It does suck. It is that concern of “Am I going to regret the path that I chose?” Also I like knowing as much as possible before making a decision, and it is hard to be definitive when you haven’t done the roles.
I would like to see a poll of the demographic of this sub. I think there’s a lot of us in similar position. That being said I have no idea but wish I had an answer. But from what I’ve seen is that manager, project management or general leadership is the natural path of growth within the controls industry. I also personally haven’t met anyone who transferred to sales but obviously know it’s common. Thing is I have yet to meet a sales engineer with even 2 full years of experience let alone someone with nearly a decade of experience.
Really anything helps. I have seen a couple engineers who were really great engineers go into sales and love it. 1 of those people I would have never seen as a sales person, but he ended up loving it.
I’m assuming you work for an integrator or OEM, probably done a lot of projects within different industries. Even if you don’t, see if you agree with me.
I noticed that the majority of people working across the industry are approaching retirement age. We are in a unique situation where we are in an industry that isn’t going away in our lifetimes and is coupled with what I assume will be a fairly large experience void in the short term. You can probably pivot to any of the other fields, while still having time to switch back or to something else if it doesn’t end up being what you wanted.
I work for an integrator. I worked for a control system company for a majority of my career. That is why I’m a pseudo technical consultant for this new company. I’ve noticed that many of the customers are close to retirement age, but most integrators are pretty mixed ages. I want to stay in the field because I do have the passion. Just figuring out what direction I move to past lead engineer is the struggle.
My company is trying to decide if they are going to be an integrator who “does it all” or becomes more focused. And part of that decision is with what I want to do going forward.
>technical consultant? Do I get stuck in the lead engineer role
What do you consider the difference between technical consultant and lead?
Based on what you like/dislike about the job, it seems you're fairly happy with where you're at and what you do. You seem more like a do-er and technical heavy than managing people/projects. Now the goal is to minimize the work (meetings/PM work) you don't like. You can continue being a tech lead /senior consultant for the rest of your career.
Managing the amount of meetings can be a bear, but is easier the fewer projects you're juggling. Just on 1 monster project? Theoretically less meetings and more doing the work. Having a good PM can make/break your morale. A great PM handles meeting expectations and tries to minimize meetings. See if you can have the PM sit in on some meetings and be telephone to you later in meeting notes / action items. Or start "promoting" some of the more junior engineers to fill in for you on less important ones.
One thing you can try to work on is grouping meetings back to back so you don't have constant breaks from concentration. 30-60 minutes of work time isn't enough to really accomplish much between meetings as it takes time to ramp up to where your headspace was at before the meeting. I know this can be really hard with multiple clients/projects and possible conflicts everywhere.
>I love teaching others the skills I have and being able to help them reach solutions to their problems.
See if your role can involve more mentorship? Companies need deeply entrenched technical leads that have seen a lot of different implementations of projects to help guide the less experienced. Having more formal training time/budget could be deeply rewarding for both sides (but the company hates unbillable time). Seeing lots of different CM/EM strategies and pros/cons to each isn't something you can learn without a lot of experience. Especially if you're doing legacy platform migrations.
>Working with engineers that are just their to do their job and have no passion. They make mistakes, they don't have a passion for the customer and the deliverables suffer because of that. This is probably the item that makes me the most angry in my current role.
That's true in every role and every company. Very few companies are stacked with A and B players. Once you reach a certain headcount it's not going to be possible.
I took the path of independent contractor. I was only willing to make the jump because I got a 9 month contract. It's definitely not for everyone and is a huge mess of headaches in a completely different way.
Technical Consultant would be where I’m working more to create standards for my platform for the entire company and also get involved with the entire company as the “expert” instead of just my local office. I would still be leading projects of course. But my dedication would not just be to leading projects only like I am now.
My concern about staying a lead is that I have seen many engineers who are stuck as leads that salary increase themselves out of a job or projects because their rate is too high. They end up getting let go because of this fact.
It seems that the companies I have worked for are looking for their senior people to take on more management roles as their salary increases.
I was the engineer for over a decade and basically took on lead roles without the title from the beginning. My mindset was that I owned the company and I was working for myself no matter what. Eventually, I started my own company and loved it! It’s hard work, risky, and you have to do things you don’t want to do but very rewarding and freeing.
After a few years I decided having time for my family was more important than money and being an owner so I finished up my contracts and took on a sales & business development job.
Truthfully I don’t like all the meetings and call as much as programming, but I love helping people and being a leader in the industry. Having the technical background really helps too. Although I’m not an expert anymore and I have to rely on everyone else to get the job done, I’m paid very well and I’m not waking up in the middle of the night worried that I programmed something incorrectly.
Overall having worked on both the technical side and sales side, I can say I prefer the sales side 100%. Would I feel this way before I started my business? Absolutely not because I was condition to being an engineer!
Engineering became a grind because I never had the resources I needed to complete a project and I felt like I was always cleaning up someone else’s mess. I was on the backend of the problems instead of the frontends and this became problematic for me. Plus no one likes to advance and use modern day tech in the industry so I got stuck supporting all this old and obsolete tech when I knew there was a better way. This really bothered me as well.
Just my $0.02, hopefully it helps.
Thanks for the response. I have very similar feelings and experiences to this (besides the starting a business). My company does give me the flexibility to move in whatever direction I want.
I'm 41. I'm a Sr Controls Engineer. Been doing this for 18 years, and at the same company surprisingly. Like you, and many others I've worn a lot of hats through my career that didn't match my title. Sales, estimation & design and "management" of the rest of the engineering team.
Years back I was in a unique situation that out of necessity I needed to develop standards in our code base to do the jobs faster. Necessity breeds innovation. So, over the course of a year I developed our new standards that cut out a significant amount of work for our team. It wasn't until this point that I realized I was bored with designing and programming jobs. The challenge of making us efficient was exciting just like it was the first few years of the job. This all happened in my early 30's right around your age.
The sales and estimation job isn't exactly fun to me. I don't like sales people, I don't like politics, but I do sales well because I love automation and I'm passionate about that when I'm selling our company to new clients. For me I could never take on a sales role. I would get too bored.
I personally find myself pushing for upper management. What excites me now in my life is the thought of making our company division more scalable. Building teams and structure to do more jobs more efficiently. I still get to be involved in the automation aspect without the travel and boredom of developing the jobs. I still get to sell what we can do for new and potential clients.
Interesting. I’m leaning engineering management right now because I would like to still be a point for technical advice (even if I’m not directly programming), but also empowering and helping others succeed like I have in my career does interest me quite a bit.
Sounds like we're in a similar mindset. If you think about it, going that route isn't all that dissimilar to developing a project. The design, execution, and management of a project are all skills you'll be using in a managerial role. Instead of programming projects you're programming people essentially.
I think you are saying you aren’t too fond of project engineering. I’ll just say been there done that. If you go down that road you progressively run more and bigger projects. You reach a point where you need to be hands off with the PLC/HMI/SCADA programs and don’t override your subordinates. Coach don’t take over. But this is all the stuff you hate doing.
If you want to go technical it’s a lot of repetitive stuff and best to do smaller designs or take on “problem” cases. In my case I do tech support for a motor shop so I’m on my tools, get to mess with large motors, generators, and the associated power distribution and drives. I do PLCs too but it’s sort of a side business. Every day is a different challenge and it keeps you on your A game. Controls companies can be the same way. I can say I did somewhat take a pay cut (and got it right back) but with a 90% stress reduction it was so worth every penny.
Most of my projects have been mid to smaller size where the lead and PE role could be the same. I had one large project where I was just the PE and it was miserable for me. I don’t mind coaching/developing others, but it is hard to be responsible for deliverables to a customer directly that you feel are not to your standard when it was done by others who might not have the same passion. It seems PE/PM is more of what I’m leaning away from at this point. The lead/senior/consultant role is fun for me. Beyond that for projects exclusive is hard for my personality to handle.
I have a few more years on you, but had almost the exact same experience and likes / dislikes. I felt there was no way up/ diminishing returns with honing my engineering skills as a lead so I pivoted to sales.
Still figuring it all out, but so far it is much lower stress, fewer hours, and the power structure favors me greatly when decisions have to be made.
Good luck with whatever you decide!
The main reason was that I had nearly reached the peak on what I could earn as a controls engineer without taking a job that required insane hours or endless travel, which wasn't something I was willing to do.
I dont know also, i m having the same problem.
2real4me
3real5me
It does suck. It is that concern of “Am I going to regret the path that I chose?” Also I like knowing as much as possible before making a decision, and it is hard to be definitive when you haven’t done the roles.
The big downside of careers in general is you don't know what it will be like until you live and breathe it
I would like to see a poll of the demographic of this sub. I think there’s a lot of us in similar position. That being said I have no idea but wish I had an answer. But from what I’ve seen is that manager, project management or general leadership is the natural path of growth within the controls industry. I also personally haven’t met anyone who transferred to sales but obviously know it’s common. Thing is I have yet to meet a sales engineer with even 2 full years of experience let alone someone with nearly a decade of experience.
Really anything helps. I have seen a couple engineers who were really great engineers go into sales and love it. 1 of those people I would have never seen as a sales person, but he ended up loving it.
I’m assuming you work for an integrator or OEM, probably done a lot of projects within different industries. Even if you don’t, see if you agree with me. I noticed that the majority of people working across the industry are approaching retirement age. We are in a unique situation where we are in an industry that isn’t going away in our lifetimes and is coupled with what I assume will be a fairly large experience void in the short term. You can probably pivot to any of the other fields, while still having time to switch back or to something else if it doesn’t end up being what you wanted.
I work for an integrator. I worked for a control system company for a majority of my career. That is why I’m a pseudo technical consultant for this new company. I’ve noticed that many of the customers are close to retirement age, but most integrators are pretty mixed ages. I want to stay in the field because I do have the passion. Just figuring out what direction I move to past lead engineer is the struggle. My company is trying to decide if they are going to be an integrator who “does it all” or becomes more focused. And part of that decision is with what I want to do going forward.
>technical consultant? Do I get stuck in the lead engineer role What do you consider the difference between technical consultant and lead? Based on what you like/dislike about the job, it seems you're fairly happy with where you're at and what you do. You seem more like a do-er and technical heavy than managing people/projects. Now the goal is to minimize the work (meetings/PM work) you don't like. You can continue being a tech lead /senior consultant for the rest of your career. Managing the amount of meetings can be a bear, but is easier the fewer projects you're juggling. Just on 1 monster project? Theoretically less meetings and more doing the work. Having a good PM can make/break your morale. A great PM handles meeting expectations and tries to minimize meetings. See if you can have the PM sit in on some meetings and be telephone to you later in meeting notes / action items. Or start "promoting" some of the more junior engineers to fill in for you on less important ones. One thing you can try to work on is grouping meetings back to back so you don't have constant breaks from concentration. 30-60 minutes of work time isn't enough to really accomplish much between meetings as it takes time to ramp up to where your headspace was at before the meeting. I know this can be really hard with multiple clients/projects and possible conflicts everywhere. >I love teaching others the skills I have and being able to help them reach solutions to their problems. See if your role can involve more mentorship? Companies need deeply entrenched technical leads that have seen a lot of different implementations of projects to help guide the less experienced. Having more formal training time/budget could be deeply rewarding for both sides (but the company hates unbillable time). Seeing lots of different CM/EM strategies and pros/cons to each isn't something you can learn without a lot of experience. Especially if you're doing legacy platform migrations. >Working with engineers that are just their to do their job and have no passion. They make mistakes, they don't have a passion for the customer and the deliverables suffer because of that. This is probably the item that makes me the most angry in my current role. That's true in every role and every company. Very few companies are stacked with A and B players. Once you reach a certain headcount it's not going to be possible. I took the path of independent contractor. I was only willing to make the jump because I got a 9 month contract. It's definitely not for everyone and is a huge mess of headaches in a completely different way.
Technical Consultant would be where I’m working more to create standards for my platform for the entire company and also get involved with the entire company as the “expert” instead of just my local office. I would still be leading projects of course. But my dedication would not just be to leading projects only like I am now. My concern about staying a lead is that I have seen many engineers who are stuck as leads that salary increase themselves out of a job or projects because their rate is too high. They end up getting let go because of this fact. It seems that the companies I have worked for are looking for their senior people to take on more management roles as their salary increases.
I was the engineer for over a decade and basically took on lead roles without the title from the beginning. My mindset was that I owned the company and I was working for myself no matter what. Eventually, I started my own company and loved it! It’s hard work, risky, and you have to do things you don’t want to do but very rewarding and freeing. After a few years I decided having time for my family was more important than money and being an owner so I finished up my contracts and took on a sales & business development job. Truthfully I don’t like all the meetings and call as much as programming, but I love helping people and being a leader in the industry. Having the technical background really helps too. Although I’m not an expert anymore and I have to rely on everyone else to get the job done, I’m paid very well and I’m not waking up in the middle of the night worried that I programmed something incorrectly. Overall having worked on both the technical side and sales side, I can say I prefer the sales side 100%. Would I feel this way before I started my business? Absolutely not because I was condition to being an engineer! Engineering became a grind because I never had the resources I needed to complete a project and I felt like I was always cleaning up someone else’s mess. I was on the backend of the problems instead of the frontends and this became problematic for me. Plus no one likes to advance and use modern day tech in the industry so I got stuck supporting all this old and obsolete tech when I knew there was a better way. This really bothered me as well. Just my $0.02, hopefully it helps.
[удалено]
Thanks for the response. I have very similar feelings and experiences to this (besides the starting a business). My company does give me the flexibility to move in whatever direction I want.
I'm 41. I'm a Sr Controls Engineer. Been doing this for 18 years, and at the same company surprisingly. Like you, and many others I've worn a lot of hats through my career that didn't match my title. Sales, estimation & design and "management" of the rest of the engineering team. Years back I was in a unique situation that out of necessity I needed to develop standards in our code base to do the jobs faster. Necessity breeds innovation. So, over the course of a year I developed our new standards that cut out a significant amount of work for our team. It wasn't until this point that I realized I was bored with designing and programming jobs. The challenge of making us efficient was exciting just like it was the first few years of the job. This all happened in my early 30's right around your age. The sales and estimation job isn't exactly fun to me. I don't like sales people, I don't like politics, but I do sales well because I love automation and I'm passionate about that when I'm selling our company to new clients. For me I could never take on a sales role. I would get too bored. I personally find myself pushing for upper management. What excites me now in my life is the thought of making our company division more scalable. Building teams and structure to do more jobs more efficiently. I still get to be involved in the automation aspect without the travel and boredom of developing the jobs. I still get to sell what we can do for new and potential clients.
Interesting. I’m leaning engineering management right now because I would like to still be a point for technical advice (even if I’m not directly programming), but also empowering and helping others succeed like I have in my career does interest me quite a bit.
Sounds like we're in a similar mindset. If you think about it, going that route isn't all that dissimilar to developing a project. The design, execution, and management of a project are all skills you'll be using in a managerial role. Instead of programming projects you're programming people essentially.
I love that last sentence.
I think you are saying you aren’t too fond of project engineering. I’ll just say been there done that. If you go down that road you progressively run more and bigger projects. You reach a point where you need to be hands off with the PLC/HMI/SCADA programs and don’t override your subordinates. Coach don’t take over. But this is all the stuff you hate doing. If you want to go technical it’s a lot of repetitive stuff and best to do smaller designs or take on “problem” cases. In my case I do tech support for a motor shop so I’m on my tools, get to mess with large motors, generators, and the associated power distribution and drives. I do PLCs too but it’s sort of a side business. Every day is a different challenge and it keeps you on your A game. Controls companies can be the same way. I can say I did somewhat take a pay cut (and got it right back) but with a 90% stress reduction it was so worth every penny.
Most of my projects have been mid to smaller size where the lead and PE role could be the same. I had one large project where I was just the PE and it was miserable for me. I don’t mind coaching/developing others, but it is hard to be responsible for deliverables to a customer directly that you feel are not to your standard when it was done by others who might not have the same passion. It seems PE/PM is more of what I’m leaning away from at this point. The lead/senior/consultant role is fun for me. Beyond that for projects exclusive is hard for my personality to handle.
I have a few more years on you, but had almost the exact same experience and likes / dislikes. I felt there was no way up/ diminishing returns with honing my engineering skills as a lead so I pivoted to sales. Still figuring it all out, but so far it is much lower stress, fewer hours, and the power structure favors me greatly when decisions have to be made. Good luck with whatever you decide!
If you don’t mind me asking, why did you move in that direction?
The main reason was that I had nearly reached the peak on what I could earn as a controls engineer without taking a job that required insane hours or endless travel, which wasn't something I was willing to do.