The Values of One Engineer

In my career I have engineered solutions of hardware, software, and of the many grey areas in between. I can affirm that there are many right ways to be an engineer as I have worked with many great ones. A great engineer, like any great person, is defined by their values, and the aptitudes that those values lead them to develop.

To define the type of engineer that I am, my highest values are ingenuity, adaptability, and accountability. These are the principals that have shaped my skills, and guided my decisions as a professional.

Ingenuity

Whether you are a junior engineer fresh out of college, or a seasoned CTO, there is a world of opportunities out there. There are an innumerable amount of problems that have yet to be solved, and with every problem solved, new ones are discovered that we didn’t even know existed. It is the inventor, and the innovator that is most poised to capitalize on this truth. A single idea can solve a problem that was previously considered insurmountable, or can solve something in a way that has never been imagined. This idea can be a pivotal and sometimes paramount step which bolsters the success of a career or of an entire company.

As influential as such ideas are, they are also rare, but a great engineer does not bet their success on the inception of just one life-changing idea. An ingenious engineer is always looking for ways to challenge the norm, to disrupt convention, to improve upon perceived perfection. To accomplish these things an engineer must be comfortable with failure. They must be skilled in the art of prototyping. They must recognize that a great idea is the result of the act of testing and exposing bad ideas.

Adaptability

If ingenuity is an attribute fueled by a comfortability with failure, adaptability is one attained through the ability to recognize and act on said failure. Adaptability starts with seeing, and accepting when the path you have chosen has proven to be fruitless. For this reason, pride and despondency are the enemies of adaptability.

An adaptable engineer cannot stop at recognizing their failures, however. An adaptable engineer is tenacious. To turn failure into success one must be infinitely willing to respond to it each time with the same tireless response: mitigate, learn, redesign, and resume. That is to mitigate any damages caused by said failure, learn from it, redesign and re-ideate to form a new plan, and then resume action. This steadfast response to temporary failure is the only dependable way to avoid permanent failure.

Accountability

The aforementioned values, as I see them, are those rooted in the modern age in which we live. Technology moves at a furious pace, and if we can not invent and adapt we will certainly be outpaced by those who can. However, if an engineer is ingenuous and adaptable and nothing more, they may, as result, become irresolute, and overly dependent on others who can make decisions and see a plan through. Accountability is the glue which binds ones ideation and iteration to their final result.

As engineers, we are responsible for a product; there is a need we must fulfill. If we do not deliver that product and fulfill that need, everything else we have done will be for nothing. We must hold ourselves accountable not only for the quality of our process, but also the quality of its result.

Ingenuity enables one to blaze new paths, adaptability allows that the path may be amended and improved, and accountability insures that a destination is, at last, reached and that it yields value.

Honorable mention, Cooperation

As I said at the beginning of this article, there are many right ways to be an engineer. No one engineer can be the perfect fit for every solution. Indeed one engineer alone can rarely be the perfect fit for any situation. I strongly believe that no great engineer can deny that together we are greater than the sum of what we are apart. We each have different values, and as a result, different strengths and weaknesses. To believe that one person’s prowess alone can be the answer to any problem would be naive. As engineers, we are best when we are part of a strong team, when we can appreciate many perspectives, and utilize many skillsets.

And finally…

My crafty message here to my fellow engineers is this: know your values; be aware of the advantages they afford you; seek the same level of awareness of your fellow engineers; use this knowledge to find ways to get the most out of yourself and the team you work with.

I have provided my own values here as an example, and I hope that some of what I have written will resonate with some of you, but where you identify differences in your own brand of engineering, I encourage you to define your values similarly to how I have here for your own enrichment.