Junior Managers
14th Nov 2006, 00:33 GMT
Many recent or soon-to-be Computer Science graduates from ETH Zurich are aiming to become strategy consultants, investment bankers, and junior managers right after graduation. I'm not sure this is a good thing. A career in these fields seems enticing. In theory, the jobs are prestigious, you get to travel a lot, and most of your time is spent talking to top brass in glass-and-steel buildings. In reality, the culture at these places is unfriendly, workdays are long, and you never quite get the satisfaction of seeing the success of your work. By the time you know whether your advice led to triumph or failure, your assignment is already over. You tend to miss out on the most valuable experience of all: Knowing what works and what doesn't. In the development of information technology products, it's the engineers who create value. Consultants and managers don't actually build products but infrastructure and processes, both of which the end user isn't really paying for. Unfortunately, it's hard to make becoming an engineer more attractive. Unless you work on very simple stuff, the work is relatively challenging, hard to learn, and sometimes frustrating. But every once in a while, when something starts working and everything clicks into place, there is a rush of euphoria that's hard to beat. It's sad to throw away a solid ETH education to work as a junior manager, especially if you are a gifted engineer. Earlier this week, I met with a friend who was probably the most talented student of our class. He now works as a junior project manager at a large Swiss bank, on a project budgeted at several million dollars. Eventually, he got so fed up of the incompetence of his superiors, the suppliers, and the endless meetings, that he hacked up a simpler, cheaper solution to the problem in about half a week. With this architecture, the bank also saves around half a million dollars in license fees. Will that reflect in his bonus? Doubtful. I hope that will make him angry enough to return to computer science. A shortage of software engineers is on the horizon. In 2001, around 400 people started studying computer science at ETH Zurich. My school then filters out the low performers in tough exams: Less than half of the people I started with will ever graduate. In 2006, enrollment is down to around 100 people, so there will be less than 50 ETH computer science graduates in 2011. After subtracting those that go into consulting, banking, or decide to do a PhD, there will be around 30 engineers to recruit from! I doubt that enrollment numbers elsewhere in Europe or the US look much better. Maybe this will all fix itself. When a war for talent ensues, entry salaries may rise to new heights. How lucrative does engineering have to be to make wearing a tie all day look not so enticing at all?
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