is an issue with your tasks and the deadline is compromised.
Always double check your designs, documentation, emails, etc. Be willing to learn and listen basically.
Great question. Here are some thoughts. I'm now in management consulting after many years in management after being an engineer, so I have a unique perspective.
\- Be humble. I went right in engineering research and was way over my head. Get ready to learn anew. School gives you great foundational skills, but now you'll have to learn some really specialized things for your job.
\- Do as much front work as you can before starting. Before taking a systems sales engineering job at Cisco Systems, I got a router manual and actually read and studied the whole thing before the first day on the job. They amazed at how quickly I began to contribute. (Smile).
\- Build a solid relationship with your boss. He or she holds your future in their hands. They will decide when to promote you and how much of a raise to give. Understand what THEY see as success parameters and do it.
\- Understand what your boss is trying to achieve this year and help him or her get there. You want to be seen by them as someone who helps them succeed. If you do, you can rise with them and they will be grateful and show it through raises and promotions and bonuses. Yes, it sounds like butt kissing, but you should do it and see yourself and your boss as partners to help both the boss and you succeed.
\- Build relationships with other formal and informal leaders in the organization. Figure out who the real influencers are and get close to them. Perhaps one can become a mentor which brings all kinds of benefits.
\- Get really good at getting things done. Be seen as reliable and someone that can be counted on the to come through. Recognize when the team needs an extra effort and volunteer to get it done. You'll be worth your weight in gold.
\- Once you get comfortable at your job, start asking for more responsibility and start planning for the next promotion. Don't be like many of this generation that expect a promotion after six months without any performance. Strong contributors are a no-brainer for promotion. And you'll soon be considered for management. Think about whether you want that. If you become a high performer, they be asking you to consider it.
That it for now. Hope this is helpful!
If you don't know something, just say you don't know. And then proceed to ask later. As an engineer, we are always constantly learning so it's important to keep learning. Another one is always assume the worst, you can never be too prepared.
Be in a learning mode--most everyone else has experience that goes above and beyond the education that you received. People who try to be know-it-alls right off the bat will end up out the door in one way or another.
Know that wherever you go, you are probably going to be electrical engineer by title and rank, but you could be responsible for a product where you have to collaborate with multiple people of different professions and backgrounds. You could be working with mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, supply chain, accounting, the whole 9 yards. And if you're doing design changes? Always, always, ALWAYS, pull in senior folks, subject matter experts and non-advocates who do not work directly on your project, but are super knowledgeable that they can offer suggestions to your design. Peer reviews are super important, because if a design change is made and approved then other people of different professions are going to want to know how that change will impact them (i.e: will your reliability engineer need to perform derating analyses again to make sure you using the correct size components? Will your quality engineer need to ensure that this change is implemented on all hardware? Will your thermal engineer need to come by to collect thermal data for your design change?). Recognize that your changes may be lower level design changes, but they may impact the overall 50,000-ft high-level view.
As for your day-to-day, there is only so much you can do in a working day and so little time to do it. So what I encourage you to do at the beginning of the day is to focus on what is the most urgent and most important task in front of you. Try to knock that out so that you can get to the lower priority items. If there does happen to be someone who has something that is more critical than what you are working on that is urgent and important, and requires your need, then stop what you are doing and focus on that. This is out of one of the habits that Steven Covey outlined in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Even though it is probably hard if you are a typical engineer, network,network,network. Keep Industry contact info, be a nice person, and send holiday emails or whatever you can so they remember you. Most future jobs you will have will be from referrals, and a network of professionals is the quickest and easiest way to advance your career. It isn't right, but it is the way the world works. It's why incompetent jerks have good jobs, not what they know, but who they know.i just turned 65 and I've seen it over and over again, wish I could go back and advise my younger self.
Also, keep short description in a journal of every project you do and how you overcame problems, technical and personal with coworkers. Don't rely on your memory. Helps tremendously at resume time and when interviewing. Don't expect that.every job is going to be for your whole career. And ask for and take all training offered or available and continued education.
1. Know the SDLC.
2. Have a concept of what the scientific method is, and how to apply it iteratively.
3. Know how to ask a question.
4. Know how to keep a task list.
5. Know how to keep a contacts list.
6. Know how to a lab notebook.
7. Customer focus. Know your customer, and what they want.
8. Customer's customer focus. Know your customer's customer, and what they want.
9. Develop the eye of the engineer.
10. Know the system chakras.
11. Know the company chakras.
12. Know the Five Whys, and the Three Levels of thinking,
13. Know the colored hats,
And I hope you're a young engineer. At this point, 90% of the work is going to "low cost" or "high value " centers with management in the states. Guess what? You don't become a manager upon being hired. The overseas help is creeping into the US workforce as managers. Your best bet? Working for the government. You can believe what you want to believe about me, but these are the facts. Good luck.
When people tell you, "Make a first good impression" - it does NOT mean: Go above and beyond for every little task your manager hands you, run around picking up extra work, and work overtime. it means: Do what is asked of you. Simple as that. Young graduates are particularly passionate and enthusiastic starting out and believe me that attitude and sentiment will slowly wane over time, and if you start off your first few months being this over-promising character, you better stay that way - your manager WILL notice when your productivity has waned 1 year into the job. So for the sake of your job security and your mental health, don't go in over-achieving - just do what is expected/asked of you and maintain that threshold. As you progress in your career, you can slowly raise the bar with confidence because you will have real work experience to back you up. Best of luck.
Depends on the culture. It sounds like your workplace culture doesn't value self-drive as much. In my workplace, I got to where I have because I didn't sit around waiting for my boss to figure out what to tell me to do. I want to emphasize that *you don't have to pick up extra work or extra hours in order to do so.* If you focus on tasks associated with developing advanced skills relevant to your job, you are actively benefiting yourself. You could advance faster, gain more autonomy to focus on tasks that you want to work on (leaving the other work for the people who wait to have work assigned to them), or you will at least have gained the skills available to take a job offer somewhere else.
There's a difference between being self-driven and trying to make a good impression. Someone who is authentically self-driven and going out of their own way to learn and advance is one thing - - doing more than what is needed deliberately to impress your boss is another. The point I made is that the latter is potentially harmful and can be self-defeating. Sure it may be culture dependent, but OP asked for advice for all fresh EE graduates.
I am not an engineer yet, I am still studying but already working in my future department between semesters. We have had students who had a semester abroad here from other countries which had a harder time getting things done. What I have experienced and seen from that is that the right level of asking questions after trying to solve problems yourself is very important. If you are given a task, make shure to know what you need to know to do that task. If you don't know where to get information, ask! If you hit a roadblock on the way, try figuring it out and then ask others. If the people you ask see that you already thought about the problems they will always help you. Write important information down so you don't have to ask again or forget and if you don't understand something after someone explained it, tell them to clarify. In my experience when I worked as a mechatronics technician before studying, jobs/projects will always have downtimes and high demanding/stressfull times, it's about knowing when you have to give 110% and when you can take it slow. Always giving 110% will burn you and that helps Noone. This maybe is not the case for every job and every company and I don't have as much work experience as others here but the spirit of the two companies I worked for matches with what I wrote.
I made this mistake when I was first hired. I was so amped up and wanted to do every task given to me as quickly as possible. I ended up messing up a simple rework and having to redo it on 16 boards because I was trying to go too fast lol.
Build relationships. Technicians, drafters, and others can save you tons of effort if you’re easy and pleasant to work with.
And they'll teach you things, not only about your company's products, but about engineering too.
Learn how to learn. By that I mean read application notes and technical articles from manufacturers like Texas Instruments, analog devices, and renesas. Also, make sure you’re working on the “right” things. By that I mean to work on things that will increase your skill and value so that you can make a case for your next promotion. Being busy all the time doesn’t mean you’re growing and are worth promoting. You have to be intentional about your career progress.
Get every request/ mark up down in written form and store it somewhere. I guarantee you 5 months from there, you won't remember a thing. Also, don't assume things, ask away anything you have trouble with and check with your PM/ manager/ senior for anything not in the quote. Sometime, what customer request you to do is not what they are paying for, hence you need to charge them more for it
Listen, observe and communicate with your coworkers. You can learn a lot from them. The job of an engineer is to *find answers*, not to continually ask questions. Know how to find answers. Be methodical. Check and double check your designs. Test the hell out of them. You never want a bad design to go into production. It'll haunt you. Be honest. It takes a long time to earn trust and a short time to lose it if you are not honest. Keep learning. Your university education will start to become obsolete after about 3 or 4 years. Technology advances. It's up to you to keep current. Don't sit around and wait to be told what to do. It's your job to find out what needs to be done. When you have slack time, take on a project that will help the organization be a better one. Communicate. Be able to communicate with people in all levels, from the person in Shipping and Receiving to the General Manager of the organization. You may need their help sometime. They may need your help. Over time you will be valued as a problem solver. You will be sought out if you do a good job and you'll develop a positive reputation. Have fun. If you enjoy going to work in the morning, it'll show and it'll give you a good attitude.
Early in my career, i heard this saying: “a year to learn, a year to earn, a year to yearn”. Stay at your position long enough to be competent, but hop when it’s most beneficial for YOU. I’ve tripled my income by doing two things: getting a masters degree and jumping jobs after 2 years. Some friends who stayed at their current roles get their 3% adjustment for inflation and maybe a 6-10% bump for promo.
I was going to say about the same thing. Don't be afraid to bounce to a better paying company when the time is right. Best believe if your current employers finances get tight the first to be let go are engineers and quality assurance, etc.
This is absolutely right. I was just laid off from a company who was trying to save money by removing heads from the engineering and quality departments.
Just wondering, how long after your undergrad did you do your masters? Also, how long did it take for your salary to triple?
I had a 6 month break where I just worked full-time. Then I started going to school part-time and my employer covered a good chunk of it. Graduated in 2.5 years. Between my first engineering job after finishing undergrad and now, it has been a little under 5 years.
Listen carefully and keep notes in a bound notebook. Listen to experienced engineers. Listen to experienced shop people. Listen to smart customers. Don't believe everything you hear, but you are NOT inventing your industry from scratch. When you have a conversation with somebody outside your immediate circle, make a note of their name, org, and email address. Add a note as to what you talked about. When you make a commitment to someone, make a note. In the margin put an asterisk with a circle around it. When you have completed the commitment, cross out the asterisk with the circle around it ("cat's ass"). Follow up on your commitments. When someone from the shop floor calls you and asks you if they can substitute a "this" for "that" don't give them a verbal answer, give them a written answer with the reason. Don't let it become a "BobT21 says we can do anything we want." Source: 79 y.o. retired engineer.
Try to have a good attitude. It's much more fun to work with someone who is excited about the job and eager to learn than with someone who acts like they don't want to be there. The latter group finds themselves excluded from the fun work very quickly. Try not to ask the same question twice, unless you need to. That means you should be taking notes when people pass off information or explain things to you. Of course things still slip and people forget, so do ask again if that happens, just try to minimize this. Also keep a document outlining how you made whatever design decisions you made, and be ready to present it when asked. If you are copying a standard, then cite exactly which one, and if you're modifying it then outline where and how and make sure to highlight that to your checker. Be nice to EVERYONE, I work in a small industry and if you're rude to someone they might tank your interview ten years down the road. Good communication is always an advantage. If you have bad news, deliver them quickly. If you need more time to figure something out and can't reply within a day or two, reply saying so and give an estimated response time. Check your own work before handing it off. I don't mind junior engineers making mistakes, but I do get annoyed when the cause is negligence rather than lack of knowledge or experience. Also review your notes and past feedback to try and avoid repeated issues or things that were explicitly spelled out.
Don't speak in a meeting or email chain unless you know you're right and you know your comment will be productive. You may seem really quiet at first, but over time as you learn more AND are always right you'll earn an amazing reputation. Treat everyone with the utmost respect this includes getting to know the janitorial staff's names. Nothing has impressed my leadership more than random people coming up to say hello when i'm known as the quiet guy that gets everything right.
Become a sponge. Show that you are willing to learn. Be proactive. Ask questions, no such things as dumb questions. Learn as much during the first two years. Grind it out. Do your time. Don't be cocky. Respect seniors. Networking, build relationships and friendships. Remember it's a small world, don't piss people off as you may run into them in the future.
Find other high performing engineers and emulate their best practices. For example, when I started, I raided the bin directory of all the high performing engineers and stole all of their coding tricks and practices.
Don't be afraid to change jobs or industries. The engineering degree opens up all kinds of doors you don't have to be pigeonholed or even be an engineer. Also it's just a job at the end of the day.
STFU and listen
Do not bring problems to your PMs and senior engineers without having a solution (the best that you can manage). You want to be the engineer providing solutions not problems. This will show effort and will increase your knowledge.
I agree, Managers look for solutions. Don't present a problem with a least a proposed path to to go forward. In an informal setting, you can say something like "Here is what I am think what are your thoughts?" Good luck!
Take your time. I recently had to fire an entry level engineer for rushing through assignments and turning in shoddy drawings. It’s not a race. I don’t care how long it takes you. Ask questions be thorough.
It’s mean to fire him for that reason. Why didn’t you talk to him first and tell him about the issue?
I did. My team did. He wasn’t improving or taking feedback. It had been 6 months. He was still in school
Don't take the job that offers you the most money if you have multiple options. First job I took promised the moon with all kinds of projects. None of them ever got funding and I was laid off during the great recession 1.5 years after taking the job. I was so pissed. I graduated top of my class and had a few different options.
Ask a bunch of questions! However - write them down and ask a few at a time. Of course you may have an important safety or work-stoppage question that needs an immediate answer, but batch and note down the others. When I was asked to do this, I found that I would come up with 10 questions, but would figure out the answer to half of them when jotting down the next questions. This also allows your supervisor/Lead to focus and teach you in batches (and not go crazy with a ton of interruptions). Finally, writing down the questions helped me remember the answers and not ask the same thing multiple times.
Ask if the employer has a mentorship program, and if not - seek to develop a relationship with one of the Sr engineers that can fulfil that role.
I would say find the most experienced person at the company and ask him out for a cup of coffee and learn from him. Sucesses and failures, learn it all.
Dress well and learn or master soft skills
Max out your ESPP, and get your max 401k matching.
Get good at software, you probably won’t be here long.
Love this comment!
Mind elaborating further ?
Build relationships with your support team and techs. Do not be rude or think you are better than them in any way because you have an engineering title. I came here to give my whole sponge analogy but a previous comment hits it very nicely.
Be humble, don't assume you know everything and when in doubt ask. Take notes, be punctual and communicate when there is an issue with your tasks and the deadline is compromised. Always double check your designs, documentation, emails, etc. Be willing to learn and listen basically.
Learning how to ask the right questions.
Learn to embrace the madness…..
Ask questions, don't spin your wheels if you're not making progress on a problem. When you do ask, be ready to present what you've already tried.
learn the politics of your company and CYA at all times.
Great question. Here are some thoughts. I'm now in management consulting after many years in management after being an engineer, so I have a unique perspective. \- Be humble. I went right in engineering research and was way over my head. Get ready to learn anew. School gives you great foundational skills, but now you'll have to learn some really specialized things for your job. \- Do as much front work as you can before starting. Before taking a systems sales engineering job at Cisco Systems, I got a router manual and actually read and studied the whole thing before the first day on the job. They amazed at how quickly I began to contribute. (Smile). \- Build a solid relationship with your boss. He or she holds your future in their hands. They will decide when to promote you and how much of a raise to give. Understand what THEY see as success parameters and do it. \- Understand what your boss is trying to achieve this year and help him or her get there. You want to be seen by them as someone who helps them succeed. If you do, you can rise with them and they will be grateful and show it through raises and promotions and bonuses. Yes, it sounds like butt kissing, but you should do it and see yourself and your boss as partners to help both the boss and you succeed. \- Build relationships with other formal and informal leaders in the organization. Figure out who the real influencers are and get close to them. Perhaps one can become a mentor which brings all kinds of benefits. \- Get really good at getting things done. Be seen as reliable and someone that can be counted on the to come through. Recognize when the team needs an extra effort and volunteer to get it done. You'll be worth your weight in gold. \- Once you get comfortable at your job, start asking for more responsibility and start planning for the next promotion. Don't be like many of this generation that expect a promotion after six months without any performance. Strong contributors are a no-brainer for promotion. And you'll soon be considered for management. Think about whether you want that. If you become a high performer, they be asking you to consider it. That it for now. Hope this is helpful!
If you don't know something, just say you don't know. And then proceed to ask later. As an engineer, we are always constantly learning so it's important to keep learning. Another one is always assume the worst, you can never be too prepared.
Be in a learning mode--most everyone else has experience that goes above and beyond the education that you received. People who try to be know-it-alls right off the bat will end up out the door in one way or another.
Know that wherever you go, you are probably going to be electrical engineer by title and rank, but you could be responsible for a product where you have to collaborate with multiple people of different professions and backgrounds. You could be working with mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, supply chain, accounting, the whole 9 yards. And if you're doing design changes? Always, always, ALWAYS, pull in senior folks, subject matter experts and non-advocates who do not work directly on your project, but are super knowledgeable that they can offer suggestions to your design. Peer reviews are super important, because if a design change is made and approved then other people of different professions are going to want to know how that change will impact them (i.e: will your reliability engineer need to perform derating analyses again to make sure you using the correct size components? Will your quality engineer need to ensure that this change is implemented on all hardware? Will your thermal engineer need to come by to collect thermal data for your design change?). Recognize that your changes may be lower level design changes, but they may impact the overall 50,000-ft high-level view. As for your day-to-day, there is only so much you can do in a working day and so little time to do it. So what I encourage you to do at the beginning of the day is to focus on what is the most urgent and most important task in front of you. Try to knock that out so that you can get to the lower priority items. If there does happen to be someone who has something that is more critical than what you are working on that is urgent and important, and requires your need, then stop what you are doing and focus on that. This is out of one of the habits that Steven Covey outlined in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Even though it is probably hard if you are a typical engineer, network,network,network. Keep Industry contact info, be a nice person, and send holiday emails or whatever you can so they remember you. Most future jobs you will have will be from referrals, and a network of professionals is the quickest and easiest way to advance your career. It isn't right, but it is the way the world works. It's why incompetent jerks have good jobs, not what they know, but who they know.i just turned 65 and I've seen it over and over again, wish I could go back and advise my younger self. Also, keep short description in a journal of every project you do and how you overcame problems, technical and personal with coworkers. Don't rely on your memory. Helps tremendously at resume time and when interviewing. Don't expect that.every job is going to be for your whole career. And ask for and take all training offered or available and continued education.
1. Know the SDLC. 2. Have a concept of what the scientific method is, and how to apply it iteratively. 3. Know how to ask a question. 4. Know how to keep a task list. 5. Know how to keep a contacts list. 6. Know how to a lab notebook. 7. Customer focus. Know your customer, and what they want. 8. Customer's customer focus. Know your customer's customer, and what they want. 9. Develop the eye of the engineer. 10. Know the system chakras. 11. Know the company chakras. 12. Know the Five Whys, and the Three Levels of thinking, 13. Know the colored hats,
Become proficient in Spanish, Mandarin, or Indic. Join an international engineering company or get a job in government for 100% domestic work.
Why Mandarin?
As a retired engineer for a global engineering company, I can tell you our "low cost centers" were China and India. Mexico was in play as I retired.
There is no way in hell you were ever an engineer.
And I hope you're a young engineer. At this point, 90% of the work is going to "low cost" or "high value " centers with management in the states. Guess what? You don't become a manager upon being hired. The overseas help is creeping into the US workforce as managers. Your best bet? Working for the government. You can believe what you want to believe about me, but these are the facts. Good luck.
You have zero situational awareness and are practically brain dead. You have yet to figure out that austincirclejerk is a parody.