Career Paths for Engineers

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I’m an engineer with aspirations for making it to the top of the management pile at my 6000-person company.

Right now I’m in an amazing opportunity where I’m working directly with a vice president as his assistant.

How do I capitalize on this opportunity? What can I do to help launch myself from this point? I’ve done great things to get here, but I want to keep the momentum going.

My other question is do I need an MBA? Do you need a second masters degree to be promoted up the ladder? Or will my experience and abilities get me there? What if I want to move to another company, do I need an MBA?

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  1. Penelope Trunk
    Penelope Trunk says:

    You probably don’t need an mba to be a vp at a 6000 person company. You need an MBA to get to VP/director level at the Fortune 500.

    But first see if you really want to do that — you’re a long way off. Very few engineers really end up doing what you are saying you want to do. It’s all negotiation and office politics at that level, and if you are a great engineer, you’re probably not great at that other stuff.

    For now, get the VP to think you do great work and ask great questions. You want the VP to start caring abut your career. The best way to do that is to get him to want to be your mentor.

    Here are a couple of posts about how to get a mentor:

    http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/04/17/how-to-ask-for-mentoring/

    http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/11/26/to-get-good-mentoring-build-a-relationship/

    -Penelope

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