The following is a summary of Session 11 of my podcast, The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast with Anthony Fasano, PE. I will summarize the main points in this post here; however, you can also listen to the show through the player below or by subscribing on iTunes. I offer a career-changing tip at the end of each podcast session.

I have had many, many engineers contact me and ask me the question, “How do I decide if I want to do technical work for my entire career or become an engineering manager?”

I believe that this session of my podcast will help engineers answer this question. It is an inevitable fork in the road that most engineers arrive at about five years into their careers. While many consulting firms push engineers into management, some larger firms have paths that allow engineers to maintain a highly technical role throughout their careers. What path will you take?

My guest for Session 11 is Kevin, who is a 23-year-old systems engineer. The key points that I outline with Kevin are as follows:

• If you are undecided as to whether or not you want to go into management as an engineer, spend some time developing your technical skills first. Then slowly start to develop your core skills, like communication in networking.
• Become involved in professional associations, so you can talk to other engineers to find out how they decided what career paths to take.
• Seek a mentor who can provide guidance to you in your career-path navigation.
• Asking yourself how a successful career would look to you in the future may help you create your career path. My guest in this show gave me an answer that pretty much answered all of his questions.
• Don’t discount getting advanced degrees in both technical and management subjects.
• Join professional associations that are very specific to what you do to find mentors that really understand your needs.

If you are currently preparing for this inevitable choice between technical or managerial, I hope this podcast session helps you to uncover the path that you truly want to follow.

Anthony Fasano, PE, author of Engineer Your Own Success, found success as an engineer at a very early age and now writes and podcasts to help other engineers do the same. Visit Anthony’s website atEngineeringCareerCoach.com and subscribe to the top 3 resources Anthony has used to become a partner in a firm at the age of 27.