Career for an ambitious engineer

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Herms101

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Hi there,

There are a lot of posts and articles on highest paying salaries in SA and the like. They all list most of the engineering professions as very high paying vs other qualifications.

As a qualified Mech engineer with 3 years experience and friends in various disciplines in engineering I can vouch that the pay can be good but in general isn't. I have been talking to many people recently about a career change or just general advice for maximizing my career. I have been working hard my career so far and many of these people agree that I perhaps am earning less than they expected and from looking on job websites they grass is pretty the same everywhere - a design engineer position is not lucrative.

I have looked at doing my MBA, my PR Eng, etc and doing a complete career change if necessary. What I want to find out is in my position what directions are open to me which offer the highest pay. I have considered options like investment banking (requiring me to do an MBA) etc.

Is there any advice anyone can give me?

As a side note I live in the Western Cape and am 27 years old (White Male)
 
How far do you think you will get doing something you don't necessarily like for the money?

I'm a software developer, the money is good an plenty of jobs around. Sometimes I loathe going to work, but when I get home I'm usually at the computer programming which says to me that sometimes the job sucks but I enjoy what I do which keeps me going through good times and bad. If you don't enjoy the work and only in it for the money then you are going to struggle, not not, not tomorrow, but in a few years time you are going to be back here asking which career to change to.

What you need to do is identify what your hobbies are that you enjoy and can turn into a career. Just my 2c, but also don't compare yourselves to others. There's always going to be someone above you and below you, you just need to find what makes you happy.
 
Most of my friends who studied Engineering somehow ended up in Financial Services or Consulting (mostly IT and/or Financial Services consulting).

All seem relatively happy with what they are earning, and only one has done an MBA.
 
Supply and demand in SA skew the money towards people who have done tertiary maths. Hence engineers in this country tend to out earn other professions who do not have maths. That being said the variance within engineering fields can be fairly large.

To start read this: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career-advice.html

Its important to realize you will not excel at something you cannot enjoy. If you do something you are naturally good at (and enjoy) you will always outperform people who are doing the same thing just for the money while not liking the job.

I work in investment banking as an elec eng who specialized in software dev. I do think I out earn many engineers working in the engineering sector but it comes with a cost. Investment banking is not for sissies.

MBA is not actually a great degree unless you can get it from a top international institution. The issue with the MBA in SA is all kinds get into it, from people with BA fine arts to engineers. Due to there being a wide entry field our MBA cannot do any serious math as you can't assume your intake people can cope with it. For instance most MBA credits are only accredited at honours level as compared to engineering masters courses.

If you do want to study for the world of finance I would say a better route would be a masters in math of finance, CFA (hecticly hard), one of the risk qualifications (Primia etc), or something equivalent.

There are a few career paths in the work of trading each being rather specialised. Some of them are:
Trading - Highest reward but highest stress rates too. Very high burnout rate and lots of people get fired for non performance here
Ops - Support areas to the traders. Tends to be somewhat rewarding but repetitive. Few engineers there. More BCom type guys
Trading support/Risk - Need some quant skills here but in a support role rather than client facing stuff. Safer less stressful role but still decent salaries in this space.
Technology - Trading technology is huge and growing. This is where I work. Getting into either software dev or the hardware side of trading can be lucrative, especially if you are good.
Analysis - Equity analysts, also can be rewarding but somewhat stressful. If you go for the rankings you are competing for a top 5 in your sector against a small but competitive field. Once you are ranked you always have a target on your back by the guys ranked lower than you. Private research is less stressful but also less rewarding. So non ranked research for private institutions.

If any of the above interest you PM me and I can try guide you to companies to try chat to in the Cape Town area who are doing this and how to qualify yourself to work for them. Other areas to maybe consider are the asset management guys, or big insurance or investment companies like old mutual, Alan Gray, etc.

The good news is finance firms, and especially the banks, love their engineers and look after them very well. Lots of engineers work with me as well as some guys who studied, math, physics, or anything maths based as it incorporates well into this world.
 
How much do you earn roughly anyway, when you say you believe you are underpaid?
 
Focus on Big Data/Data Analytics. It's the new big thing and all the actuaries are busy at banks and insurance firms, so there are plenty of job opportunities for people with the right skillsets.
 
Firstly, Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate it.

There is a lot of value in what you guys are saying, it constantly surprises me that the further I dig the deeper and wider the world gets, there is so much I don't know and want to learn.

To respond: I take home roughly 20k a month with 3 years experience. I have a great opportunity to meet with a senior member of a Big Data/Data Analytics firm and from my research it is something I find quite fascinating. I am definitely going to be thorough in investigating that option.

For the finance options: I feel I would need to do more homework there, there's too much I don't understand in that field and I can hardly build a career on something I know so little about. Banks loves engineers yes but what is a obvious path to working for a bank as an engineer? Where is the best place to start and what do they earn typically?
 
Herms101 said:
Firstly, Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate it.

There is a lot of value in what you guys are saying, it constantly surprises me that the further I dig the deeper and wider the world gets, there is so much I don't know and want to learn.

To respond: I take home roughly 20k a month with 3 years experience. I have a great opportunity to meet with a senior member of a Big Data/Data Analytics firm and from my research it is something I find quite fascinating. I am definitely going to be thorough in investigating that option.

For the finance options: I feel I would need to do more homework there, there's too much I don't understand in that field and I can hardly build a career on something I know so little about. Banks loves engineers yes but what is a obvious path to working for a bank as an engineer? Where is the best place to start and what do they earn typically?
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Boet you are on the wrong path here, I am not much older than you but let me give you some advice. Stop only chacing the money, by your OP and this post it is clear that the main thing for you in all of this is the money. You will very quickly make yourself very miserable by only chacing money. What you need is something you enjoy, something you have a passion for, something you want to do every day and the money is the reward at the end.

Further your studies and qualifications yes sure, this is mostly a good thing, wanting a career change yes sure a lot of people do this and even much later in life, but doing it just for money is a disaster waiting to happen.
 
sound101 said:
Boet you are on the wrong path here, I am not much older than you but let me give you some advice. Stop only chacing the money, by your OP and this post it is clear that the main thing for you in all of this is the money. You will very quickly make yourself very miserable by only chacing money. What you need is something you enjoy, something you have a passion for, something you want to do every day and the money is the reward at the end.

Further your studies and qualifications yes sure, this is mostly a good thing, wanting a career change yes sure a lot of people do this and even much later in life, but doing it just for money is a disaster waiting to happen.
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I agree. The sole focus for OP is money. If you want to make a lot more money you have to take a lot more risk, and that means starting a business. Like Havoc said, leverage other peoples time means you can {make number of employees} x {hours worked} amount of money, but it takes time, hard work and dedication. I earn pretty decently now and going from $100k to $140k hasn't made a massive difference to me, it has literally come down to a few more numbers that disappear from my account anyway. I think I would only be happy about money know if I was at the point where I could be financially free and be able to do what I want with my time.

My advice would be to broaden your horizons as there is a hell of a lot more to a job than just the money and look into what successful business people say and do etc and follow suit. You can chase the money, and you can do it for a few years and then you will find it is futile. I kind of despise the fact that I earn decently as I wish I wasn't so deeply entrenched in earning it as it cuts off my ability to do other things and take other risks as I have the responsibilities that go with earning that money and people reliant on me.
 
Herms101 said:
Hi there,

There are a lot of posts and articles on highest paying salaries in SA and the like. They all list most of the engineering professions as very high paying vs other qualifications.

As a qualified Mech engineer with 3 years experience and friends in various disciplines in engineering I can vouch that the pay can be good but in general isn't. I have been talking to many people recently about a career change or just general advice for maximizing my career. I have been working hard my career so far and many of these people agree that I perhaps am earning less than they expected and from looking on job websites they grass is pretty the same everywhere - a design engineer position is not lucrative.

I have looked at doing my MBA, my PR Eng, etc and doing a complete career change if necessary. What I want to find out is in my position what directions are open to me which offer the highest pay. I have considered options like investment banking (requiring me to do an MBA) etc.

Is there any advice anyone can give me?

As a side note I live in the Western Cape and am 27 years old (White Male)
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You seem to be working for money and given your point of view it will never be enough.

There has been some great advice, but you have to find a way of changing your own worldview and very few people can do that based on advice. Experience will teach!

Do a budget and figure our how much you NEED to survive, make sure that is covered and then find a way to incorporate your passions at work.

This will make you a much happier person in general.

I refuse to hire people who can't relate their passions to the job, they will only use the company and not contribute in any meaningful way, leaving them demoralized when they feel marginalized and "under appreciated". That is a no win!
 
As said, you probably won't excel in something that you don't like doing. However, there is an entire world of things out there that you simply don't know enough about to like or be passionate about yet. In my experience, people who go on about "following your passion" actually tend to be the most myopic, and the most set in their ways.

Money is a huge factor in quality of life, and it is very likely that you can find something that is both very interesting and pays very well. You just may have to be willing to try something out of your comfort zone. This idea that you're either "just doing it for the money" or "following your passion" is a false dichotomy.

I moved from the tech sector to finance, and thus far have found finance to be more enjoyable - both because the work is more interesting, and because I'm paid a whole lot more. My passion literally shifted from one field to another, over a period of a year or two.

As an aside, many people have a warped perspective, where they believe that those people who get paid more, are paid as such because the jobs they do require additional compensation due to them being so boring. I am sure that such cases do exist, however, in my experience, the more interesting work is what tends to be paid better, since interesting work tends to be harder, and fewer people can do it.
 
Herms101 said:
Firstly, Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate it.

There is a lot of value in what you guys are saying, it constantly surprises me that the further I dig the deeper and wider the world gets, there is so much I don't know and want to learn.

To respond: I take home roughly 20k a month with 3 years experience. I have a great opportunity to meet with a senior member of a Big Data/Data Analytics firm and from my research it is something I find quite fascinating. I am definitely going to be thorough in investigating that option.

For the finance options: I feel I would need to do more homework there, there's too much I don't understand in that field and I can hardly build a career on something I know so little about. Banks loves engineers yes but what is a obvious path to working for a bank as an engineer? Where is the best place to start and what do they earn typically?
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You could just try apply for some positions at a bank (quantitative analyst, developer, quantitative developer, etc.) - ideally you would know how to code and be very strong in mathematics and/or statistics and/or ML. Depending on the skills they currently need, what you would need to know may differ - often they don't want to hire people with just financial backgrounds since these people tend to be weaker on STEM side, however, for certain roles, they may want people with an econometrics background or specific areas of maths, such as stochastic calculus. There may also be competition for these roles with others who are more qualified than you (PhDs in physics/maths/stats/etc.) - I have seen many people get a leg up on them by being better coders while also being competent at maths and stats.

I don't really know what people in SA get paid in the financial sector. The handful of people I know who's income has been shared have been earning between R1m and R2m for many years now, but they've also been at it for about 20 years. This is gross, and a large component is as an annual performance bonus.
 
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Problem with mechanical engineering in this country is we don't have a lot of high-tech manufacturing and production industries that typically demand mechanical engineers. This is the primary reason why I direct anyone who asks me about career choices to stick to software and maths.
 
Look ultimately in my soul searching and investigation I have discovered that opening my own company is the ultimate goal. To open up a company first and foremost start up cash is needed to get the ball rolling.

Money is a huge factor in quality of life, and it is very likely that you can find something that is both very interesting and pays very well. You just may have to be willing to try something out of your comfort zone. This idea that you're either "just doing it for the money" or "following your passion" is a false dichotomy.
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Absolutely agree, I will not sell my soul to the highest bidder, ofcourse I need to enjoy the job or find it rewarding apart from the money however I have thus far in 2 different companies and 3 years of work not found much reward financially (relative to what I know some others can earn at my age) or personally as a design engineer. I am not completely driven by money but the fact is to achieve my end goal of opening up a company that I can apply myself at and make a success of will require start up money which has to come from somewhere.


Making this money is a journey but before I start I want to make sure that the path I walk will not only make me that money I need but also provide me with useful experience and teach me valuable life lessons along the way, that is also why I included further studies (MBA etc) in my possible further education. Ofcourse in doing my research I am investigating the highest paying jobs, it makes the most sense. I will explore each to see what works for me and my passion. As I have noted I know very little about the finance world in general and perhaps I end up enjoying the work immensely and also maybe not but I will never know unless I do some digging to discover what is out there and where can an engineer fit in the scheme of things.

You could just try apply for some positions at a bank (quantitative analyst, developer, quantitative developer, etc.) - ideally you would know how to code and be very strong in mathematics and/or statistics and/or ML. Depending on the skills they currently need, what you would need to know may differ - often they don't want to hire people with just financial backgrounds since these people tend to be weaker on STEM side, however, for certain roles, they may want people with an econometrics background or specific areas of maths, such as stochastic calculus. There may also be competition for these roles with others who are more qualified than you (PhDs in physics/maths/stats/etc.) - I have seen many people get a leg up on them by being better coders while also being competent at maths and stats.
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I will definitely have a look into this, it is another good possibility. My coding is very basic but I could expand on that as needed.
 
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