Opinions wanted on career-limiting moves (<g>)
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From: larwe on 14 Apr 2010 10:38 On Apr 14, 10:20 am, Mark Borgerson <mborger...(a)comcast.net> wrote: > > Right now I have a one-time opportunity to transfer into Marketing as > > a kind of liaison officer - this is likely the best internal > > I don't think I would want that position unless it came with the > authority to say: "Engineering can't get a good working prototype At most BigCorps in the individual contributor space, there is no authority - merely a boundary condition between deniability and culpability. In this industry it is routinely a year or more between dog and pony show and actual sales of a product, so a carefully staged "don't press the blue button in front of customers" demo isn't a terribly scary thing to me. > honest? Perhaps amongst the dinosaurs, BigCorp is a brontosaurus > and not a velociraptor. BigCorp is neither brontosaurus (sluggish, putatively pleasant- tempered herbivore) nor velociraptor (agile, ill-tempered predator). It is entirely carnivorous, often decerebrate and occasionally cannibalistic, but slow-moving with very long delays in its sensory and motor networks. Some biological analog is probably to be found amongst invertebrates, but I can't think of one off-hand. As for keeping Engineering honest, I suspect the goal is to have a kind of quisling, who will perhaps be harder to lie to than the current liaison point. > IMHO, the escalator moves much more quickly in small companies----but > it usually doesn't go as high and is subject to frequent breakdown. Having been on the SmallCo escalator twice, I'm well aware of this :) I do have a long-term plan in mind but the execution has reached a bit of a tricky phase. > There's no such thing as free time while you are still working. There > are only opportunity costs! Free time is what you get after you retire! Since I won't be retiring until I die (and maybe not even then), I'm defining free time as "time I am neither at my work desk, nor studying for school commitments". > many years with that BigCorp, he ended up as a research assistant at > the local university. I suspect a pay cut ensued, but he's working > for a professor that gets grants for 5-year research projects, and That does sound like fun :)
From: larwe on 14 Apr 2010 10:39 On Apr 14, 9:56 am, whygee <y...(a)yg.yg> wrote: > if it fails, you can get back to HW-only work, right ? That's kinda what I'm asking. I am wondering if a year or whatever in marketing will look, on an engineer's resume, much like a couple of years in jail for a felony.
From: whygee on 14 Apr 2010 10:03 Mark Borgerson wrote: > There's no such thing as free time while you are still working. There > are only opportunity costs! Free time is what you get after you retire! that's a myth, an illusion that a lot of people would like to be true... when you retire, you have accumulated so many "'i'd love to do this and that and..." that you have no time either. Not speaking for myself, but I have observed people around me, so now I take time AND do stuff my way. I know that retirement is just a fool's dream, at least for me, because if I ever get 70 y old, I will still be as technofanatic as today (if not more) so if I still hack stuff, why not do it for money too ? > Mark Borgerson yg -- http://ygdes.com / http://yasep.org
From: Tim Watts on 14 Apr 2010 10:42 On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:39:34 -0700, larwe <zwsdotcom(a)gmail.com> wibbled: > On Apr 14, 9:56 am, whygee <y...(a)yg.yg> wrote: > >> if it fails, you can get back to HW-only work, right ? > > That's kinda what I'm asking. I am wondering if a year or whatever in > marketing will look, on an engineer's resume, much like a couple of > years in jail for a felony. Having read the other replies, I'm inclined to suggest that you ask for the title to be amended to Product Engineering Manager or somesuch. You can try marketing to see if that path suits you but you can also plausibly deny it later if needs be. Future companies don't usually delve into the inner organsiation of your last job, so if they take "Product Engineering Manager" at face value, then I can't see it doing anything but good for your CV. -- Tim Watts Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.
From: Grant Edwards on 14 Apr 2010 10:45
On 2010-04-14, whygee <yg(a)yg.yg> wrote: > larwe wrote: >> All thoughts are welcome, including those of the "you fool, wash your >> mind out with MEK and get back down in the engine room" variety. > > well, just try. > if it fails, you can get back to HW-only work, right ? Maybe, Maybe not. That's the question: will he be able to get back into a design job after having left design for marketing? Or will a stint in marketing make it harder to get the next job in design? IMO, a candidate for a design job who has spent the last few years in marketing will be at a disadvantage when compared to somebody who spent the last few years in design. OTOH, if you want to move into upper management instead of back into design, a more diverse background probably helps. > if it succeeds, you'll have something else on your resume. But will it be something _good_ on his resume? Will it help or hurt if he decides he wants to get back into design? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! I want to kill at everyone here with a cute gmail.com colorful Hydrogen Bomb!! |