Are the Days of the Design Engineer Numbered?

Design engineers research and then develop ideas for new products and systems. Do they still have a

part to play in an industry geared increasingly towards specialisation?

The role of design engineers is to research and then develop ideas for new products and systems.

This means they play a pivotal role in product development in a whole range of different industries.

However, despite their importance, the design engineer as a species is on the point of extinction,

according to some. That’s down to a number of reasons.

Design engineers must have knowledge of, and skills, in a wide range of subjects and technical

disciplines. So for instance, they need to be good researchers and designers in their own right. They

must also be competent at managing test programmes, and be able to work with a company’s

internal management and production teams to understand what’s required of them and to

communicate their ideas to others. They must also be adept in the use of modelling and simulation

tools so they can create, develop and modify components and systems. Not least, they require good

structural engineering skills and need to be able to conceptualise load paths, and use integrated

analysis tools and optimisation techniques.

The role of the design engineer is, obviously, a complex one.

However, acquiring this breadth of knowledge is at odds with a world that is increasingly geared

towards specialisation.

Engineers are pushed down particular knowledge and skills paths from an early age, which tends to

prevent them ever acquiring the broad breath of skills, knowledge and experience required by the

current perceived notion of the design engineer.

Young engineers, eager to pursue their careers, are encouraged to specialise at a relatively early age

rather than spending time acquiring a broad range of skills and abilities.

As a result, it is increasingly hard for employers to recruit out-and-out design engineers, and

designers with good CAD skills are filling posts that in the past would have gone to design engineers.

Whether they are equipped to be given overall product engineering responsibility is another matter,

but it is something that does happen in many companies.

This creates a vicious circle in which there is less and less incentive to gain the necessary skills of a

design engineer. For the company, appointing designers in this capacity can appear to be a cost-

effective option, as their salaries are usually lower than for a design engineer.

The plight of the design engineer is perhaps most serious in the United States, as in Europe and Asia

there seems to be a greater willingness to appoint design engineers in technical leadership positions,

where they can be placed in charge and take far greater responsibility for core product

development. In these roles they are then supported by specialists who take on a single element

such as computational fluid dynamics or finite element analysis.

If the same doesn’t happen in America, or if austerity measures bite too hard and this division of

labour is lost, then the design engineer as a pre-defined role may gradually slip from the engineering

world.

Author bio

E&TJ specialises in providing and sourcing engineering jobs and is a part of the IET, one of the

world’s leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community. Visit

http://engineering-jobs.theiet.org