Yesterday's Project Manager is Today's Project Engineer

By Ramakrishna Pochiraju
Posted Sunday, February 20, 2005

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 Younger engineers are stuck with older/outdated titles but their responsibilities are growing and they are expected to do more and produce more.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 with clients and the company's brass, they are getting almost nothing. Could this be the reason why there is a higher turnaround in the companies with larger percentage of younger engineers.

About the Author
Ramakrishna Pochiraju is 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.rvpochiraju@gmail.com