Manager vs. Tech Specialist. So I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my long-term career goals. Among the primary questions I’m asking myself is: do I want to take the managerial route or become a technical specialist?

I guess it’s on my mind cuz if I’m going to go the managerial route, I should be seeking out a different job task pretty soon. (My mentor and boss and pretty much every other Bechtel person has told me that you spend around a year and a half or two years in a position, then you should try something different (within the company, of course). They really advocate the jack-of-all-trades mentality early in your career if you have any aspirations of becoming a manager. “That way, when you’re a manager, you’ll know a thing or two about what everyone underneath you does, and it’s harder for them to lie to you about how hard something is or how long it should take.”)

I guess I should give a little backstory about my company. So we’re kinda like a subsidiary of a bigger multinational corporation (Bechtel), and basically all the managers are from greater Bechtel (we call them “Big-B’s”). Most of the grunts and cubemonkeys however have been here since before Bechtel swooped in and took over the operation (we’re called “little-b’s”). The project has been here for decades, and every few years, a different company takes control and they bring in a bunch of new managers, but the worker bees (the little-b's) are all the same. Anyways, so there’s a pretty different mentality between the Big-B’s and little-b’s on how to shape your career. And I don’t think either side’s necessarily right or wrong, but if I plan to stay within the Bechtel umbrella for the next few years (more on this topic some other time), I probably need to buy into their philosophy at this point.

Anyways, as for being a tech specialist... It’s not that I hate what I do- on good days, it’s even halfway fun; but I don’t know if this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. If you’re good at finite element analysis (and have ~5+ years experience), the best money is to become a contractor, where you can make up to ~$150-200k apparently. The drawback to being a hired-gun though is that you don’t get benefits, and they can terminate your contract any time they want, so it’s not “secure.” And really, I don’t think that’d be a bad way to go. BUT, I worry about the long-term future of the field. Why? Because like many other high tech jobs, it’s something they can probably do better and cheaper in India or China. >_< (I hear several of the major automotive companies already do the bulk of their finite element work in India.) I don’t know how long we’ve got- maybe 10 maybe 20 years, but I really think that eventually, 90% of finite element analysis jobs are gonna go overseas. And yea, there’ll always be niches like government and defense-related work that’ll always be done domestically, but I DO think the market for this kinda job is gonna shrink significantly in the upcoming years. And anyways, if I choose to stay with Bechtel, I’ve already been told: there’s no future in finite element analysis with the company.

Ok, well what about being a manager then? The biggest thing I worry about is the fact that I’m not a real people-person. I’m better with numbers and computers than I am with people, and my public speaking skills could definitely use a lot of work. And I guess I worry that I’m not outgoing enough, don’t know how to chum it up with (read: brownnose? HAH!) the overlords well enough to ever move very high. And yea, part of me feels like on the whole, there’s more overall job security as a tech specialist than as middle management.

I dunno, tough question(s) to think about. I get the same kinda feeling as when I was job hunting and didn’t know what kinda job I was looking for. *sigh* Sometimes life is easier when your decisions are made for you, eh?