Member-only story
Becoming a Better Engineer
I have been working in the IT industry for a little over two decades and while a lot has changed since I started, few things haven’t, including Technology and People.
Of course, technologies have changed. But Technology, with a capital T, hasn’t. If anything, it has become more pervasive.
Most engineers, like myself, come out of school and think that to become a good engineer we need to focus on technologies. Only to realize, later in our career, that technology is only a small piece of the puzzle.
Whether it is augmented reality, artificial intelligence, internet of things, computer vision, robots, social networks, blockchain, big data, quantum computing, sustainability, [add more buzz words] — we are constantly told that to become better engineers, we should ”keep up” with all these trends, that they will make our CVs more ”marketable”.
The truth is that technology is rarely the problem when it comes to being marketable, or a good engineer. Schools have taught us how to learn — so anyone can learn any technology if they decide to.
Ubiquitous access to information is leveling the playing field.
I am not writing to argue and tell you that you should stop learning new things or stay up-to-date with the latest technologies. However, remember that COBOL appeared in 1959; 64…
