Careers: We look at ourselves: Young EEs on their way up: From round-table discussions, a profile emerges of successful engineers and how they view their work

There is a moment in the careers of many engineers when they realize that they have made a critical decision: to become a manager or to remain a “craftsman.” For some; this realization can be satisfying; for others, it may be traumatic, but in nearly every case, engineers can look back over years of choices on the job, some seemingly insignificant, and see that they had indeed set a path for themselves: Knowingly, they either had become managers or remained staff members.