After becoming a Chartered Engineer, what is the next milestone or achievement?

Should I focus on developing my technical skills, pursue project management (PM), or aim to build expertise in both areas?
Parents
  • I'm not sure I am the right person to answer this, being nearer the end of my career than the beginning.What follows is general observation.

    As above 'that is entirely a matter for you' So try to do what do you enjoy doing - you don't want to be doing something that makes you want to stay in bed rather than get out of it for more of your working life than is avoidable ! 

    Speaking personally, I've always been a problem solver and  visualiser and explainer not a natural leader. ( I can, but it's like my driving, any vehicle, badly, still including when its my own I drive every day )

    But you may prefer to organise a team and divvy tasks up for others. You may like talking to customers -or you may find them a total pain - this sort of thing decides if you are the right guy to lead  that meeting

    If you don't really know, do a bit of each when a chance to do a little arises, and then decide to chase more of what you find you like and less of what you don't.

    Looking back I realise  I never really planned very far ahead, and on the odd occasion I did, what happened never really matched that plan anyway ! But, I did tend to just go for the interesting stuff - which meant sometimes being the only one to ask 'when does the next plane leave' in response to 'we have a problem on this site that's miles away..' That approach sometime led to some interesting experiences, reading the manual while travelling, to arrive the 'expert' and carrying cards in the local language with the name of the hotel and contact info for a taxi driver, but I'm still here and I learnt a heck of a lot.  But for many that might feel way too stressful., so know your own limits.

    People in all these roles are needed, somewhere, it is more a case of finding where you fit in and feel you can do it well and are happy. And if you cannot get comfortable by changing what you are doing in the current workplace, then don't be too afraid to consider changing workplace, - to another one-, so long as you are very clear with all involved why that is .

    Mike.

Reply
  • I'm not sure I am the right person to answer this, being nearer the end of my career than the beginning.What follows is general observation.

    As above 'that is entirely a matter for you' So try to do what do you enjoy doing - you don't want to be doing something that makes you want to stay in bed rather than get out of it for more of your working life than is avoidable ! 

    Speaking personally, I've always been a problem solver and  visualiser and explainer not a natural leader. ( I can, but it's like my driving, any vehicle, badly, still including when its my own I drive every day )

    But you may prefer to organise a team and divvy tasks up for others. You may like talking to customers -or you may find them a total pain - this sort of thing decides if you are the right guy to lead  that meeting

    If you don't really know, do a bit of each when a chance to do a little arises, and then decide to chase more of what you find you like and less of what you don't.

    Looking back I realise  I never really planned very far ahead, and on the odd occasion I did, what happened never really matched that plan anyway ! But, I did tend to just go for the interesting stuff - which meant sometimes being the only one to ask 'when does the next plane leave' in response to 'we have a problem on this site that's miles away..' That approach sometime led to some interesting experiences, reading the manual while travelling, to arrive the 'expert' and carrying cards in the local language with the name of the hotel and contact info for a taxi driver, but I'm still here and I learnt a heck of a lot.  But for many that might feel way too stressful., so know your own limits.

    People in all these roles are needed, somewhere, it is more a case of finding where you fit in and feel you can do it well and are happy. And if you cannot get comfortable by changing what you are doing in the current workplace, then don't be too afraid to consider changing workplace, - to another one-, so long as you are very clear with all involved why that is .

    Mike.

Children
  • Brilliant insights, Mike. This is the perspective I relate to the most. I completely agree that we need to find principles of contentment regarding our accomplishments. This isn't to say engineers should stop striving for growth, but achieving CEng is a massive milestone in its own right. As you mentioned about finding where we fit, CEng gives you that fantastic balance—the ability to stay hands-on and involved in practical work, rather than being forced exclusively into a full-time management or pure design track.