Engineering Manager

As an Engineering Manager, you are not only involved in the engineering process (you are, after all, an Engineer), but you also flex your managerial muscles. You typically work on large projects that involve many facets of the engineering field. Because of the scope of the projects you handle, you work with a team of other Engineering Managers and Engineers.

You spend a lot of time promoting communication between the branches of the project. Say, for example, you’re designing and building a drawbridge that spans across a river. A project like that requires Mechanical Engineers, Civil Engineers, Structural Engineers, and Materials Engineers, possibly with an Engineering Manager for each one. That’s a lot of ideas and planning to coordinate.

By facilitating communication among the different branches, you help make the project progress smoothly. It is both important and huge work because you’re in charge of maintaining a budget, reporting to stakeholders, and ensuring that the team completes the task on time. Your communication skills also come in handy when you present project updates to management, consult with other Engineers, and offer your expertise to your team.

So, while the Engineer in you oversees the technical design aspects, the Manager in you delegates assignments, plans for different phases of the project, and deals with delays as they occur. The project might not go off without a hitch, but with this combination of skills, it won’t be long before the product of your labors is safely delivering cars from one side of the river to the other.