1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:02,400 Hi, and welcome to the Neil Ashton Podcast. 2 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:05,920 In each episode, we explained some of the fascinating ways 3 00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:09,080 that science and engineering are changing the world around us. 4 00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:12,760 We talked to leading engineers from elite level sports like 5 00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:16,880 cycling in Formula One to some of the world's top academics to 6 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:20,960 understand how fluid dynamics, machine learning, supercomputing 7 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:23,000 are bringing in a new era discovery. 8 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:27,080 We also hear some of their life stories, their career advice, 9 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,080 the lessons they've learned on the way that I hope will be 10 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:33,800 helpful to you too. So sit back and enjoy this 11 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:41,200 episode. Hi and welcome back to the Neil 12 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:46,680 Ashton podcast. So I thought we'd do an episode 13 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:53,720 sort of career advice in a way episode for people who I didn't 14 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:56,080 see it already. I did one in the first season, 15 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:00,320 which was essentially more of an academia versus industry 16 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:03,960 question. I'll, if you're, if you're on 17 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:06,440 YouTube, I'll, I'll try and put a, a link to it here. 18 00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:08,400 But if you're listening, you can just search for it. 19 00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:11,040 I think it was in the first season. 20 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:14,720 I can't remember which episode now and but you know, I had 21 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:18,720 pretty positive response that people find it useful, you know, 22 00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:21,520 at different career levels just to give some of my personal 23 00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:24,680 opinion and things that I've observed and learnt along the 24 00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:27,120 way. But I thought in this episode 25 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:31,960 maybe we would just focus purely on the industry as a non 26 00:01:31,960 --> 00:01:35,480 academic job, so not university or sort of classic research 27 00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:38,560 positions. Might do that one again, let me 28 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:39,760 know if that would be interesting. 29 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:44,560 But I thought just give some personal observations that and 30 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:47,080 things that I've learnt along the way that maybe I wish I'd, 31 00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:50,880 you know, known in the past. So I'm going to try and cover 32 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:55,960 maybe four or five things that I think would be useful to know 33 00:01:56,320 --> 00:02:03,360 for someone who is looking to get a job in engineering to 34 00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:08,160 understand about potentially different roles and options and 35 00:02:08,479 --> 00:02:12,760 the the different markets. So sort of companies, job roles, 36 00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:15,640 career progression. And then maybe a bit of a deep 37 00:02:15,640 --> 00:02:19,640 dive on actually the tech sector, something that obviously 38 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:24,200 I work in and some people have asked me, you know, to, to 39 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:27,880 understand a little bit more about what sort of roles are, 40 00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:30,160 are available and, and what it's what it's like. 41 00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:34,320 Again, caveat, this is just my opinion. 42 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:37,840 I I'm living in the UK. I'm going to have a sort of auk 43 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:40,680 slash US bias to, to all of this. 44 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:44,320 So if you're listening from a different country, apologies if 45 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:47,880 some of this isn't as relevant to you, but I, I think most of 46 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:49,960 what I'm talking about hopefully, hopefully is. 47 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:56,920 So we'll, we'll, we'll assume that we're basically that you 48 00:02:56,920 --> 00:03:01,040 have some form of degree or you're about to, to, to, to 49 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:03,480 finish degree. I appreciate that there are 50 00:03:03,480 --> 00:03:07,600 roots without having a university degree, but maybe 51 00:03:07,600 --> 00:03:09,720 that's for for for another episode. 52 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:13,280 So I'm going to assume that you have some sort of engineering 53 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:15,280 degree. Well, it could be computer 54 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:19,040 science, it could be a more pure engineering, it could be sort of 55 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:21,680 more mathematical physics. But let's say you're sort of 56 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:25,080 interested in something I would call relate to engineering, 57 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:27,360 Although to be honest, engineering is a very broad feed 58 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:30,320 though, and you could include software and mechanical and 59 00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:33,000 aerospace. But anyway, let's not get too 60 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:34,480 much down a rabbit hole straight away. 61 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:42,360 And so I'd say the first thing that you should consider is what 62 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:45,720 sort of company do you want to work for? 63 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:51,320 And the way I would tend to split this up is you have large 64 00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:58,360 enterprise companies like a Rolls Royce, an Airbus, a 65 00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:05,800 Siemens, an ANSYS, companies that have 10s of thousands maybe 66 00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:10,680 of, of employees. And then you have start-ups, 67 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:13,360 which probably are the complete other end where you may only 68 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:20,040 have 10 people, but often in a very fast moving, innovative 69 00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:25,640 sort of exciting way. I would say there's then what 70 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:28,840 some people would call mid market sort of smaller 71 00:04:28,840 --> 00:04:32,440 enterprise where you may be joining a company that has, you 72 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:37,520 know, a hundred 200 people. So quite a different sort of 73 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:42,400 company like that. I'm trying to think of examples 74 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:47,040 like, I guess even a Formula One team would be sort of considered 75 00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:49,480 like that. I mean, maximum 800 people. 76 00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:51,000 I wouldn't call that an enterprise. 77 00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:53,720 Could be, and I'll explain later why. 78 00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:57,760 And then you have what I would sort of call SM ES, sort of 79 00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:01,200 small and medium businesses. So these are sort of the catch. 80 00:05:01,840 --> 00:05:04,880 Anything in between I, I, I suppose where you're going to 81 00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:11,120 have something that is more than probably 10 people, but less 82 00:05:11,120 --> 00:05:16,760 than than sort of 500 people. And what I've observed is that 83 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:19,360 they all have the sort of pros and cons. 84 00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:24,680 If you're going into a large enterprise company, let's say 85 00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:28,240 like one of those big sort of engineering giants in, in, in 86 00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:33,320 the UK or the US or Europe, they often have graduate schemes. 87 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:38,480 They often have schemes that help you to progress within the 88 00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:41,120 company and it's very common for someone to join one of those 89 00:05:41,120 --> 00:05:45,240 sort of companies and be able to move around a lot just within 90 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:49,640 that single company. So if you join, let's say, doing 91 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:56,120 aerodynamics or, or, or, or CFD or like a fluids person, usually 92 00:05:56,120 --> 00:05:58,400 they have the ability that if you wanted to move more into, 93 00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:02,120 let's say project management or, or into some other area, there 94 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:05,760 may be options to do it because ultimately they want typically 95 00:06:05,760 --> 00:06:07,600 to stay in that company. And so they're happy for you to 96 00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:10,600 move around. So in some ways the advantage of 97 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:14,840 that is you have a lot of ability to move sideways and, 98 00:06:14,840 --> 00:06:18,720 and potentially upwards because it's such a large company and 99 00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:24,800 they typically have very mature schemes on training and 100 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:26,440 development. So particularly if you're a sort 101 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:30,320 of early career, you'll have a lot of help to, to progress a 102 00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:33,840 lot of continuous professional development and just, you know, 103 00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:37,520 lots of support because ultimately these companies want 104 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:41,920 to keep you, they spent a lot of money, you know, employing you 105 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:45,200 through the interview process and they're quite well set up 106 00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:49,160 for that. So that's the sort of advantage 107 00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:51,800 of that. They, but maybe the disadvantage 108 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:56,960 is that they can often be such a large company that they can be a 109 00:06:56,960 --> 00:07:01,000 little bit more sort of bureaucracy. 110 00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:04,480 And what I mean by that is there's a lot of sort of 111 00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:08,080 processes and, and tickets to file because they've had to 112 00:07:08,080 --> 00:07:12,080 scale out, you know, maybe they have 100,000 employees. 113 00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:17,760 So that can sometimes mean that it's harder to know face to face 114 00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:20,480 people because you may just be speaking through a, a ticketing 115 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:25,040 system to speak to somebody at, you know, within HR or, or if 116 00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:28,320 you want to do something IT, you can't just go to someone's desk, 117 00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:30,720 you may have to file something. So they, it's sort of a 118 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:34,520 different vibe, I guess. But particularly at an early 119 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:38,360 stage, they can be quite useful because the game there, they 120 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:42,760 want to to help you. Now let's go to the complete 121 00:07:42,760 --> 00:07:44,680 other one, which is let's say a start up. 122 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:47,800 And again, I'm probably thinking a little bit now, maybe we're 123 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:51,120 starting off, if you're sort of more early career, the 124 00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:54,760 enterprise one, as it said, graduate schemes sort of safe. 125 00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:56,840 They, you know, will help to nurture you. 126 00:07:56,840 --> 00:07:59,480 They're looking more for your long term growth. 127 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:04,160 Let's contrast that with the startup where you're essentially 128 00:08:04,160 --> 00:08:10,040 joining a company that has to work as quickly as possible to 129 00:08:10,040 --> 00:08:13,640 deliver something because of the way that they're funded, often 130 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:17,800 through venture capital money where they've got 125 years to 131 00:08:17,800 --> 00:08:21,040 to deliver something. And so that is the complete 132 00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:24,040 opposite side where the expectation is, you know, you're 133 00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:30,080 working night and day to deliver something, which actually can be 134 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:34,720 quite exciting because you may only have 10 people working. 135 00:08:34,720 --> 00:08:38,159 You're all maybe in one, you know, location or getting on to 136 00:08:38,159 --> 00:08:41,000 it. There is no bureaucracy per SE. 137 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:42,960 If you need to go and get a laptop, you just buy one. 138 00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:44,680 If you need to do something, you just do it. 139 00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:49,080 It's complete opposite side. And often they do look for sort 140 00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:53,640 of hungry, excited graduates who have just come out. 141 00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:58,240 Let's have a PhD or maybe even just a normal bachelor's or 142 00:08:58,240 --> 00:09:04,000 master's degree, but you're not going to get that sort of, you 143 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:07,480 know, continual professional development that that sense of, 144 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:12,920 you know, slowly helping you to do it, courses, training, you 145 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:14,960 know, you may have three months to ramp up. 146 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:17,800 That's, that's, that's not the way it's going to be. 147 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:19,080 So you're going to be on the other end. 148 00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:24,240 But the positive thing is if the startup does well, you may have 149 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:27,240 been given shares, you could financially do quite well out of 150 00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:30,280 it and you have a buzz of having, you know, delivered 151 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:34,280 something. And in for some ways it can be a 152 00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:42,360 way to very quickly gain knowledge and reputation and can 153 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:46,520 help you to then move on to other career paths because 154 00:09:46,520 --> 00:09:49,000 you've had to, you know, so quickly do something and the 155 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:51,960 startup is very exposed. So sometimes, particularly I see 156 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:55,440 in the US going to join startup can actually be quite a strong 157 00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:59,440 move for, for, for let's say an early career person because it 158 00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:02,200 gives them a, a sort of very rapid head start. 159 00:10:02,920 --> 00:10:06,600 And then I'd say, you know, the sort of mid market, the 160 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:09,040 companies that have are sort of in the middle. 161 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:12,000 I, I guess, you know, you're not joining such a massive 162 00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:14,920 enterprise company, but you're joining something that you know, 163 00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:20,920 will help you out, but maybe is the best of both worlds. 164 00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:23,720 You could sort of say that where it's small enough that you might 165 00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:25,240 have a strong community of people. 166 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:28,360 You would, you would know, you might have a, you know, a small 167 00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:31,760 team, but there's enough people within the organization and they 168 00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:33,600 still want to sort of look after you. 169 00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:38,040 And there is, you know, career progression either way. 170 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:41,520 And as small as the SMB business. 171 00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:45,640 It it's sort of again, a little bit closer to a start up that 172 00:10:45,640 --> 00:10:49,600 often the, the funding model and the career means that, you know, 173 00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:53,360 they can't afford to be having lots and lots of staff. 174 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:58,080 But one thing I didn't mention is in terms of responsibility, 175 00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:01,960 sometimes, and I think people who work in Formula One would 176 00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:07,440 find this, that there's always a difference between ownership and 177 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:10,120 responsibility. And sometimes when you're a, 178 00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:13,160 let's say, you know, early graduate, you're quite happy to 179 00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:16,400 be given a very small piece of something to work on and that's 180 00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:18,320 yours. But the other time, sometimes 181 00:11:18,320 --> 00:11:19,920 you think I'd like to be working all of it. 182 00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:24,800 So as an example, you know, if you're working in some very 183 00:11:24,800 --> 00:11:28,080 large engineering company, you might be responsible just for a 184 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:32,000 very, very small part of, let's say, that aircraft design or 185 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:37,240 that car design, or that that that industrial a piece of 186 00:11:37,240 --> 00:11:39,000 equipment or whatever, whatever it is. 187 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:42,280 Or in a software company, you could be a software development 188 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:46,160 engineer just working on a very small part of an overall 189 00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:49,160 product. But if you're in a smaller 190 00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:54,080 company, you may actually be responsible for, let's say, 191 00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:59,560 designing the whole car, or you may be responsible for writing 192 00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:04,000 the entire application. Now, probably by definition, 193 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:05,960 it's not going to be as complicated because if one 194 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:08,680 person can do it versus needing 500 people, it's obviously a 195 00:12:08,680 --> 00:12:11,520 different product. But there's a difference between 196 00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:13,440 sort of the ownership side of it. 197 00:12:13,880 --> 00:12:16,880 And that can often be something and, and one reason that people 198 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:20,480 switch between sort of large companies and small companies 199 00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:23,120 because they feel they want to have, you know, more ownership 200 00:12:23,120 --> 00:12:28,600 or more, more scope to take of a whole thing rather than just a 201 00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:30,800 narrow fix. So the classic example would be 202 00:12:30,800 --> 00:12:33,720 in Formula One, a lot of people that when they start, you know, 203 00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:38,000 they're working just on a front wing flap or maybe less so now 204 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,560 with the new rules, but something very specific. 205 00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:43,960 Whereas if you join, let's say, a smaller engineering 206 00:12:43,960 --> 00:12:48,280 consultancy company that's been asked to develop an aero kit for 207 00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:50,520 a whole car, you may be asked, right, can you do the 208 00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:53,440 aerodynamics for the car? So it's a very different sort of 209 00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:56,560 job. Pros and cons on, on, on both 210 00:12:56,560 --> 00:13:00,080 sides. But then there's also an 211 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:04,920 interesting one, and this is maybe where I see and probably 212 00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:08,680 not as well known, but this barrier between what some people 213 00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:11,800 would call sort of traditional engineering companies. 214 00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:14,240 And that's some of the names I've mentioned then like, you 215 00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:16,200 know, your Rolls Royce and your hairdos and all the others. 216 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:23,200 And then what I would sort of call the sort of more slightly 217 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:28,960 newer in a way, but commercial or tech companies that actually 218 00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:33,520 are increasingly doing more of the engineering that the 219 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:35,200 traditional engineering companies would do. 220 00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:39,760 And what do I mean by that Is there are consulting companies, 221 00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:46,200 you know, like your Cap Gemini, PwC, I'm probably going to 222 00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:48,840 forget the names of these companies, but all these sort of 223 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:54,640 large consulting companies that actually do. 224 00:13:54,680 --> 00:13:57,640 And, and I guess you could call companies like Arab as well in 225 00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:04,080 that when they have specialist teams knowledge that help 226 00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:08,440 perhaps some of these big engineering companies to do some 227 00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:13,600 of this work and they either are essentially outsourced to that 228 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:19,000 company or they provide expert sort of guidance into that 229 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,600 company. And we could probably go into a 230 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:24,600 bit of a deep dive into this and this whole idea that large 231 00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:29,240 companies are quite slow to innovate versus sort of smaller 232 00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:32,400 or, or companies that are focused on on that. 233 00:14:32,880 --> 00:14:38,120 So there's actually a lot of jobs for people to move into the 234 00:14:38,120 --> 00:14:41,200 more consulting space. And this is sometimes a little 235 00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:46,920 bit of a controversial topic, particularly the stereotype is 236 00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:50,480 that some people when they finish their engineering degree 237 00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:54,400 will will not go into quote UN quote, a traditional engineering 238 00:14:54,400 --> 00:14:58,720 company and will instead go to one of these consulting 239 00:14:58,720 --> 00:15:01,320 companies because there is perception of, you know, greater 240 00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:05,520 money and a bit more of a sort of commercial sort of 241 00:15:05,520 --> 00:15:07,760 environment. And, and to some extent that is 242 00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:11,960 probably true. Certainly in the UK it is, maybe 243 00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:16,920 it's less so in other countries, but there is this sense of these 244 00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:19,080 consultants companies that quite often, let's say they're based 245 00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:22,840 in London, again, sorry, bit of Auk centric view here. 246 00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:25,880 And they can be a bit more exciting because you may be paid 247 00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:27,200 a bit more. You're living in the city, 248 00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:31,560 you're sort of working in a more commercial environment where the 249 00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:34,080 sort of stereotype of going into the engineering company might 250 00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:36,920 be, you know, you're in a factory in the middle of 251 00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:42,000 nowhere, which is sort of true. But there are, you know, lots of 252 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:45,680 pros of, of working in those engineering companies, 253 00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:48,840 particularly if you really, really love sort of engineering. 254 00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:53,360 Now those companies are realizing that and they're 255 00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:56,240 obviously trying to change. So the engineering companies, 256 00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:58,880 the traditional engineering companies are trying to, you 257 00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:03,640 know, attract younger talent and then trying to show that they're 258 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:05,520 more innovative. And I think that is certainly 259 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:08,880 becoming the, the, the case. But I say it because from a 260 00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:11,560 career point of view, if you're looking, let's say on a job site 261 00:16:11,560 --> 00:16:15,000 or, or or for places, if you're into, let's say mechanical 262 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:19,000 engineering or automotive or aerospace, there are there are 263 00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:22,640 other options than just the big traditional engineering 264 00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:26,320 companies or even some of those. And now we can get into what I 265 00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:30,920 would call this hierarchy maybe. And hierarchy doesn't mean good 266 00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:32,840 to bad. It's just in terms of the way 267 00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:38,000 that they do it, the there are many, many opportunities and 268 00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:41,040 companies that supply to the big companies. 269 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:46,760 So you know, you don't have Airbus may or Boeing may sort of 270 00:16:47,400 --> 00:16:51,120 appear to be the aircraft manufacturer, but in fact there 271 00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:55,160 is hundreds or thousands of companies that develop sub 272 00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:58,480 components for them. And and actually the large 273 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:00,440 company outsource quite a lot to it. 274 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:03,400 So it very dependent on the company. 275 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:07,319 But it's not the case that to work on aircraft design, you 276 00:17:07,319 --> 00:17:12,240 have to work maybe at a Boeing or Bombardier or or Embraer or 277 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:16,880 or Airbus or whatever. But there are sort of Tier 2, 278 00:17:16,880 --> 00:17:20,520 tier 3 except companies that will build the landing gear or 279 00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:25,480 the components or, or or again do consulting advice to those. 280 00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:29,080 So there's, there's far more of those companies and sometimes, 281 00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:32,480 and this depends on the sector, it can be a stepping stone a 282 00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:36,600 little bit if if you wanted to get into the big company, but 283 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,560 for whatever reason there wasn't a job available, then there are 284 00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:44,000 options to obviously go to these sort of smaller companies, 285 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:47,600 sometimes smaller to gain that experience that you may then 286 00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:49,440 want to have the experience to go up. 287 00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:53,120 And, and that's certainly true sort of from a motorsport 288 00:17:53,120 --> 00:17:55,600 perspective, the classic example being people want to work in 289 00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:57,760 Formula One. There's only a certain number of 290 00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:01,920 jobs in Formula One, so either you just keep applying, but what 291 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:04,280 do you do in the meantime? Well, actually then there are 292 00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:09,360 lots of companies that are sort of side auxiliary to to Formula 293 00:18:09,360 --> 00:18:14,920 One, have a lower Formula One series or companies that provide 294 00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:19,080 things to the Formula One teams. And this is probably where the 295 00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:24,800 software side comes into it. So again, I suppose I'm, you 296 00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:28,280 know, maybe most people listening to this I assume are 297 00:18:28,280 --> 00:18:33,240 probably more engineering type people, but maybe some of you 298 00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:36,600 have also done a little bit of what I've done, which is 299 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:40,760 appreciate that nowadays engineering is very much a 300 00:18:40,760 --> 00:18:45,000 software driven industry. It's very much a sort of digital 301 00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:47,920 industry. And that is of course why there 302 00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:52,520 are so many software companies, software companies doing a whole 303 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:57,640 range of things that increasingly have much closer 304 00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:02,680 links to engineering. And so for example, they have 305 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:05,360 the very large companies, which I would still call them now an 306 00:19:05,360 --> 00:19:11,600 enterprise like Siemens or Ansys or Cadence or DASSO or or the 307 00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:13,680 others which I'm probably forgetting to mention. 308 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:18,320 These are extremely large companies developing a whole 309 00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:23,960 range of software that has, you know, is explicitly designed to 310 00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:28,800 some extent for engineering. And so engineers are very 311 00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:33,280 attractive both from a software engineering point of view, so 312 00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:37,240 developing the software, but also we'll we'll come into this 313 00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:39,920 in a minute in terms of job roles, they want people with an 314 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:44,280 engineering background to be able to either sell the product, 315 00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:46,360 develop the product, research a product. 316 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:51,440 So, and that is a very, I would say, growing industry to the 317 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:54,320 point it's probably growing faster than the traditional 318 00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:59,840 engineering. And it's also true that many, 319 00:19:59,960 --> 00:20:04,280 you know, if you were to go back 40 years ago, those engineering 320 00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:06,680 companies would have probably developed their own software. 321 00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:10,480 So if you go back and look at the, you know, old school 322 00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:18,080 Lockheed Martin or. Or, or Boeing or BA systems or 323 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:21,400 whatever that was before it was BA systems or, or certainly in 324 00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:26,000 Germany and France and, and, and probably in Asia as well. 325 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:29,800 And all around the world, 40 years ago, you basically had to 326 00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,440 write your own code because there wasn't first of all, you 327 00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:37,800 know, computing and software was far, far different and you had 328 00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:41,040 to do it really yourself. If you Fast forward to now, 329 00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:46,680 there's a whole multi billion or trillion dollar industry for 330 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:51,000 software to the point that increasingly companies are 331 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,800 making a decision not to develop their own software, but instead 332 00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:59,200 to buy the software. And increasingly also, and you 333 00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,400 know, people know that I, I used to work at a cloud computing 334 00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:04,520 company. It's, it's the same, it's the 335 00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:08,680 same for that, that increasingly now even in terms of buying your 336 00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:11,280 own hardware or data centres, you're looking to sort of 337 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:14,600 outsource it to another company, which means some of those jobs 338 00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:17,280 are being shifted to those other companies. 339 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:23,240 So I would say the biggest thing is the idea that engineering is 340 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:28,200 transitioning from the traditional companies to sort of 341 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:30,680 the more digital or software companies. 342 00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:35,600 Now, that's also why many of these traditional engineering 343 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:38,800 companies are trying to redefine themselves as software companies 344 00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:42,360 because they realize that that really they need to become more 345 00:21:42,360 --> 00:21:46,200 of a, a sort of software company than just a hardware company, 346 00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:49,520 particularly because of the way the the the world is working. 347 00:21:50,360 --> 00:21:53,320 And I've made a note down here that I'm going to definitely 348 00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:57,080 talk about AI because that is a certainly a big one when it 349 00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:03,600 comes to the job market. But OK, so that's the companies 350 00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:07,200 and I'm I'm purposely not mentioning lots of specific 351 00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:10,480 names because it's just so country dependent and and 352 00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,320 industry dependent within, you know, the engineering sector. 353 00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:18,640 But hopefully that's given you at least what I would say is the 354 00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:23,320 sense of the different companies that that you could potentially 355 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:26,880 join or work for. But what about job roles? 356 00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:31,880 And, and again, some of these people will know and be obvious. 357 00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:35,560 There's some stuff that I don't think I knew actually before. 358 00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:37,360 So I'm hoping maybe some of this might help. 359 00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:42,040 So you do obviously have your sort of traditional quote UN 360 00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:44,800 quote engineering roles. But what really is an 361 00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,280 engineering role? It's actually, it's quite, it's 362 00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:52,000 quite different. I would, I would sort of split 363 00:22:52,000 --> 00:23:00,640 it that you have engineering roles, specialist engineering 364 00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:01,960 roles. And what do I mean by that? 365 00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,400 I mean domain specific. So in quite a lot of companies 366 00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:09,400 you'll have a fluids group, A structures group, A sort of 367 00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:14,480 battery group, you know, sort of more maybe the, the chemistry 368 00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:19,760 side of it, sort of a noise group, maybe looking at water 369 00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:23,280 and, and, and soiling. They'll be a manufacturing 370 00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:28,400 group, they'll be composites group, there'll be a sort of 371 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:31,680 physical testing group. They'll be and they would hire 372 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:36,600 specialists in to them and that's where you would typically 373 00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:40,920 find doing a PhD would be useful because they might want a fluid 374 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:47,280 specialist in in that group. Now that is obviously dependent 375 00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:50,280 on sort of the company and a very large enterprise company 376 00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:54,320 may have hundreds of people in a dedicated fluid sort of group. 377 00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:57,440 And you know, Oh well, like a Formula One team in aerodynamics 378 00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:00,120 division where you maybe have hundreds of people just in 379 00:24:00,120 --> 00:24:05,120 aerodynamics. And that this is sort of linking 380 00:24:05,120 --> 00:24:06,520 to my first point about companies. 381 00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:11,240 And if you are in let's say one of those, you have sort of 382 00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:13,560 career progression within that, you know, oh, I could be a 383 00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,560 junior aerodynamicist or senior aerodynamics, principal 384 00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:21,400 aerodynamics, etcetera. But if you then go into a, a 385 00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:25,640 smaller company, perhaps maybe there's only one aerodynamicist. 386 00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:30,360 So that aerodynamicist in some ways needs to be potentially 387 00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:36,160 more rounded and qualified and given much more responsibility 388 00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:38,160 because there's only one of them. 389 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:41,680 So it there's a potential career move from, let's say one of 390 00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,120 these big companies where you were one of 100 to just being 391 00:24:44,120 --> 00:24:46,240 one because you may find that exciting because you're owning 392 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:47,880 all of it. So this is where there's always 393 00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,000 a bit of movement between. So I think there's sort of 394 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:55,120 specialist engineers and then some people find that, well, you 395 00:24:55,120 --> 00:24:58,040 need engineering managers because somebody needs to manage 396 00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:00,480 it. And that actually is in itself 397 00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:02,680 its own sort of job role and skill. 398 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:09,920 Managing people, lots of people is a full time job and is not 399 00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,480 just a a sort of thing you do on the side, at least for good 400 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,120 companies. There's also a lot of sort of 401 00:25:15,360 --> 00:25:18,720 project management jobs and this is where some people find that 402 00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,080 they actually really enjoy organizing things and doing 403 00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:24,320 things, but don't want to be deep diving in one particular 404 00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,240 sort of sub domain of fluids or structures. 405 00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,160 They just they feel like they're an engineer. 406 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,640 And some people like either become therefore more than 407 00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,120 engineering manager. There are in some large 408 00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:37,880 companies that what they call some chief engineers or 409 00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,440 assistant engineers, but these are people and there's a 410 00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:43,880 borderline between I guess project management and 411 00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,080 engineering management. But certainly I see that in in 412 00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:51,600 some of the large sort of Rolls Royce tech companies where these 413 00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:55,560 are the, these are the people who are supposed to look at the 414 00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,520 bigger picture. How do you deliver that product? 415 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:05,080 How do you actually get that thing out and you need to manage 416 00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:09,320 or organize or direct, you know, some fluids analysis here, some 417 00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:13,720 structural analysis here, some some manufacturing analysis 418 00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:17,440 here, some maybe market analysis here and you're coordinating all 419 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:19,240 of it. And that actually is it's own 420 00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:25,200 typical job family. They often the big companies are 421 00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,640 sometimes the ones to get that because they will train you up 422 00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,160 in how to do it and sort of movie between projects. 423 00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:34,440 Certainly that's the case that some of these large like the 424 00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,440 Rolls Royce, the Hebbels, the Boeing, well, they'll sometimes 425 00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,320 almost have like schemes to identify people like that. 426 00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:45,720 Then I think it's important to note that some people actually 427 00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:51,320 like to go in to more of a sort of cross in the middle, which I 428 00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:57,480 would sort of call maybe technical marketing where you 429 00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,640 it's a marketing role, but it's you've come from a technical 430 00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:03,800 back background to do that marketing role. 431 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,440 And that's very common actually in software companies. 432 00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,640 So if you look in all the tech companies, there are hundreds or 433 00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,480 probably thousands of jobs or what they call like product 434 00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,680 marketing or technical marketing and they're looking to hire 435 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,640 people with a technical background. 436 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:24,720 It is not a pure marketing job. You need to understand the 437 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,520 technical side. And often it's people even with 438 00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,520 PhDs or things. And that can actually be quite 439 00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,280 exciting for some people because they may like sort of a 440 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,880 different side of, of, of work, not just pure engineering. 441 00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,360 And they may enjoy the sort of marketing and sales. 442 00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:42,880 And so that is actually something that is worth thinking 443 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,320 about. You can still stay technical, 444 00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:47,760 but go into these more technical marketing roles. 445 00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:50,240 And like I said, in the software world, that is increasingly 446 00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:55,600 becoming quite a big one. The other one, and I'm saying 447 00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,680 this because I feel like some people leave engineering because 448 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,560 they think, well, I'm either just an engineer that has oil on 449 00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,520 my hands or I need to get out and do something else. 450 00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,240 And sort of what I'm saying is you can be an engineer but do 451 00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:12,080 many other things. And so a good example of that is 452 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:15,600 sales. So some people may like the 453 00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,800 idea, they may be driven more by a sort of commercial mindset. 454 00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:21,280 And some of those may be for, you know, I just need to leave 455 00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:25,000 engineering and go and work for a sort of financial institution 456 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,680 or go and work just just outside or not even do engineering. 457 00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:33,720 But actually in many, many companies, and again, a lot 458 00:28:34,120 --> 00:28:38,080 software companies, certainly true, they need people to sell 459 00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,720 that software, but you need people who are technically 460 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,440 minded to do it as well because often you're talking about 461 00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,200 complex stuff. If you're trying to sell a piece 462 00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:50,720 of software that can manage all the manufacturing components or 463 00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,080 some sort of, you know, fluid dynamic software, you, you sort 464 00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,200 of need to know the area. So there's a whole load of 465 00:28:56,200 --> 00:29:02,800 positions and jobs in sales. And some of that is what they 466 00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,920 call business development. So it's more the strategy of how 467 00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,240 you would do it. I think what they call go to 468 00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:14,440 market or GTM phrase I'd never heard before, but it's it's very 469 00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,200 common once you're sort of in the in the software or tech 470 00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:19,800 market. And then you also have pure 471 00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,360 sales, which often they're sort of quota driven. 472 00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,840 So it's, you know, I need to sell this this much a month. 473 00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,440 And some people really love that because it's sort of exciting 474 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,520 because you're, you know, you're, you're trying to get to 475 00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,800 target and there are things like account managers. 476 00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:37,880 And you have this again at in consultant companies or software 477 00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,240 companies where you're sort of managing a customer or a set of 478 00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:46,480 customers. Now, one of the big job families 479 00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,560 obviously is software development engineers. 480 00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:51,840 And so they often call them SD ES. 481 00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:57,520 And that is something that has sort of blown up and something I 482 00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:03,240 definitely was not aware of when I did my sort of traditional 483 00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,840 engineering background. And what do I mean by that is 484 00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,040 again, because of the software need and they do have them. 485 00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:16,720 They do of course have these in these engineering companies, but 486 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,520 definitely, definitely in the big tech companies. 487 00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,960 There are thousand 10s of thousands of STS software 488 00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,240 development engineers who are there to develop code. 489 00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,560 Now, some come from a computer science background, but many 490 00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,520 also come from an engineering background because you need very 491 00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:37,880 strong programming skills. But also it's useful if you have 492 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,160 some sort of mathematical or engineering background. 493 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:44,040 And engineering tends to be a good thing for problem solving. 494 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:49,480 And there is a huge market for this, whether you're talking in 495 00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:54,280 the the Googles, the Facebooks, the Amazons, the Nvidias, all 496 00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,960 those sort of tech companies and other ones like, you know, 497 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,360 Netflix or, or or whoever else to write code. 498 00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:07,000 And there is A and I can talk about this maybe in the in the 499 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,360 next section about the sort of tech sector. 500 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:14,360 But this is really interesting for or career option for sort of 501 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,200 engineering graduates. And even I know people who have 502 00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:20,920 in so much retrained to go into this. 503 00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,840 So even if you're have a job, you may find it quite 504 00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,280 interesting career path to go down that route. 505 00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,880 You may have to retrain in terms of, you know, developing your 506 00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:32,760 coding skills or software skills. 507 00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,720 But it's a very interesting market that I think with the 508 00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:41,160 rise of AI is becoming one of the sort of dominant job type of 509 00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:46,680 positions to have. OK, so now maybe let's turn to 510 00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,600 something I mentioned before, which is the the tech sector and 511 00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,320 how I think this is actually increasingly becoming an area 512 00:31:54,320 --> 00:32:00,000 very relevant to to engineers and is only going to grow for 513 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:06,520 for two reasons really. One is that there is a move to 514 00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:10,080 digital engineering certification by analysis and 515 00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:12,880 that is true across the whole of the engineering sector. 516 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,440 Whereas aerospace, automotive, defence, manufacturing, 517 00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:20,040 industrial, really any of those industries are increasingly 518 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:25,480 using software to define, to develop, to test their their 519 00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:27,600 products. You've all heard of things like 520 00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:31,640 digital twins. And of course, and this is an 521 00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:38,880 important and AIAI, whether you are a big believer in AI or a 522 00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:43,400 bit of a sceptic, is becoming a huge thing for all engineering 523 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,920 companies. And that is a great opportunity 524 00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:50,760 for for jobs. There are many opportunities, 525 00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:53,520 whether you're in the large enterprise, I spoke about the 526 00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:58,200 the small ones, the start-ups, some will develop in house, some 527 00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,920 will buy in. So regardless of what they do, 528 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:06,160 there are many opportunities for software jobs, which is 529 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,440 typically developed by tech companies. 530 00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:12,200 Of course, tech companies do more than just develop software. 531 00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,040 They also sometimes develop hardware. 532 00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:17,080 And so there is a blurred line sometimes between that. 533 00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,480 But, and again, some of you listening will, will know this 534 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,560 very well. And so apologies maybe to some 535 00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,440 of you, but there maybe some of you are not so familiar with 536 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,280 this. And so I'll, I'll say it anyway 537 00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:34,400 and, and hopefully it's useful. So what do I mean by the sort of 538 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,360 tech companies? Again, I was not aware of this. 539 00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,520 I will put my, my hand up. I was not fully aware of this 540 00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:46,320 probably, you know, 10 years ago or, or even 7 years ago, I 541 00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,480 wasn't fully aware of this whole sector actually. 542 00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:55,760 So, and, and that's probably because it's traditionally being 543 00:33:55,760 --> 00:34:01,760 a more US centric industry. And you know, being in the UK 544 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:07,720 myself, it's maybe has only more recently become a bit more 545 00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,080 known. And still though, I don't think 546 00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:10,639 isn't that known. And I think that's true for, 547 00:34:10,679 --> 00:34:13,199 for, for Europe and, and the rest of the world. 548 00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:20,760 So there are companies like Amazon, like Facebook or Meta, 549 00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:27,679 like NVIDIA, like Google, like Microsoft, Oracle, trying to 550 00:34:27,679 --> 00:34:30,400 think of other companies, you know, those are the sort of big 551 00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:33,800 ones, I guess now, of course, open AI, etcetera. 552 00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:40,719 But if we take the, the, the, the big companies, what do they 553 00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:43,400 do? And, and by the way, there is a, 554 00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,880 there is an acronym Fang, which I, I should have researched this 555 00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:53,440 actually, maybe let's, let's do some live Googling. 556 00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:59,000 So it was Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet. 557 00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:05,480 That was the traditional one. Of course, now Meta, etcetera, 558 00:35:06,720 --> 00:35:09,160 but that's just sort of an acronym. 559 00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:13,840 And then I think they call it the is it Magnificent 7? 560 00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:18,720 I think I've heard that phrase used. 561 00:35:18,720 --> 00:35:22,200 But anyway, the, the point is there are these sort of big tech 562 00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:24,760 companies, but there's many, many others and the sort of 563 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,680 start-ups increasingly that sort of blur the line between it. 564 00:35:28,240 --> 00:35:34,000 But what do they do? Well, of course, if you look at 565 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:38,960 something like Meta, you know, obviously they develop Facebook, 566 00:35:39,240 --> 00:35:43,760 Instagram, WhatsApp, but they have a lot of research teams and 567 00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,880 they have products that they they make as well. 568 00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:51,560 And so physical products sometimes that's certainly true 569 00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:57,080 with, with Amazon and and Google, who obviously have 570 00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,080 devices. So they have to, you know, make 571 00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:02,400 devices, but they develop software. 572 00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,520 And you know, I used to work at a cloud computing company, AWS, 573 00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,600 and of course they have a huge base of employees, you know, 574 00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:15,320 hundreds of thousands of people who develop software and you can 575 00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,560 use it through sort of a cloud interface. 576 00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:19,640 And that's the same with Google, the Microsoft and others. 577 00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:26,360 So the tech sector is massive. And let's focus why it's 578 00:36:26,720 --> 00:36:32,840 interesting for engineering. Well, a lot of and, and by the 579 00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:37,000 way, before I do that, I should say that is I would say that's 580 00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:43,520 that's called the tech sector. But I think it's probably worth 581 00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,520 also linking that particularly because we're talking about 582 00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:52,240 engineering now with the software market as well. 583 00:36:52,240 --> 00:36:57,120 Because I think there is a bit of a blurred line in the sense 584 00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:01,040 of the Siemens, I think I suppose you'd call it Siemens 585 00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,560 Digital Industries, because Siemens is obviously a very big 586 00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,760 company. The ANSYS, the Cadence, the 587 00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:13,240 Dassault, you know, Autodesk Synopsis, I'm probably 588 00:37:13,240 --> 00:37:17,640 forgetting some of the other companies now Hexagon that 589 00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,120 develop software. And these are very large 590 00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:22,840 organisations, you know, multibillion dollar companies 591 00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:24,640 that that sort of develop this software. 592 00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:29,480 And so I would sort of tie them in actually in the sense of, of 593 00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,280 what they're doing, particularly in terms of, of, of job roles. 594 00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:37,240 So if you look at, let's say, the tech sector, what sort of 595 00:37:37,240 --> 00:37:39,920 job roles are there and what could you be doing there? 596 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:44,680 Well, as I said, there are a very large number of SDS, 597 00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,120 software development engineers, people who are expected to, you 598 00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,160 know, write code for a whole range of different things. 599 00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,880 And in some ways they typically start off being generalists. 600 00:37:55,280 --> 00:38:00,760 So a fungible sort of asset that is just great at coding and 601 00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,880 programming. And so those are quite often 602 00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:05,760 entry level positions that you come in. 603 00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,200 And at the beginning you may be literally just working on any 604 00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,880 piece of, you know, databases, web applications, high 605 00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:16,640 performance computing, machine learning, you know, just really 606 00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:18,720 anything. And you may be just given a 607 00:38:18,720 --> 00:38:22,640 small sort of task to do. But in terms of career 608 00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:28,080 progression, you know, you will find that you'd become then much 609 00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:33,400 more potentially specific to a certain area and you would take 610 00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:37,040 more responsibility where you may end up either managing a 611 00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,440 team of sort of software development engineers, which is 612 00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:44,520 often referred to as SDM software development manager, or 613 00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:49,640 you may stay what actually is a sort of individual contributor. 614 00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:51,240 And I should, I should explain this. 615 00:38:51,240 --> 00:38:54,000 And I realise I'm probably rambling on a little bit in this 616 00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,120 podcast episode. So apologies about that. 617 00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,520 I suppose I'm trying to make it as if we were just having a 618 00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:04,520 conversation in a in a pub, just without the alcohol. 619 00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:10,920 Typically in the tech sector, I would argue one of the benefits 620 00:39:11,240 --> 00:39:17,600 is that there are typically 2 paths, the management path and 621 00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:21,440 the IC path. Individual contributor and I 622 00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,440 actually quite like that because I think some people are 623 00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,360 different. I personally, I've never been a 624 00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,680 manager and I don't particularly have a great desire to be a 625 00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:35,800 manager. And sometimes in other companies 626 00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:39,200 that can actually be a bit of a ceiling to your career if you 627 00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:41,680 don't want to, you know, manage people, that might be it. 628 00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:45,080 You could never progress because the only way to progress is to 629 00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:47,360 be a manager and a director and a senior director. 630 00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:51,000 And you know, as you go up where actually in a lot of tech 631 00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:55,920 companies, what's great is they have a track pretty much all the 632 00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,720 way to the top for individual contributors. 633 00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:02,080 And to go back to the discussion I was just having about SD ES, 634 00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,240 that's where there are this notion of, you know, a principal 635 00:40:05,240 --> 00:40:08,120 engineer or distinguished engineer or senior principal 636 00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:11,000 engineer or a fellow or whatever the naming convention is in that 637 00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,280 particular company. And these are individual 638 00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:17,560 contributors. That can actually, I said be 639 00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:19,640 very senior, but have no management. 640 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:24,360 And that is something actually, I think quite important to know 641 00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,120 because some people believe that the only way to progress is 642 00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,000 essentially to become a manager, which for some people they want 643 00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:35,400 to do and they're good at doing, but it's important to know that 644 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:41,280 you don't have to to do that. So the, the Ste. root is a very 645 00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,320 interesting root if you are particularly strong on the code 646 00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,960 in the programming side. Now I typically find that people 647 00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:50,760 are are one or the other. They're either very good at 648 00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,600 programming and enjoy it, but like, you know, foreign 649 00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:57,560 languages, I guess, or they really don't like it or they're 650 00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,520 not very good at it. And so the Ste. root is 651 00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:02,920 definitely more you like programming, you're good at 652 00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,120 programming. But there is also an interesting 653 00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:09,520 site that then has a parallel to sort of project management in 654 00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,840 terms of engineering. That actually a key role is 655 00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:16,360 software development managers who have to, you know, organize 656 00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:21,720 sprints and put things in in dashboards to track progression 657 00:41:21,720 --> 00:41:24,720 of, you know, which bit of code has been developed here and how 658 00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:26,840 does it meet this target? And then it has to go through a 659 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:31,120 security review and app SEC and a legal review, and then it has 660 00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,240 to be checked by somebody else. And this is whole sort of 661 00:41:33,240 --> 00:41:35,720 management that happens in these big tech companies. 662 00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:41,440 So you do find that actually people move over from sort of 663 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:45,280 traditional engineering into this software sometimes as 664 00:41:45,720 --> 00:41:48,680 software development managers. So if you, let's say, are 665 00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:50,800 someone who work at a traditional engineering company 666 00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,280 and you've been leading a group of engineers to develop 667 00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:58,000 something, you may actually find there is a career option in a 668 00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,880 tech company leading a team of software development engineers, 669 00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,120 particularly if it's related to something in the engineering 670 00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,200 space, which we'll get on to a minute is, is quite often 671 00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:10,120 increasingly happening. And of course, vice versa. 672 00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:14,920 You know, if you're sort of STM in a tech company, you may find 673 00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,280 there could be interesting roles in an engineering company 674 00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:20,720 because of the of, of the overlap. 675 00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,840 So that's that's what I would call the engineering teams. 676 00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:28,280 And this is important distinction actually that maybe 677 00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:32,160 it's not so well known, at least in my experience, all these tech 678 00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,720 companies and I think it's true also with the software companies 679 00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:43,040 typically have two or three broad vertical areas, which is 680 00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:47,360 the engineering or product side of the business. 681 00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,480 I mean, this is true for pretty much all the tech companies 682 00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:55,440 where your responsibility is to develop the products and 683 00:42:55,720 --> 00:43:01,320 engineer the code. So there's a lot of engineers or 684 00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:06,280 you are in quote UN quote, the sales bit of the organization 685 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,600 where essentially your job is to sell the stuff that the 686 00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:14,640 engineers make. It's a very, you know, crude 687 00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:16,880 distinction because of course there is a lot of overlap and 688 00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,320 there's a lot of information exchange between the two. 689 00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:25,160 And then sometimes under sales is is marketing, but sometimes 690 00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:26,800 it's a separate sort of vertical. 691 00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:30,000 And then quite often these companies sometimes have a sort 692 00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:35,960 of third or fourth leg, which is their consulting or professional 693 00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:41,120 services, which is essentially when you have a product, you try 694 00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:45,720 and sell it, but the customer says I need you to help me to 695 00:43:45,720 --> 00:43:47,600 implement it or maybe even improve it. 696 00:43:48,240 --> 00:43:51,680 And those are very large tech companies quite often have a, a 697 00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:57,920 special arm that is you quite often would pay the company to 698 00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,360 have people come into your company to help you to do it. 699 00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:02,080 Sometimes hands on keyboard help. 700 00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,640 So that that is actually, and I think it's important to know 701 00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:08,840 this because sometimes when you look at job roles online, it's 702 00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,000 not immediately obvious what side of the business it's on. 703 00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:17,000 And that can have an influence in terms of what, what job you 704 00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:21,000 would, you know, be doing. So that's the engineering. 705 00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,360 Now another role is product management. 706 00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:33,320 That is something that is very common in the software and tech 707 00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:38,560 sectors. And your job is to manage the 708 00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:42,560 direction and the definition of the product. 709 00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:47,280 Now that product could be a piece of CFD software. 710 00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:51,800 If it's a very big piece of CFD software, it could be a sub 711 00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:54,440 component of that piece of CFD software. 712 00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,240 So you are the product manager for the meshing team or the 713 00:44:58,240 --> 00:45:03,480 meshing bit of the product or you are the product manager for 714 00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,080 a particular cloud computing service. 715 00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:10,920 So you're the product manager for Amazon S3 or for Google, you 716 00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,680 know, blah, blah, blah, whatever the name of the service is that 717 00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:18,280 you don't have to come from an engineering background. 718 00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,880 And quite often, actually, people more come from a, doing 719 00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,600 an MBA, let's say. But quite often, depending on 720 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,600 the company, while they do value having a technical or 721 00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:32,600 engineering background. And then your job is to, as I 722 00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:34,600 said, come up with the product definition. 723 00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:37,080 And it's slightly different than the engineering and it does 724 00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:40,960 depend on the company, but normally the product manager is 725 00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:45,320 the one who will think about the needs of the end user. 726 00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:50,080 The customer will sort of work with the sales team to get that, 727 00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:54,640 you know, definition of what the product is or to help liaise, 728 00:45:54,840 --> 00:46:00,000 you know, with them to define what the product should be and 729 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,080 then work with the engineering team to actually deliver it. 730 00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:05,560 And of course, this is a team effort. 731 00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,240 So typically that project manner will be, you know, very much 732 00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:12,360 managing and tracking progress. You know, this needs to happen, 733 00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:15,480 this needs to happen, this needs to happen at this timeline 734 00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:17,640 timeline. They need to be technical enough 735 00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,280 to push back and to understand, you know, if a customer says I 736 00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,000 need this feature X or, you know, to even understand what it 737 00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,360 is and to be able to understand the language of the engineering 738 00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:30,280 team, you know, to understand what what needs to be done and, 739 00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:32,320 and sort of understand timelines, etcetera. 740 00:46:32,720 --> 00:46:35,160 They're often they're responsible commercially for the 741 00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:37,240 revenue of it. So thinking, you know what, 742 00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:38,600 what, how much should we charge for it? 743 00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,040 How much money are we making on this thing? 744 00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:44,280 You know, clearly the software, there's either a license or or 745 00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:49,040 some sort of fee for it. And so that is a whole job 746 00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,400 family of its own. And you know, I would estimate 747 00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:54,760 there are 10s of thousands or hundreds of thousands of, you 748 00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:58,520 know, product management jobs and very transferable between 749 00:46:58,520 --> 00:46:59,920 companies. Many people move between 750 00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:04,280 companies because it is a skill to sort of manage a product and 751 00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:09,000 that again, very relevant for engineers to, to, to do because 752 00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,600 quite often they want a quite technical product manager. 753 00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:13,640 In fact, sometimes that's even part of the title, you know, 754 00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:15,240 it's sort of technical project management. 755 00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,160 So that's something if you look for as sort of job adverts, 756 00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:24,080 you'd see it as like PMT or PM. And that's like I said, if you 757 00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,920 enjoy some managing and particularly like some people 758 00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:31,120 come from like an MBA background or want to do an MBA, that's 759 00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,160 quite often for them. And the career progression of 760 00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:37,400 that is often then, you know, you manage a team of product 761 00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,720 managers, you become a director, you become AVP or something like 762 00:47:40,720 --> 00:47:42,720 that. That's something that I don't 763 00:47:42,720 --> 00:47:46,600 think is as well known, but it's definitely a career route for, 764 00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:51,440 for for some people. As I said, those would be 765 00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:56,280 typically the main sort of engineering functions. 766 00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:05,680 You would then find, let's go more into the sales part of the 767 00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,400 business. You would find a job family 768 00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:15,080 that's quite commonly referred to as a solution architect, 769 00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:20,080 quite a sort of tech sector type job title, but you know, very, 770 00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:25,360 very common and something that I find not all engineers know 771 00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,200 about. And so a solution architect, 772 00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:31,320 depends which company you work for, of course, is typically 773 00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:40,440 somebody who works to architect. It's going to be silly to say 774 00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:42,480 this because I'm essentially to say the job title in reverse, 775 00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:45,360 but architect the solution. What does that really mean is 776 00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:50,800 let's say you custom A, who wants to use a software product? 777 00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:55,680 B Well, first of all, maybe there's not just one software 778 00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:57,560 product, maybe there's many software products and the 779 00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,560 customer doesn't really know which one they should use. 780 00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:01,840 And then maybe they all need to connect together. 781 00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:05,320 And this is certainly true for sort of cloud services and, and 782 00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,200 the solution architect is someone who understands how to 783 00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:11,880 implement that solution, to guide them which solution they 784 00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:14,640 should pick, how to maybe link it into their environment. 785 00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:16,960 So I can certainly speak from let's say CFD or high 786 00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:19,920 performance computing background solution architect would be 787 00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:24,720 somebody who deeply understands HPC and CFD and would be able to 788 00:49:24,720 --> 00:49:29,680 say right customer AI think that first of all, let me explain 789 00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:31,760 what this product is. So you have to be quite 790 00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,600 technical and I think you should do it in this way. 791 00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:36,800 You know, you should use this service and I think if you 792 00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,320 connect it with this service, you'll be able to then do this. 793 00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:43,360 And you know, this is how we could do your existing systems 794 00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:46,760 and, and we'll work with you to sort of architect a diagram, you 795 00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:48,920 know, of how you would link all this stuff together. 796 00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,240 Maybe then there would be somebody who would help to maybe 797 00:49:52,240 --> 00:49:54,440 benchmark it, particularly from a software point of view, be 798 00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:59,200 like, OK, this is how it would perform and they would work to, 799 00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,840 you know, get that customer to to then buy it. 800 00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,800 And that's why sometimes it's called pre sales, although 801 00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:08,320 sometimes that can be a bit of a stigma and some people don't 802 00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:12,920 like to be called it pre sales. But traditionally it's sort of 803 00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:16,040 is that way that it's, it's quite often engagement before 804 00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:19,960 they buy that piece of software. And some companies explicitly 805 00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:23,360 call it pre sales and they even call it a pre sales engineer. 806 00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:28,640 I think that's a bit more true in the software market, let's 807 00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:30,080 say the answer Siemens, etcetera. 808 00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,280 But in the tech sector, quite often it's called a sort of 809 00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:36,000 solution architect. And there are different types. 810 00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,920 And this is where we could go into so many rabbit holes of 811 00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:41,400 specialist solution architect, the more generalist solution 812 00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:42,760 architect. But it's important because you 813 00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,840 will sometimes see these these jobs advertised and increase 814 00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:47,160 them. They are looking for engineers 815 00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:49,360 and a lot of engineers just don't know what the job is. 816 00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:55,440 So that's why I mention it. Usually the solution architect 817 00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,560 is working also with some sort of business development person 818 00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:02,560 who is there again, in a sales function to hopefully try and 819 00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:05,480 sell that product. But more than just sell, be an 820 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:10,200 advisor to, to the customer to say, look, I, you know, working 821 00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,360 closely with that solution architect who is perhaps a 822 00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:15,280 little bit more technical, but the business development is 823 00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:17,400 often still a technical role. And many of the people I know 824 00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:20,400 who do business development have come from very technical 825 00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:21,720 background. They have a degree that even the 826 00:51:21,720 --> 00:51:24,520 PhD, they've worked as an engineer, but they just enjoy 827 00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:28,000 the more commercial side, sort of quasi sales. 828 00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:32,800 So typically they work together and again, many opportunities, 829 00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,680 often a more pure sales role is something like an account 830 00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:39,760 manager. And that is where there's a lot 831 00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:43,040 of crossover to completely non engineering roles. 832 00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:47,280 You know, working at any sort of company where you're managing an 833 00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:49,320 account you're selling. I mean that is just such a broad 834 00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:52,400 role. So those are sort of what I 835 00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,880 would call the sales type of positions. 836 00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,000 Now I did mention that quite a lot of companies have these more 837 00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:03,920 consulting or professional services side of the business 838 00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:09,680 and these are usually very technical people because their 839 00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:13,240 job is to go in and practically help a customer. 840 00:52:13,240 --> 00:52:15,280 Hands on keyboard is using the phrase. 841 00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:19,120 So whilst the solution architect may give the advice, they're not 842 00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:23,040 usually allowed to actually touch a customer's account or, 843 00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:26,520 or, or work on the thing for legal reasons and, and 844 00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:28,920 financially sort of wouldn't really work out. 845 00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,800 So often there is a, a branch where they need technical people 846 00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,360 go in and actually help a customer to use that piece of 847 00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:41,200 software, whether it's a sort of web-based thing, let's say cloud 848 00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:43,840 or whether it's a engineering piece of software like CFD or 849 00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:45,960 fluids. And they will go in and help 850 00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:48,320 that customer to use and implement. 851 00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:50,480 And sometimes they don't charge for it. 852 00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:55,360 Quite often it is a business model to charge for it and there 853 00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:59,280 are lots of jobs needing very technical engineering people to 854 00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,640 do that. And that's again another a job 855 00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:04,720 option. And this is that link to I 856 00:53:04,720 --> 00:53:08,680 mentioned all those consulting companies and sometimes they're 857 00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:12,440 also called system integrators. And those are companies that 858 00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:16,360 will go in and actually help a very large organization 859 00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:20,560 typically to implement some big change or big use of software. 860 00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:24,600 And so sometimes rather than using, let's say, a tech 861 00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:28,560 companies, consulting engineers, they will go and use one of 862 00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:34,640 these big sort of consulting companies, whether it's, you 863 00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:38,760 know, Accenture or it could be Arab or it could be Boston 864 00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:41,560 Consulting, I guess technically and all these sort of companies 865 00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:45,160 that operate in that sphere to go and practically implement and 866 00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:47,200 go in. Often they also do sort of 867 00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:51,000 strategy work, but quite often it is hands on keyboard help. 868 00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:52,880 And again, that is another route. 869 00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:55,240 They often have dedicated engineering divisions like an 870 00:53:55,240 --> 00:53:58,720 aerospace division, defence division, etcetera. 871 00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:02,920 Now the final piece is maybe support. 872 00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:08,680 So in software companies there is often not just a pre sales 873 00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:12,120 but essentially a post sales, which is also referred to as 874 00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:15,360 typically a support. And those are also typically 875 00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:19,200 very engineering focused and they need to help customers who 876 00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:20,880 have bought the software and need help. 877 00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,840 Some people transition between pre sales, post sales and sort 878 00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:27,680 of development role within the engineering side of the 879 00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:30,000 business. And again, there are many jobs, 880 00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:33,560 let's say Siemens or an Ansys or Cadence, you know, hundreds of 881 00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:37,080 jobs for people with engineering degrees and backgrounds to 882 00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:41,720 support customers. And it's sometimes called 883 00:54:41,720 --> 00:54:45,240 Technical Support to go and help them to use and, and, and 884 00:54:45,240 --> 00:54:49,280 develop the software. And what's the further layer to 885 00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:52,880 this is that there's often teams specifically to cover, let's say 886 00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:56,320 EMEA to cover America to be a worldwide role. 887 00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:02,920 So how they do I just so many opportunities and increasingly 888 00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:05,600 they're Criss crossing with the traditional engineering 889 00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:07,680 companies. Sometimes the traditional 890 00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:10,320 engineering companies are sort of losing staff to go to those 891 00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:12,640 or it could be that the traditional engineers are 892 00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,360 creating their own little teams to sort of mirror a little bit 893 00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,040 what happens. But I think particularly the 894 00:55:19,040 --> 00:55:22,400 tech sector ones is stuff that a lot of people don't know about 895 00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:25,080 and I think increasingly that's going to be the case. 896 00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,160 OK, final thing, I know I've definitely been rambling on a 897 00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:31,200 lot. So if you have specific 898 00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:33,240 questions, maybe put it in the comments if you're watching on 899 00:55:33,240 --> 00:55:35,680 YouTube is the AI side of the piece. 900 00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:40,240 There are, and in some ways this is a bit of an overlap with what 901 00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:43,480 I'm talking, but it's it's really to re confirm the point 902 00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:50,000 because AI is becoming so important for for the end 903 00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:53,120 engineering companies, but also for the software companies to 904 00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:56,280 develop AI enhanced or focused products. 905 00:55:56,600 --> 00:56:01,040 There's a whole new set of jobs specifically looking at AI. 906 00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:04,480 And for me personally, I think one of the biggest interesting 907 00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:07,360 areas is either that just means there's just more need for the 908 00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:09,600 software development engineers to program that sort of stuff. 909 00:56:10,160 --> 00:56:13,200 But I would point out, and it is a little bit more in this 910 00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:16,200 industry at the moment, but it's going to grow, Is there's a lot 911 00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:20,720 of need for people with engineering, physics, maths for 912 00:56:20,720 --> 00:56:23,440 AI and that's sometimes called AI for science. 913 00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:25,560 And if you've listened to this podcast before, you'll see I've 914 00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:28,360 had quite a few guests talk about this AI for science. 915 00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:33,000 But there are more than 10 startups and Isvs now who are 916 00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,920 focused on using AI for engineering and sciences. 917 00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:42,520 And so they are looking for graduates and early and mid and 918 00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:45,560 late stage career people with that background. 919 00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,600 I would highly advise people that that is a great area to 920 00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,760 look to. First of all, it is, oh, you 921 00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:57,720 know, just an emerging area that is very exciting and it is 922 00:56:57,720 --> 00:57:00,760 something that not many people have the skills on. 923 00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:02,920 So it's quite a valuable resource. 924 00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:05,440 And so if you're, if you have those skills, you know, that's 925 00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:08,440 good for your career. But it's really, but it's 926 00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:11,960 bringing again this, I guess ARC that I'm talking about of 927 00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:14,080 software and traditional engineering together. 928 00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:17,440 Engineering companies are developing their own AI teams, 929 00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:19,560 software companies are developing their own AI 930 00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,600 products. So it's a great area to be in 931 00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:27,920 and really confirms this sort of Arc of there is more than just 932 00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:31,160 traditional engineering, but more so in terms of roles and 933 00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:33,560 and jobs. And I think you'll find that 934 00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:40,600 hopefully understanding this ecosystem of jobs and companies 935 00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:43,640 will help you to make a more rounded decision of not only 936 00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:46,000 where you want to go, but just in general what's happening in 937 00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:49,680 the world. Now, as I said, this is just a 938 00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,680 personal opinion. I'm probably missing out whole 939 00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:57,640 sweeps of companies and, and jobs and sectors and, and, and 940 00:57:57,640 --> 00:57:59,960 probably I, you know, I'll try and maybe do a few more. 941 00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,080 I didn't really touch much more on sort of career progression. 942 00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:05,680 I think we took talk about salaries on purpose because it's 943 00:58:05,680 --> 00:58:08,480 such a difficult topic to get into with different countries. 944 00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:14,720 And yeah, but I, I wanted to just put this out because 945 00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:17,000 sometimes I've had these sort of conversations with people who 946 00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,280 ask a little bit for career advice and, and again, just 947 00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:23,800 thinking what, what, what would I wish that I'd known before? 948 00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:29,320 So I'm happy to deep dive in particular topic areas like a 949 00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:33,720 particular tech sector, type of job or, or, or type of position. 950 00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:38,120 But yeah, maybe let me know if this is on, if you're watching 951 00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:40,240 on YouTube, maybe you could put some comments if you found this 952 00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:43,920 useful or if there's other stuff that you would like. 953 00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:49,320 But yeah, hope you enjoyed this and we have a few more 954 00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:53,080 interesting episodes coming this this season on some what I think 955 00:58:53,080 --> 00:58:57,440 are quite exciting topics. But in the meantime, hope you 956 00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:05,680 enjoy this episode and don't forget to like and subscribe on 957 00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:09,640 YouTube or follow this if you're on Spotify, Apple, and if you 958 00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:13,080 can give a rating that helps. On the topic of tech companies, 959 00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:16,240 there's a lot of algorithms that work and unfortunately nobody 960 00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:19,160 gets to see stuff unless there is some user interaction. 961 00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:21,400 So if you just listen to this alone, that's great. 962 00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:25,360 But unfortunately it it makes it difficult for other people to 963 00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:28,880 find it where if you literally just press the like button, it 964 00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:31,960 sort of obviously changes its position in the rankings and and 965 00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:36,680 helps obviously me, but it helps to get greater exposure, which 966 00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,440 of course you don't have to do it, but if you did, I'd much 967 00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:42,840 appreciate it. OK, I'll stop rambling now. 968 00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:43,720 Thanks very much.