The rapid growth of technology, greater exposure to knowledge, higher
levels of awareness are making the young project engineer act more and
more like a project manager. What I mean is, todays project engineers
are actively supervising new graduates, setting and monitoring
schedules & budgets, interacting with clients and so on. A decade or
so ago these duties were undertaken by project managers or supervisors
who were promoted to that level largely bacause of seniority. They
were promoted regardless of whether it is a right fit for them or not.
Now-a-days young/junior engineers are trusted with more increasing
responsibility because of their ability to multitask with the help of
cutting edge technology. This makes me wonder whether the technology
is friend or foe to the younger engineers? Younger engineers are stuck
with older/outdated titles but their responsibilities are growing and
they are expected to do more and produce more. Younger engineers do
the bulk of work and when it comes to the face value, they are getting
almost nothing. Could this be the reason why there is a higher
turnaround in the companies with larger percentage of younger
About the Author
Ramakrishna Pochiraju is a registered professional engineer. He has over ten years of experience in serving local, state and federal clients as a consulting engineer in designing roads, highways and freeways.