Engineering – dead end career
July 7th, 2007
Read an interesting thread in Sammyboy in delphiforums titled “Engineering: A dead end career in SG”. Here are some interesting quotes from that thread:
“Most successful second-career Engineers I know switched line during their 2-3 year of work. Some became Bankers, some went into Sales, some went into IT… The world needs Engineers more than you think. Just not in this little red dot.”
“IT ain’t much better, most work have been outsourced to vendors… typical IT guy… just dreams of landing a good project management job … to show that he has arrived, or become an overpaid consultant/architect after getting CISSP/Sun Architect cert. Some lucky ones get a footing in SAP and drift off to become techno functional consultants.”
“any industry is bound to face the exact same thing. Lawyers and doctors … there are some that will not get very far in their career. Consider: some doctors will in the end just be a gp with a touch of contact eczema… Or you end up being a lawyer stuck in a firm in people’s park center… Banking only looks good during this bull run. Once the bubble bursts, you’ll see many being booted out. Those that cannot make it will find the lack of real technical prowess to be a bugbear.”
“well said….engineering in s’pore is a real dead end job…i myself got out of engineering 3yrs ago to be sales(though its engineering sales) & never once look back….”
“Wait till u deal with Accounting trained professionals..then u will realise Engineering isnt that bad after all..”
“After 7 years in industry, if you don’t earn at least $100k p.a., you’re not successful in your career. So you must be aggressive in job change”
Masindi Says:
July 10th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
what are you trying to suggest? Career is not just about money. This is a really bad statement:
“After 7 years in industry, if you don’t earn at least $100k p.a., you’re not successful in your career. So you must be aggressive in job change”
admin Says:
July 11th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Masindi, read carefully. I was merely quoting others in the said discussion forum. Note the quotation marks.
EK888 Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
$100K p.a. is quite high pay,
if one can achieve in 10-15 years consider as very good.
Most people here work till retire still not exceeding $5K salary.
Get out of engineering | Salary.sg - Your Salary in Singapore Says:
July 27th, 2007 at 12:45 am
[...] as a continuation to Engineering – dead end career, there is a second thread of discussion in Sammyboy in Delphiforums: Engineering – get out while [...]
Tequila Says:
April 27th, 2008 at 12:36 am
You should spend
copper Says:
May 11th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
“Wait till u deal with Accounting trained professionals..then u will realise Engineering isnt that bad after all..”
I am thinking of switching to Accounting from Engineering, is accounting really that bad?
Careerwork Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I am an engineer by training and stay with an accountant. An accountant must be meticulous and be good in numbers. A difference in 0 makes a lot of difference. As for engineers, we do have factor of safety in the things we design and so it caters for some form of errors such as human errors. Having seen my accountant wife working late when come to month end close, I still prefer to be an engineer.
kuala88 Says:
July 6th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
i m also an engineer , but slowly switch to financial sales. may god bless me
Reflections : Blog Archive : Get out of engineering Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 3:06 am
[...] as a continuation to Engineering – dead end career, there is a second thread of discussion in Sammyboy in Delphiforums: Engineering – get out while [...]
thomas Says:
September 13th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I’m an engineer, after 10 years I’m making 34K no benefits. I’m happy to be employed at all as there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed American engineers..
Engineering is a dead end for most. The MAJORITY (over 90% in some studies) of engineering graduates are NOT working as engineers!
Offshoring, outsourcing and cheap labor visas have ruined tech careers and American students have better opportunities that require less work and pay much better. Tech jobs tend to be concentrated in high cost of living areas and a 35 year old engineer is over the hill for most jobs (age discrimination is the rule not the exception in engineering)
Go to http://www.rentacoder.com and look how much the electrical engineers make(some of the jobs pay below minimum wage)
autobot Says:
September 13th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Hey but engineering guys get the highest starting pay: http://retrenchment-blog.breaking.sg/2009/07/pay-holds-steady-for-some-diploma-degree-graduatessingapore-while-polytechnics-and-the-government-are-rolling-out-schemes-to-help-fresh-graduates-get-by-in-the-tight-job-market-one-survey-presents/#more-1707
Muhammad Nur Azhar Bin Hafiz Says:
September 21st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
what would be a world without engineers?
a wheel comes before money
people should hail engineers as money is also an invention of engineers…
maybe engineers should demand more respect
Francis Says:
October 1st, 2009 at 1:17 am
Hi Autobot.
If Engineers are highly pay, than there will be even more and faster retrenchment in Singapore.
Many Engineers are scratching pennies. And are force to leave the industry. The wealth
generation industry is not appreciated.
While the wealth management industry is rolling
and multiplying the funds to get ugly pay out.
Most bankers does not know their basic
fundamental. If they do, they would not have
find it tough to pass those CFA or CFP exam.
Some don’t even try taking.
They rely heavily on their back room colleagues.
But being said so they have different part of
their brain develop which what the world see as
good today. They speak well and square like Engineers.
middleclass Says:
October 1st, 2009 at 9:30 am
Francis: excellent point albeit a sad one.
Perceived value does not always seems logical.
starwars Says:
October 1st, 2009 at 9:50 pm
most of my engineering classmates never did engineering. mos ended up as bankers…and most are now out of jobs.
low cost-low tech Says:
October 10th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
u have not seen the scene in the engineering sector yet …
Engineering in Singapore? Says:
December 29th, 2009 at 10:21 am
[...] and accountancy careers. It follows on a long discussion on that site of how engineering is a dead end career, and how President’s scholars in the past two batches are not doing [...]