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Polls The RoadTester Poll: What Kind of Engineer Are You?
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Engagement
  • Author Author: rscasny
  • Date Created: 28 Jan 2019 10:41 PM Date Created
  • Last Updated Last Updated: 19 May 2022 2:06 PM
  • Views 5881 views
  • Likes 3 likes
  • Comments 70 comments
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The RoadTester Poll: What Kind of Engineer Are You?

The element14 community is made up of a diverse collection of people, including engineers, students makers, researchers, academics, and many more. I believe the element14 community team conducted a survey several years ago that supports this statement. But I would like to get a clearer idea on how our engineers break out into specialties. So, I've create this poll. My motivation is to better understand the broad category of the specialties of our RoadTest Group, as well as the people who follow the group in order to help me work with our sponsors better when we are planning RoadTests.

 

How to participate in the poll: From the selections below, select the broad category that describes your current job or professional role. Thanks.

 

Sincerely,

 

Randall Scasny

RoadTest Program Manager

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Top Comments

  • Gough Lui
    Gough Lui over 7 years ago +9
    A bit of a hard one to choose just one category ... hmm. - Gough
  • mstewart197930
    mstewart197930 over 7 years ago in reply to rscasny +7
    Hi Randall, I'm a bag of all sorts really, Software developer, systems engineer, electronics engineer, I work in a consulting division of a company and get involved with many different types of projects…
  • Instructorman
    Instructorman over 7 years ago in reply to dougw +6
    dougw wrote: From what I've seen, engineers mostly don't do it as a hobby. We who do are exceptions. That is what I have noticed as well. I started in electronics as a hobbyist and pursued credentials…
  • rscasny
    rscasny over 7 years ago in reply to mstewart197930

    Mark,

     

    No I didn't. I was quite aware that a number of you have multiple competencies. However, I didn't know they were so broad and deep. If I were to do this again, I guess I would ask our developer team if it were possible to create a multiple selection poll. In any event, I'm glad the poll takes are making comments so I can annotate my findings.

     

    Thanks for participating.

     

    Randall

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  • baldengineer
    baldengineer over 7 years ago

    Just like in all engineering, you have to make a choice that is the best of all available options. Choosing the right trade-offs for an application is what makes a good engineer.

     

    Forcing us to select a single title is no different from choosing between multiple voltage regulators.

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  • mstewart197930
    mstewart197930 over 7 years ago

    Hi Randall,

    Did you think it would raise this many questions?

    I must admit myself, it's really interesting to see the wide range of roles a single person takes in the engineering world. We adapt and the job we initially take expands to what is needed in the workplace.

    Mark.

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  • rscasny
    rscasny over 7 years ago in reply to Robert Peter Oakes

    Hi Peter,

     

    A number of you have mentioned the same thing: They have held several titles/roles. I'll annotate my results with things you have mentioned, such as "Some poll takeers reported that they have fulfilled multiple engineering roles."

     

    Randall

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  • rscasny
    rscasny over 7 years ago in reply to ntewinkel

    Nico,

     

    It would have been nice to be a multiple choise survey. But the single-choice is the way the poll is set up.

     

    Randall

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  • Robert Peter Oakes
    Robert Peter Oakes over 7 years ago in reply to dcsoutherner

    So a "Data Engineer" right image

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  • dcsoutherner
    dcsoutherner over 7 years ago

    I'm not really an Engineer at all.  My professional title is "Data Architect" meaning I design the format and coding of data as well as determining the source, ownership and acceptable use of data.

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  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 7 years ago in reply to Robert Peter Oakes

    It should've been a multiple-choice survey image

     

    I would still have just that one lonely checkbox on my response image

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  • Robert Peter Oakes
    Robert Peter Oakes over 7 years ago

    Hard to answer as I am many of the above list

    Electronics Engineer

    Solutions Architect (Software Engineer)

    Systems Engineer

    Automation Engineer

    Educator...

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  • Gough Lui
    Gough Lui over 7 years ago in reply to rscasny

    Hi rscasny,

     

    Only just revisited the thread to see your response - won't say your selections were wrong, but the area of engineering is quite diverse.

     

    I started off as an Electrical, finished up in Photovoltaics and Solar, did a PhD in Civil and Environmental, now work in Biomedical and along the way, I published a paper in Spatial and Surveying. I know a bit about Computing ... mainly because that was my first passion and got published in a computing magazine ... so I'm really a "mixed up" engineer image.

     

    That being said, I'm surprised we didn't see Test & Measurement / Instrumentation Engineer come up either ... Too many options would probably "dilute" the results too finely, so I guess we've chosen what we feel is best.

     

    - Gough

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