Rewards and Awards in the Industry

Maybe, a DEFCON BlackBadge..., if it fits the category

Hah I think that's more of an infosec' award

Hi Christopher,

Interesting question!! There's some general product awards that are cool, like Red Dot. Also quite specific ones for certain product types, i.e. more focused on the product than the engineers, but acknowledging technical/design work. I've had to collect one at a ceremony on behalf of a team, merely because the award was in London and I was closest : ) The events are nice to mingle with new people.

Some of the engineering firms will award titles to their best and most senior engineers, sometimes almost giving tenure too, that would be informally recognised across the industry I think. Any important work-related award definitely goes on my CV, or any conference speeches, again in the informal hope it would be recognised by other firms.

There's accreditations achievable by working across areas in industry lots, such as CEng/MIET/MIEE is a legally awarded title, and the British Computer Society has them too I think, although they tend to be slightly national accreditations, they probably would be recognised worldwide. Not the same as an award as such, but maybe similar!

I'm not too far off being an accredited Engineer.

I'm not familiar with Red Dot or the other awards you've alluded to though, is there any links to more information?

Oh, congrats! That's awesome!!

Red Dot awards are also considered prestigious to get them(the likes of Apple probably get lots of them, so it's quite some effort to win these for a product), these are some of the awards for 2019 from their website:

It's actually a good way to search for cool products, just browse the red dot awards : )

Some other industry ones are extremely specific industry-specific so most people won't have heard of them unless they are in that exact specific industry, e.g. IT world or Networking world and so on would have them.. some products I've worked on have won these types of these awards.

I have in past followed Design News annual Engineering Achievement Awards, and The Best Product of the Year Award.  I have worked on products that have receive some of these awards.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and other such societies and organizations give out awards and recognition for service, merit, etc.  I don’t think most engineers follow such things closely though. It seems like it was more a thing years ago when we would get a monthly magazine with such information in the back than it is now but that might just be me.

We've never been the sort to congratulate ourselves. I've worked in IT in a number of industries and it's always been the same. The business or the sales team always shout about what a brilliant job they've done asking for something to be made for them. On the technical side we just get on with out job and build what's required without a fuss.

IEEE and the Professional Engineering Societies hand out awards, but the eligibility and selection criteria don't make them very universal and consequently they are not that well known.

I think it would be awesome to win the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering......

Other apparently prestigious prizes I never heard of but just looked up:

The Charles Stark Draper Prize

Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize

Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education

A couple of years ago I was the featured speaker at my local IEEE Awards Banquet.

During my career I never worried that much about awards. My customers kept me busy and that was the best feedback I could get.

I find most of the societies too academically oriented for my tastes.

DAB