It used to be that a high-tech engineer would be fired for being redundant, or if they failed. However, now days engineering groups that are perfectly successful are getting laid off the day they finish products. Getting fired for success is pretty new, since most companies viewed the engineers that understood how their products worked to be assets. At the very least, depriving one’s competitors of talent was worth doing everything possible to keep engineering staff around. That thinking appears to be old fashioned.
Companies are experimenting with all kinds of approaches to staffing. Some fire 5% of their staff yearly. Others have launched on diversity programs. It seems to be fashionable to call these social engineering exercises of the workforce stupid, moral failings of management, or conspiracies. Some simply cite globalization, or executive incentives tied to fabulous piles of stock options. Folks like Jack Ganssle go on and on, as journalists love to do. Fear mongering sells.
I wonder about this. As a human being, I often make mistakes, blunders, and mis-predictions. In fact, I really only seem to learn the hard way, by making mistakes. The only way I seem to be able to avoid making mistakes to to avoid action. I think most people are fairly familiar with the reality of this human condition. But for some reason, when evaluating these new trends in labor policy, many of us fail to realize the humanity of those making the decisions. Things change, and folks are trying to adapt in the only possible way, acting, failing, trying again.
I do not mean to say that there are not executives with self-serving motives and low character. In fact I have seen some fairly astounding lack of character in managers throughout my career. What I am saying is that to ascribe such faults to the natural course of change in an industry is not rational, it’s emotional. Therefore, the failing is in us engineers, it’s not our employers. Rut-roh…
Why would I say such a thing? Well, the truth is that companies are experimenting with staffing because competition demands it, and they have the power to do so. While we engineers are not as powerful as the executives that decide the fate of many, we are far from powerless. The first thing to do is recognize that the employment game’s rules have changed. The next thing to do is play to the new rules. Eventually we will learn to play the game well. Now that the market for engineering talent is heating up again, here are some ideas that have been working for me:
- Consider yourself a free agent. Serve your employer and give them excellent value. However, the argument that bending over backwards will make the company more loyal to you is silly. Appealing to our sense of corporate loyalty need no longer restrain you; there is no loyalty. Reject all such coercions from managers trying to get even more from you. If someone says you’re less likely to be fired if you work weekends, you’re going to be fired eventually, maybe soon. Best to spend your weekends looking for new work.
- Join local trade and networking groups. By going to the excellent Kickstand networking group here in Boise, I have learned of new local companies developing LED street lighting, blood tests on silicon chips, wireless power metering, Internet appliances, and media/advertising software. And this is Boise! Get out there and find out what’s going on. Meet the people who might need you, now or in the future.
- Go to demos and specialized group meetings. When I lived in Silicon Valley I saw a demo from Steve Wozniac at Xerox PARC. I grew as an engineer from that demo. I also learned a ton about Internet publishing through my local Drupal group (which just happens to have some real Drupal powerhouses that attend). There are lots of doors that lead to new ideas, products, tools and (dare I say it) adventures. Make sure you’re taking in new stuff all the time, finding new interests and pursuing them.
- Learn from all the people around you. Especially focus on people who do things differently. It is tempting to hang around with those that agree with us. However, the real magic in learning happens when we confront the unfamiliar and threatening new ideas we will not hear about unless we ask. Connect with people and ideas you wouldn’t normally entertain. It just might lead you to the place you’d rather be.
- Take friends in other industries and vocations out to coffee. Ask them what they like and don’t like about what they do. Consider what it is about what they do that you might like. Remember don’t make hunting for work ideas into a status thing. It doesn’t matter if a friend is a CEO or an hourly worker. Don’t always look up the food chain. Meet with folks independent of status or position and consider everything they say. You might just decide you’re more senior than you’d like, as opposed to a frustrated superstar.
These are just a few ideas that have been working for me. There are many more angles on the new economy for us nerds. It could be as simple as writing an app for the iPhone, or as complicated as changing careers to the fine wood boatbuilding you’ve always admired. Anything is possible when you never know what the next day holds. Believe me, falling down and getting back up again is normal and necessary. Only the emotionally stupid fall down and end it there.
- Free Agent Nation, a book about freelancing
- A Whole New Mind, a book about developing ourselves
- Falling Down, a film about an engineer gone wrong
- Happiness book reference
It used to be that a high-tech engineer would be fired for being redundant, or if they failed. However, now days engineering groups that are perfectly successful are getting laid off the day they finish products. Getting fired for success is pretty new, since most companies viewed the engineers that understood how their products worked to be assets. At the very least, depriving one’s competitors of talent was worth doing everything possible to keep engineering staff around. That thinking appears to be old fashioned.
Companies are experimenting with all kinds of approaches to staffing. Some fire 5% of their staff yearly. Others have launched on diversity programs. It seems to be fashionable to call these social engineering exercises of the workforce stupid, moral failings of management, or conspiracies. Some simply cite globalization, or executive incentives tied to fabulous piles of stock options. Folks like Jack Ganssle go on and on, as journalists love to do. Fear mongering sells.
I wonder about this. As a human being, I often make mistakes, blunders, and mis-predictions. In fact, I really only seem to learn the hard way, by making mistakes. The only way I seem to be able to avoid making mistakes to to avoid action. I think most people are fairly familiar with the reality of this human condition. But for some reason, when evaluating these new trends in labor policy, many of us fail to realize the humanity of those making the decisions. Things change, and folks are trying to adapt in the only possible way, acting, failing, trying again.
I do not mean to say that there are not executives with self-serving motives and low character. In fact I have seen some fairly astounding lack of character in managers throughout my career. What I am saying is that to ascribe such faults to the natural course of change in an industry is not rational, it’s emotional. Therefore, the failing is in us engineers, it’s not our employers. Rut-roh…
Why would I say such a thing? Well, the truth is that companies are experimenting with staffing because competition demands it, and they have the power to do so. While we engineers are not as powerful as the executives that decide the fate of many, we are far from powerless. The first thing to do is recognize that the employment game’s rules have changed. The next thing to do is play to the new rules. Eventually we will learn to play the game well. Now that the market for engineering talent is heating up again, here are some ideas that have been working for me:
- Consider yourself a free agent. Serve your employer and give them excellent value. However, the argument that bending over backwards will make the company more loyal to you is silly. Appealing to our sense of corporate loyalty need no longer restrain you; there is no loyalty. Reject all such coercions from managers trying to get even more from you. If someone says you’re less likely to be fired if you work weekends, you’re going to be fired eventually, maybe soon. Best to spend your weekends looking for new work.
- Join local trade and networking groups. By going to the excellent Kickstand networking group here in Boise, I have learned of new local companies developing LED street lighting, blood tests on silicon chips, wireless power metering, Internet appliances, and media/advertising software. And this is Boise! Get out there and find out what’s going on. Meet the people who might need you, now or in the future.
- Go to demos and specialized group meetings. When I lived in Silicon Valley I saw a demo from Steve Wozniak at Xerox PARC. I grew as an engineer from that demo. I also learned a ton about Internet publishing through my local Drupal group (which just happens to have some real Drupal powerhouses that attend). There are lots of doors that lead to new ideas, products, tools and (dare I say it) adventures. Make sure you’re taking in new stuff all the time, finding new interests and pursuing them.
- Learn from all the people around you. Especially focus on people who do things differently. It is tempting to hang around with those that agree with us. However, the real magic in learning happens when we confront the unfamiliar and threatening new ideas we will not hear about unless we ask. Connect with people and ideas you wouldn’t normally entertain. It just might lead you to the place you’d rather be.
- Take friends in other industries and vocations out to coffee. Ask them what they like and don’t like about what they do. Consider what it is about what they do that you might like. Remember don’t make hunting for work ideas into a status thing. It doesn’t matter if a friend is a CEO or an hourly worker. Don’t always look up the food chain. Meet with folks independent of status or position and consider everything they say. You might just decide you’re more senior than you’d like, as opposed to a frustrated superstar.
These are just a few ideas that have been working for me. There are many more angles on the new economy for us nerds. It could be as simple as writing an app for the iPhone, or as complicated as changing careers to the fine wood boatbuilding you’ve always admired. Anything is possible when you never know what the next day holds. Believe me, falling down and getting back up again is normal and necessary. Only the emotionally stupid fall down and end it there.
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John
Great article, I have to add that nowadays loyalty is a one-way street when it comes to the employer. They can fire you at any moment, without any reason and still expect 100% loyalty from you. The problem is that during these difficult times they have the upper hand and they know it. They know if we don’t like the crap they give us we can’t go anywhere else due to the job market (buyers market) and we have to stick with it and if we are brave enough and decide to leave they know we can be easily replaced by someone in India or Shanghai for about half what we cost.
The other side of the coin is the apparent and obvious “greed” of those running corporate America today, it used to be that corporations used to cater to all “stake holders” and this included employees, customers, stockholders, the communities where they operated, but today they only cater to the “stock holders”, the CEO and executive council bonuses.
Yes, the reality is that companies, especially big ones with layers of management, offer little in terms of employee appreciation. The catalog of executive insanity in the last 20 years, culminating in the Wall Street crash, Enron, etc. reads like a plundering of American know-how. The list of gravely usurious behavior in corporate america is encyclopedic.
That said, the current situation is much better than the sweat shops and complete disregard for safety that existed here 100 years ago, and still exists in most of the world. Soon white collar jobs will outnumber blue collar jobs in this country. As this happens, and the free media of the Internet allows anyone to sell their personal products to the world, we have the ability to move the power currently concentrated in large companies to smaller, sometimes individual, companies. No longer must we wait for ethics and power to co-exist happily. When workers can manage themselves to success, companies will continue to be forced to clean up their act, or perish.
“Free Agent Nation” is a good read on this trend here in the United States. Micro-loans in devoting nations are having a significant effect there as well. As engineers it is likely that we can take the manure of our employers disregard and turn into a crop full of exciting change and products for the future. I think it is a pretty neat time to be an engineer in this country because of this. I plan to write more in some coming posts.
Thank you for your comment!
John