Look around wherever you happen to be sitting right now, and you will see the fruits of engineering genius. Chances are, you are reading this on a powerful smart phone or tablet, on a device with more computing power than the average mainframe 20 years ago. Think about your sleek flat-screen monitor, your ergonomically designed desk chair or the wireless mouse in your hand. All brilliant feats of engineering. And there are many more wonders still to come. Just on the horizon: autonomous cars, augmented reality, 3D printing, CRISPR gene editing, flights to Marsand a million things yet to be dreamed – and engineered.
With the latest class of engineering school graduates now holding newly signed diplomas in hand, the moment is right to think about how to launch a successful career building the future. With that idea in mind, I present my top 10 tips on how to, well, engineer a successful engineering career.
1. Choose meaningful problems:
Strive to solve challenges that you are passionate about and for which success will make the world a better place. This is often the entrepreneurial spark: A yearning to fix something we perceive to be broken.
2. Build or join an outstanding team:
Think carefully about your team, about who best complements your own talents, and whether your teammates will challenge you to achieve your full potential. As the saying goes, “there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.” Your goal should be to help build teams that work well enough together that you forget who came up with what idea.
3. Work hard:
“Genius,” Thomas Edision once said, “is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.” No doubt school requires a lot of sweat, but the ratio gets worse in the working world. To be commercially viable, technology has to be easy to use and highly reliable. Complex or fragile products never get mass adoption – but building simple, reliable solutions to complicated problems is a challenge. There is still a lot of mediocre engineering in the world. We can do better.