It’s easy to think of digital transformation as merely a technology transformation. Paper to email. Drafting to CAD. Offline to online.
But technology doesn’t change by itself. It’s the people behind those changes that ultimately determine the success or failure of a digital transformation. The people must transform too, and for engineers, this transformation is already apparent.
Engineers in the digital age are facing new challenges and opportunities that are redefining what it means to be an engineer. The profession is evolving in ways that aren’t always easy to predict, but there are steps engineers and employers can take to keep pace with the transformation.
Engineering on hard mode
Engineers today are being asked to do more with less. Changing consumer expectations have created pressure to deliver products faster, with more features and for less money. As soon as one product hits the market, customers already anticipate the next iteration. These shorter development cycles also require more interdisciplinary collaboration, with electronics and software playing a major role in many more products. Engineers must also collaborate more closely with other departments in the company to ensure that products are built on time and in line with customer expectations. Add on an environment of intense global competition, and it seems that engineering has reached a new difficulty level.
“I think that it’s much harder for engineering today as a business function,” Asi Klein, a managing director at Deloitte, told engineering.com.
Even so, that doesn’t mean that the average engineer is struggling to keep up. The job may be getting harder, but the tools to do it are getting better, according to Dale Tutt, vice president of industry strategy at Siemens. Tutt believes that modern engineering software has simplified certain aspects of the job, providing a counterbalance to the increased pressure on engineering departments. He points to innovations like automated meshing and generative design, and the emerging potential of AI to automate mundane or repetitive tasks.
“On the one hand, there’s a lot of complexity out there and it’s changed the skill set that’s required for engineers,” Tutt says. “On the other hand, I think that digitalization and digital tools have really made some aspects of the engineering life a little bit easier, and maybe freed up their time to focus on those difficult problems.”
Staying up-to-date with the latest digital tools is important for engineers, who should seek to maintain mastery of their design software as it evolves to incorporate new features and workflow shifts. Unfortunately, some engineering companies are still lagging behind in adoption of these tools, according to Klein.
“Plenty of our clients are still operating basically offline… So having the right enterprise tools is a good place to start as a foundation,” he says.
Engineers can build on that foundation by looking to emerging technologies that could impact their workflows. There’s no shortage of new tools and technologies to explore, from novel ways of computing like augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) to new methods of collecting and analyzing data like the Internet of Things and the exciting new frontier of artificial intelligence with the myriad opportunities it presents.
But for engineers to stay ahead of the pack, comfort with new technology is only half of the equation. The role of engineers is evolving beyond technical sophistication.
The need for talent mobility
As engineering requirements become more complex and engineers adapt to new technologies, one attribute will be key for engineers: versatility. Engineers have always benefited from soft skills like communication, teamwork and emotional intelligence, but these and other non-technical skills will become even more important in the digital age.
Klein considers these as leadership skills. “It’s customer management skills,” he says. “It’s facilitate skills, it’s storytelling skills, it’s business acumen. It’s the types of things that typically you’re not going to think about as an engineer because it’s such a technical role.”
As customer expectations continue to increase, it will no longer enough for an engineer to merely gather requirements and design a product. Engineers with leadership skills will provide better customer service, collaborate more effectively with other engineers and departments, and ultimately be better prepared for any changes that are in store for the profession.
So how can engineers sharpen their soft skills? One unorthodox method is to practice the ancient art of debate. But these skills can also be taught on the job, and for employers looking to retain talent, they should be. One of the most effective ways to keep engineers is to show them that can grow in their role, according to Matthew Fox, a senior manager at Deloitte. Most companies don’t have a talent retention problem, but a talent mobility problem, he says.
“Show people that there is the ability not just to progress but to move laterally as well, to take on different responsibilities within the organization, to constantly be challenged,” Fox told engineering.com.
This is an important point in an industry that’s facing a shortage of talent. To hold on to skilled engineers, employers may have to provide more flexibility than in the past—not just in terms of career progression options but also in terms of work hours and location. Klein says that flexibility is particularly important to the incoming Gen Z workforce. As the next generation comes up, it will be crucial to attract them to the engineering profession.
“There’s a pipeline that’s missing of engineers, especially of critical skill sets around electronics and software design,” Tutt says. “So there’s a lot more emphasis among companies today that are investing with universities to help generate interest in engineering programs.”
Example: How manufacturing engineers will evolve
By considering all these factors in the context of a specific engineering role, it’s possible to predict how that role may evolve. What is its core function, and how can it perform that function more effectively? How can an engineering role expand to provide more value? How might it have to adapt to technological changes? These are some of the questions Klein and Fox ask when seeking to understand the future workforce.
The analysts shared the example of a manufacturing engineer. By synthesizing industry and technology trends with the core responsibilities of manufacturing engineers, Klein and Fox predicted the skills these engineers are likely to need in the future. See the image below (click twice to enlarge):
Notice how the non-technical skills will continue to grow in importance, while several specialized and technology skills will soon be outdated, replaced by emerging alternatives. While the above image is specific to manufacturing engineers, any engineer or employer can go through the same exercise to predict what skills will be required in the future.
“That gives an organization the power to start putting together a meaningful talent strategy that aligns to the investments they’re making related to technology and processes,” Fox says.
Engineering is a constant
Engineering will continue to change in ways we can guess, and other ways we can’t yet predict. These changes can be daunting, but they don’t have to be. Tutt recalls his early days as an engineer in what he calls the “2D era” of drafting boards, pencil and paper. The shift to CAD and 3D design was a big change, and it required new ways of thinking and new methods of design. But after the initial switching of gears, Tutt realized that in one way, it wasn’t much of a change at all.
“It was a shift in methodology using the exact same information that those engineers already had,” Tutt said. “That knowledge that they had was still valid, but was now being applied in a different way.”
Whatever changes are in store for future engineers, Tutt believes that fact will remain. Engineers will simply have new ways of applying their expert knowledge. It could be in the metaverse, it could be with an AI copilot, it could be anything—but it will always be engineering. And it will certainly be interesting.
“I think it’s a more exciting time to be an engineer now than it was 20 years ago when I was an engineer,” Fox says.