“As engineers, we were going to be in a position to change the world – not just study it.”
—Henry Petroski, an American engineer and author specializing in failure analysis
This statement is evidence of the magical potential engineers possess to transform the entire world. But the domain of engineering and technology has evolved immensely over the past few years. This evolution can be seen in the increasing dominance of emerging advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), advanced automation and robotics, and the Internet Of Things (IoT).
The shifting landscape has also impacted the kind of professionals who fit in the criteria for getting a well-paid engineering job. Nowadays, organizations are looking for engineering minds with a passion for learning and acquiring new skills throughout their career.
To confirm this fact, let’s look at the exclusive research done by Nick Van Dam who is the global chief learning officer at McKinsey & Co. As per the study, seven million engineering jobs in the US are expected to be replaced with these advanced technologies in the next decade. This is why there will be a huge demand for highly qualified professionals applying for jobs who are expert in leveraging these new technologies for building high-end solutions.
Human-technology integration specialist, augmented reality developer and technology advocate are a few of the possible careers in the future for engineers. Considering the same scenario, let’s explore the four major skills engineers need to enhance in order to climb the professional ladder (e.g. at an iOS app development company) and be prepared to keep themselves employable in a highly dynamic environment.
- Creativity & Passion For Inventing Innovative Solutions
A majority of the tasks engineers deal with on a daily basis require them to revolve around numbers and facts. But this is not something which is required in many current and future scenarios.
The future demands engineers to be creative enough so that to come up with something totally new. They shouldn’t be stuck in copying something that already exists. They need to invent new ways to fix problems in a cheap, fast, and more efficient manner.
This knack is equally valued by employers because such professionals have mastery over identifying untapped opportunities as well as being driven by a passion to acquire advanced skills needed to exploit such prospects in new and thrilling ways.
This is why engineers have to maintain a balance between their core technical expertise and willingness to create something out of the box. They must have the skill of putting themselves in the shoes of their clients and developing solutions accordingly. Also, they must be capable of taking initiative and move ahead with a curious/open mindset.
Why Creativity Has Become A Mandatory Skill For Future Engineers?
Technologies such as AI and ML have made it extremely easy to perform many tedious and mundane tasks with the help of smart machines and tools. But what these machines still lack is the capacity to imagine and think creatively as a human being. This is making it essential for engineers to have a creative mindset which will allow them to be flexible enough to adapt easily to every change in the marketplace.
- Ability To Fix Complex Issues By Leveraging Analytical Thinking
The major role of an engineer is to identify potential problems and apply their existing knowledge to build solutions that fix them. This particular skill can be mastered by gaining relevant education and experience. Let’s explore a few of the main ways in which engineers approach and fix complex issues:
I. Engineers put every possible effort to make solutions that are efficient and exceptional in quality. They have to deeply understand the entire system when designing a solution because for every modification they make there will be a consequence. But they have to move ahead with an ultimate goal to think logically and create efficient products.
II. These professionals must have a great command when working on something which is broken. They should be able to identify the reason behind the failure quickly and come up with solutions to fix it in order to avoid any future complications.
III. Engineers are responsible for building comprehensive solutions for targeted users. But these solutions deal with users’ confidential data and they have to be completely secure. For this purpose, engineers have to analyze the trends in the past threats and investigate new ones to minimize future risks.
Complex Problem Solving: Is It An Essential Trait For Engineers To Stay Productive In The Future?
It’s true that modern tools can perform several tasks which were under human control in the past. But still, humans need to help machines in determining specific goals, interpreting outcomes, and testing products.
- Power To Manage People By Being Emotionally Smart
The majority of the people have a biased opinion that engineers operate alone and don’t have to work in collaboration with others. But this is not true as these professionals must be capable of working in a team and coordinating with others to achieve key deliverables.
In addition, apart from working harmoniously with the internal team, it’s equally important for engineers to have the skill of efficiently dealing with both non-technical and technical professionals from other organizations. Strong leadership and people management skills make engineers able to grab higher level positions, responsible for monitoring the entire project on their own.
Why There’s A Never Ending Urge For Implementing Human Touch In Leadership Roles?
Machines will be performing a maximum of engineering tasks in the future. But they can’t motivate team members like real leaders and encourage them to execute nearly impossible jobs. Managers will always be responsible for facilitating teamwork, building community, thinking critically, and solving conflicts so that teams can accomplish a particular project successfully.
4. Strong Critical Thinking Ability
The future landscape demands engineers to be extremely good in analyzing concepts and coming up with logical conclusions. No doubt it’s difficult to be skilled and disciplined enough to make decisions critically and not based on one’s own preferences and interests.
Engineers are the professionals who have to critically think in each and every situation, from collecting relevant information to evaluating data and gathering feedback to generating possible solutions.
Why The Future Demands Engineers To Be Capable At Thinking Critically?
In future engineers have to solve a plethora of problems which were even not there in the past. This is because there will be new technologies responsible for creating solutions no one has ever expected.
Such situations will be fixed by engineers blessed with critical thinking ability. This skill, mentioned on their engineering resume, will help them to identify hidden problems and build solutions with minimal supervision and training.
These fours soft skills are extremely beneficial in preparing engineers for the new economy and preventing them from being replaced by robots. Also, by mastering these skills, engineers can stay employable in the future where they have to face a highly dynamic and volatile marketplace.
Author Bio:
Anubhuti Shrivastava is a content crafter at Arkenea, a custom software development company helping entrepreneurs and businesses build successful web and mobile apps. She is passionate about writing articles on topics related to design and the software development industry.
