Wednesday 16 May 2012

Is it Time to Leave Your Engineering Job?


Are you getting clues that it’s time to leave your engineering job? Inertia is a powerful force, and that comfort may be holding you where you are. But if you are seeing some of these clues in your workplace, maybe it’s time to make a move:
1. Does your firm value its employees? While they probably won’t go so far as to put your chair on allocation like you see in this humorous video, the Company may prioritize short-term sales over longer term team-building.
2. Another clue that it’s time to leave your engineering job is if you just don’t get along with your manager. While some companies offer the opportunity to move between teams and avoid managers with whom you conflict, that isn’t always possible. And if your manager is comfortable in their job and they aren’t going anywhere, maybe you should.
3. Sometimes it’s a business problem. If you are working for a company that has declining market share, or whose business fortunes are tied to some form of engineering that’s going out of date, then maybe you need to move to get into the right industry. Green engineering jobs, for example, are hard to fill in many parts of the world. And there has been a resurgence in infrastructure work for the past few years. Your career can advance quickly if you can get hired into a company that is working in a booming industry.
4. And sometimes your Company culture is just wrong, even if the business is good. If your company treats engineers with disdain, consider moving on. Most companies value their engineering talent highly, and keep the engineers informed of the business direction.
5. If your work is boring or beneath your abilities, you may have to quit to find more challenging work. Sometimes your manager has grown accustomed to seeing you in a certain role and doesn’t offer you an opportunity to advance. Or sometimes, the company you work for by its nature just doesn’t have interesting projects. If that’s the case, you may want to start looking.
5.5 As an engineer you may wonder whether you are getting paid fairly. And that’s a reasonable request. Compensation alone may not be enough to make you want to quit your job, but it can be an irritant. Check out online salary surveys to see whether your compensation is in the right range.

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