Congratulations! You have made a choice to join one of the most exciting and rapidly changing professions in the world. This is a lifelong career where learning never ends. Therefore, we should plan it well.

In this career guide, we will be focusing on the Engineer in the business world – how you, as an Engineer, CAN make a difference. Your job is to provide value to your customers and profits to your employers through efficient use of technology. In today’s technology intensive world, one thing is for sure …. there will be no shortage of opportunities for the Engineer to excel.

However, there‘s a catch; an Engineer’s career is as much about being trained by your employer as being trained by yourself. In many cases, you will be hired for knowing more than your employer in your specific field. The days when we expect our employer to take care of all our training and development needs are over. Most of this will be self initiated and success will be dependent upon your energy and passion to excel in your field. Welcome to the knowledge economy!

The types of engineering careers are as diverse and as confusing as there are types of industries in the world. This is indeed not surprising. Just take a look around you and take an inventory of the technologies that you see at work. For example, we are surrounded by electronics, mechanics, structures, materials and so on. Each of these has some kind of engineering at work. It is almost uncountable.

Some generalized categories

For an “entry” Engineer, or even at times, an experienced one, it is hard to figure out just what an Engineer needs to do to build a successful career. The choices are just too many.

Here, we have tried to put some sense into this problem by classifying the key general responsibilities of an Engineer.

General classification of what makes up the major categories of engineering jobs.