When an engineer is not an engineer

Over the years, the term Engineer has been devalued particularly in the UK by those who really are not engineers calling themselves such.

This causes a perception problem for society in general, but youngsters in particular. if a youngster in school is being encouraged to go into engineering, they might think it involves engine or boiler repair. This may be a skill that some engineers possess, but there is so much more to it than that of course.

I had a washing machine go on the blink some time ago and I called to have it fixed (it was under warranty) and I was told 'an engineer will visit' so I responded somewhat tongue in cheek that it only really needed a mechanic and I did not need a designer but someone who understood repair. The response was a bit frosty to say the least, which I found quite amusing.

A couple of the worst offenders in the UK are British Gas and Openreach. I do not deny those people being called engineers by the companies involved are skilled or semi-skilled, but engineers they are not. I am sure those companies actually do have some engineers, but the people who maintain telephone lines and fibre or fix a boiler are not.

Engineers have quite an impressive post secondary education background (1) but that is only the start. Keeping up with engineering which is now moving at the fastest pace I have ever encountered in my (almost) 5 decades in technology (for money) is a major item of self-investment. I had my first DIY radio kit (6 germanium transistor based!) some 58 years ago.

It is interesting to also note that the half life of an engineering degree has been studied although we have not yet repealed Ohm's law.

Engineers also have a half life; of 100 engineers in some year x, only 50 of those will be practising engineering in a few years. The time varies by discipline but is typically between 5 and 8 years. That is one of the reasons very experienced engineers are somewhat rare.

Design engineering is perhaps one of the most difficult (but rewarding) jobs in engineering; that said, the sheer joy of seeing one of my creations coming to life and doing what it is supposed to (well, most of the time) makes up for all the frustrations that have gone into it.

Not all engineers are designers, of course; in fact most engineers are not designers and that is as it should be. The sheer breadth of engineering means that no-one can ever know it all (or even a small fraction). Managing any set of design engineers (in any discipline) can resemble herding cats.

With parts shortages component engineers are busy pulling their hair out trying to source alternate components (and asking the design team for key parameters).

In some of the products I have worked on, safety engineers were involved (you would like to know that the flight control systems in modern aircraft for example were properly scrutinised to prevent a single item failure causing catastrophic failure).

One of my uncles was a signalling engineer for (then) British Rail in the run up to the Intercity 125 trains being introduced; he was one of the system designers.

Clearly, there are literally dozens of engineering disciplines, and the Wikipedia article is actually quite good. Sadly (for the practitioners) engine repair, washing machine repair, telephone line maintenance and boiler installation are not among them.

One major point here is that in these times when we are trying very hard to interest people in STEM subjects, some clarity for those youngsters would be refreshing. If we send clear messages about what engineering really is we might meet with more success.

Those who have earned accreditation such as IEng and CEng (yes, I know there are many more) have legally protected post-nominals, but in my experience the vast majority of engineers don't bother for numerous reasons; that does not mean they are less of an engineer, though.

So the next time you ask for Sky TV to be installed and you are told an appointment for an engineer will be made, ask why they don't just send an installation technician or mechanic. The resulting conversation can be hilarious (well, to an engineer it is; yes, we have a weird - some would say warped - sense of humour).

The terms mechanic and technician are not in any way pejorative. I would like to know that the mechanic who takes care of my vehicle is properly trained and has all the right equipment, for instance. I actually started as a mechanic (which actually did require component level repair skills) and moved on through technician and thence to engineer with a lot of side trips along the way.

(1) That post secondary education is not necessarily formal; many areas of engineering exist today that were the realm of science fiction but a few short decades ago. I did do some post secondary education but never at degree level. I like to see the journey as a self guided apprenticeship with a lot of luck, grabbing opportunities and hard (but interesting) work on the way.