An advice for the new year - 2
As you are progressing in your professional career, you need to think about your university and your professors. You owe a great deal to your university and all professors who nurtured you and taught you the technical fundamentals. Support your university by visit it occasionally to keep in touch with the faculty, talk to the students, give them some of the experiences you have gained, encourage them to seek a career like you. Both you and the students will find this personally rewarding. As you doing it, you will find that helping your university and its students are more satisfactory than you can imagine, I guarantee.
One of the biggest mistakes many people make in their professional is to think that college ‘graduation’ means education ‘finished’. The word ‘graduation’ does not mean the end but the beginning of a new chapter in life. That is how you must view your learning commitment. Successful engineers always adopt an attitude of life-long learning. Today with the advancement of technology, there are now so many learning opportunities available to you that there is no excuse for not continuing to learn. These opportunities include company training programs, on-line courses, on-line information on technical areas, websites, blogs, workshops, seminars, etc. As a professional, you need to actively participate in these technologies to grow and to learn. You need to meet and learn from other highly skilled engineers, researchers and educators from other organizations by attending seminars, conferences. You will have the opportunity to present your own work or have it published in technical journals. As you grow, you will then be able to give back by helping other engineers. Certainly attending major conferences, seminars particularly at overseas locations will likely be difficult. Travel budgets, time away from the job may limit your chance but you must persevere because your chance will come.
As you are successful in your career, you need to think about your family and your society. You owe a great deal to your parents and all relatives who take care of you and supported you throughout the years. Today many young people focus too much on themselves and forget about their root and their culture. This is a big mistake as what you learn, technically or scientifically, will change in a few years but the traditional value such as filial, respect, gratitude, loyal, humanity and responsibility that exist for thousand years never change. You must take care of your parents; you must take care of your family as they have taken care of you. It is not because it is a good thing or a moral thing but it is a responsibility. You owe a lot to the society and as you are working, you must understand honesty, ethic and morality. A progressing society is a society where people conduct business with integrity, and as a unit within it you must contribute to it with your utmost integrity.
A common thing I hear from young engineers is, “My goal is to be a manager”. That is good but you must be prepared, being a manager is NOT about a title but a responsibility. Engineers need to realize that a good manager is someone with experiences and training so my recommendation is to focus on expanding your skills, take additional trainings and learning new things. To be a good manager you need much more than just technical skills, you also need business skills, leadership skills and communication skills and you will have to be proactive in managing your career to succeed. Before being a manager, you need to support your manager first, because any good manager will want to help you to succeed, and you should in turn work to make him or her successful. Remember that your manager can recommends you for promotion, determines your salary, assesses your performance, and assigns you to project works. Therefore, supporting your manager is a sure way to improve your career. If you do not have respect for your manager or if you feel uncomfortable towards him or her, transfer to another job. But remember the fault may be within you, so examine your reactions and motives carefully. Perhaps some real introspective thinking or attitude adjustment on your part is necessary.
Although there are no magic formulas that will guarantee your success in a software engineering career, I do think there are definitive actions you can take that will significantly increase your probability of succeeding. I have written them in my blog and suggest that you find time to review them and discuss them with your friends then put them into practice in your career. It is important to understand that when it comes to evaluating you, your managers will look for these three factors.
- Technical knowledge and engineering skill. What is the level of breadth and depth of your technical knowledge and understanding and how well do you apply these to provide creative ideas and solutions in support of the business efforts?
- Teamwork and leadership. How well do you maintain flexible and effective team relationships in accomplishing organizational objectives? How effectively do you communicate and lead?
- Execution and Productivity. How well do you apply knowledge, understanding, judgment and initiative across multiple disciplines in planning and executing programs so that your customers get timely results in an efficient manner?
I wish you good success in your career and a happy new year.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
