Working with EEs 2

Tunalover, do you require that the CEO of any company you work for be an ME like you? I think not. At some point in the organization an ME must work for someone who is not an ME. If you insist on only working for ME's you relegate yourself to stay at the bottom of the engineering ranks, so that there is always a person to protect you from having to deal with non-ME's.

To get ahead in any organization requires that you perform well in the eyes of your supervisors and co-workers. What you think of your performance does not matter. A big part of any performance evaluation is weather people like dealing with you. If people do not like dealing with you, they won't unless they have to, like in having no alternative. Alternatives include hiring someone else for your job.

Asking for a manager in the same discipline as you seems to me to be a copout; you're essentially saying that you want someone else to fight your battles for you. Otherwise, why is this a requirement?

Certainly, in other places, MEs have the dominance; at Northrop, EVERY document was managed and controlled by the MEs, to the point that a written spec was referred to as a "book-form" drawing. ME's owned the PC board layout software, even though electrical performance ought to have primacy over mechanical dimensions of traces and thru-holes.

As an engineer, we are often faced with hostile or ignorant audiences; it's a mark of our professionalism and expertise to convince such audiences that our approach is sound and valid. That's going to occur at all sorts of levels in life. When the likes of Zuckerberg go for VC funding, they're not talking to SW engineers, they're talking to business/money people, who often don't know the difference between Python and Matlab; but, nevertheless, they're able to convince the VCs to fund a company for thousands of times multipliers against actual, or even negative revenue.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

I've had experience with a bunch of different types and it doesn't seem to matter what their background is as much as what their attitude is. Having a common background does help sometimes, but I've experienced that those with similar backgrounds in management positions were often put there because they were really bad at whatever they were doing and an office needed a body and didn't want to spend time going out to hire.

I worked with a software/EE guy who was generally as ignorant as could be about how the physical universe worked and was highly opinionated about what would work, but he was not a stupid person and would adapt very fast to contrary information and learned who to trust.

This in contrast to an ME/MBA jerk who regularly demanded that "in his expert opinion" whatever wasn't working, based on his opinion, was not doing so because other people were failures. He never learned anything except how to boot-lick his superiors and practice tossing his own people under the bus. Not that I'm bitter. He was in the category that thought yelling and intimidation was the secret to getting the best performance out of people.

tldr: it matters much less the degree someone has and more that they are decent human beings.

If what you guys say is true, and it doesn't generally matter what discipline you have for a boss, then how come you never see ME supervisors over EEs in the electronics business? I've worked in more than a few electronics businesses and that was nowhere to be seen. If you throw in software engineers (SEs) then why don't SEs ever have an ME boss? In fact, I don't think I've ever see EEs supervise SEs or vice versa. What I'm getting at, guys, is that management in the electronics industry in large part (not entirely!) holds the belief that an EE can do an ME's job if he just had the time. Of course anyone that has worked at Northrop Grumman or Boeing or Lockheed Martin divisions that routinely deal with high-reliability, high-risk, mission-critical hardware certainly DO know that an EE can't do what the ME can do.

In all likelihood the three of you have not seen what I have since I worked ten years in the DoD hardware development world AND THEN MANY MORE in railway, SIGINT/intel, and CATV/telecom. I've had more than a few EE bosses who didn't believe an ME knew anything more than they did so they never (and I mean NEVER) wanted to learn from the MEs, designers, and MCAD drafters. I don't know about you, but if I were put in a position of managing engineers in a discipline other than my own I would try to learn as much as possible from them!

ElectroMechanical Product Development
(Electronics Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993

As they say. it's all about the person not the specialty.

I've seen MEs in charge of EEs, my second boss was an ME. I was always fascinated by the ME crap he would pull out and learn me about projects I was working on. I also had SEs be managers, and MBAs. The MBAs were not so great.

It also depends on the fundamental product being built. It completely makes sense to have MEs or rather AEs in charge of a company making aircraft. Likewise it makes no sense to have an ME in charge in a company making electronics products regardless of whether or not thermal analysis is needed on the product or packaging in general because it really comes down to the the electronics in the product not the package.

Keith Cress
kcress -

"If what you guys say is true, and it doesn't generally matter what discipline you have for a boss"

Which is why program managers aren't any specific engineering discipline, right? Nor are the people who run the company as a whole.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

Tunalover,

The problem with mechanical design is that somebody invents a nutating thingamaboober and then they manufacture it. Probably, they are not mechies. The mechanical engineer/designer is brought in later, and they (we) get supervised.

Congratulations, you are now a manager. You have swaggered into someone's cubicle and you have looked over their shoulder for fifteen seconds. How much sense can you make of a PCB[ ]schematic, or 2000[ ]lines of C++[ ]code? Mechanical appears to be easily understood, so we get micromanaged.

I had a job interview yesterday, and I was asked if I could do electrical design. I replied that I had taken courses and that probably I had some ability at this. Then I noted how much I hate electrical people who think they know how to do my job.

--
JHG

A manager is supposed to MANAGE, not design; I'm not 100% sold on the notion that the manager needs in-depth knowledge of what they're managing, nor on the notion that they need not know anything about what they're managing. Managers make the high-level decisions about resources, finances, support, etc.

Of course, I concede that POTUS is one heck of a dumb manager who probably SHOULD know more than he does about the decisions he makes.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

IRstuff,
How could any manager who can't follow what his people are doing effectively write PAs, resolve conflicts, make decisions on CAD management, software procurement. etc.? Is your boss an ME? Would you be comfortable being an ME manager over a group of EEs?

ElectroMechanical Product Development
(Electronics Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993

My boss is a software engineer, and knows little about what I do. But, that means that I service a bunch of other people who can assess my performance and he solicits their inputs for my PA. Previously, I worked for an organization whose manager was indeed a systems engineer, but he managed 200 people; you can do the math there, even though he know what I was supposed to be doing, he didn't manage me on a day-to-day basis, and likewise, had to solicit information from the people I served for my PA. I think I spent more time with him at lunchtimes than for regular work.

I would have zero issue with our ME manager managing EEs, because, at the end of the day, we all trust and respect each other. The government is invariably run by a president who doesn't know everything about the day-to-day management of the country, which is why the president hires competent people who are delegated the responsibilities and duties of running the country.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

IRStuff-
You forgot to answer my question: Would you be comfortable being an ME manager over a group of EEs?

ElectroMechanical Product Development
(Electronics Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993

If I were an ME, and I were wont to be a manager, sure; as I replied I have no issues with our ME manager managing EEs or managing systems engineering, or the EE manager doing the reverse.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

I don't know Tuna... I think you're maybe mixing up things or not calling an apple and apple or something. A senior engineer or Lead Leading a group of type specific engineers should probably be the same species and literally senior with lots of same-type experience, I agree.

But a manager certainly does NOT need any experience what-so-ever in the details of a group of engineers he or she is managing, they just need to be good managers. A good manager can listen, follow-up, schedule, husband, work finances, run interference, keep moral up, and help the people they're managing.

Keith Cress
kcress -

I get that you've had bad managers; we've all had a few. Seems extraordinarily bad luck to have nothing but, though.

The categorical condemnation speaks volumes to me, and possibly to all those that interview you. In 39 yrs, I've only had two managers that were ostensibly the same discipline; all the others were good managers who evaluated me based on my performance and contributions to those I serviced. To paraphrase someone famous, you don't need to be smart, you need to surround yourself with smart people; likewise, good managers can gauge someone's performance without being an expert in that person's discipline, and surround themselves with the best people they can hire or train.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

To set this straight, guys, I have indeed had good managers. It just happens that they were all MEs and rose up to management afer doing well in mechanical design and E/M packaging where they managed guys doing the same. We liked having them attend design reviews, looking over drawing and calculations, and so on because of their knowledge and experience. Without going into what I think makes a good manager (and you may be surprised that most attributes on my list are not technical), I can't agree with the idea that a manager can gauge a person's performance when he/she has insufficient knowledge of the subject matter. I've seen a couple of guys who did good work but their accomplishments were spun negatively to thier managers by coworkers (with axes to grind or maybe disagreed with the guy one too many times). Since the managers were EEs they were unable to sort fact from fiction and the guys ended up being under-rated on their PAs. These managers were unable to resolve the discrepanices between what the guys said they did and what they were told they did.


ElectroMechanical Product Development
(Electronics Packaging)
UMD 1984
UCF 1993

The best manager I ever worked for built a winning team of EEs, MEs, software engineers, technicians, etc.
The team worked together to design a winning product that comprised electronics, fluid systems, mechanisms, structures and such, and then a second generation product that was even better.

It was never apparent in conversation, nor in technical discussion with that manager, that he had NO degree.
He was smart, and clever.

All of the team members had been rejected by other managers, which was how they became available to him.
So, how did he make a winning team out of 'losers'?
The secret was incredibly simple:
He assigned each person to do only things they were demonstrably good at.
... and he assigned another person to cover each member's weaknesses.
So everybody was doing something they could do well, and nobody was doing anything poorly.


I wish the story had a happy ending; it does not.
Top Management (I use that phrase as a pejorative) completely misunderstood
what he had done, and especially how he had done it.

The team was broken up, and each member was assigned to work for a different manager,
(almost none of whom had ever managed to come up with a successful product)
as if the 'magic' was somehow distributive to the individual participants.
Of course none of the other teams got any better.

The more highly compensated team members got caught in the next layoff,
and that best manager was forced into early retirement.

The company is now _much_ smaller than it was then...





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

Being former federal civil service, I served as a branch staff electrical engineer with my first report also being an EE. He reported to an ME Division Chief. Also reporting to the ME, were other ME branches, a Naval Architecture branch, and an Ocean Engineering branch. The ME chief did a decent job and frankly, his job was more like handling a kindergarten than getting involved in the technical work. His job was to secure funding, manage the funding, ensure timely completion of projects, and in general, keep production out of the bureaucratic chaos that could cause delays. Moreover, he brokered and settled silly turf battles and when the time came, he adequately defending his staff.

It is not important that a supervisor have the equal technical acumen of his subordinates. What is important is that he or she has a excellent grasp of the organization and landscape and the nature of the politics. Frankly, I always did better when my supervisor was something other than an EE – in which case, I got much less micro-management comments and questions. However, I once did have a non EE military supervisor (an O6) that puts the O in asshole – he believed himself to be Edison because he once wired a few home receptacles.

BlackJack reminded me of one manager who was in my discipline, was technically smart, but sucked as manager by micromanaging. An Wang, who founded Wang Computers, back in the day, was a sharp-as-nails engineer, but supposedly sucked as a manager and as a CEO. There was a brief period in history when secretaries were essentially unemployable if they didn't know how to use Wang word processors. His micromanagement caused his company to falter in the face of onslaught of the IBM PC and its clones.

The moral of the story is that you don't need someone with an ME to manage MEs or an EE to manage EEs, you need a GOOD manager, PERIOD.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

Mike - they understood exactly what that manager did - he threatened their jobs. Seen it. Been there. No longer working there.