who would hire an independent trader?
- Thread starter blogtrader
- Start date
Engineering can be a quite interesting profession. Of course, it can also be a very risky profession on which to bet your welfare or the welfare of your family. There are some areas - like national defense - where you might actually get to retire as an engineer. However in most industrys you will be on a never ending treadmill of obsolescense, retraining, and obsolescense. In most companies you are expected to retrain yourself, on your own time. So, if you have a demanding project that is requiring 60-70 hours per week of your time to bring in on time and on budget, you somehow have to find another 10 hours or so per week to keep current and learn new techniques outside of your day to day job - just to keep your existing position.
An interesting job yes, but perhaps, not the best choice in todays extreme outsourcing and cost cutting environments.
interesting insight into the engineering field.
strange how in the business world, managers do not face the threat of becoming obsolete even though they rarely know how to do the tasks that the're managing. instead they become even more entrenched by playing politics and surrounding themselves with incompetent people who are less of a threat to them. later these same incompetent people become managers themselves and the cycle repeats itself.
strange how in the business world, managers do not face the threat of becoming obsolete even though they rarely know how to do the tasks that the're managing. instead they become even more entrenched by playing politics and surrounding themselves with incompetent people who are less of a threat to them. later these same incompetent people become managers themselves and the cycle repeats itself.
blogtrader
Guest
Thanks to all of you who sincerely tried to help me with this question.
Seems it is the same cycle whoever and whereever you are
Engineering these days is an "up or out" type of profession - with the possible exception of national defense as stated earlier. That is, you basically get 3- 5 years to move into management, or stay on the retraining treadmill.
Most engineering projects run about 12- 14 months, and at the end of the project, if your skills are not an exact match for the next project, you will be let go, or worse, languish on ultimately career ending work. Keep in mind that I am talking about permanent employees here, not contractors.
After about three to five of these cycles you will be considered excess baggage unless you have been promoted to mangement.
this description also applies 105% towards Computer Science degrees and careers.
your other comment about becoming a consultant also wreaks of the truth, but the lousy part is the wear and tear of being a consultant...
there are no loyalties anymore, hence the desire to change careers towards something of a lessor demaning degree, hence trading, only to find you have to step up your game 5 times over and then run the gauntlet of other easy - trader firms (re. prop firms) that leave you with a lot of exposure but no substantive learning skills sufficient to keep your remaining grub stake or make money.
that's not my story, but I've heard it too often and it gets sickening....
there's no peace....
Consulting is a great gig if you are single and dont mind being constantly on the road. However the profession is not really acceptable for most people with a family.
Engineering and software design jobs will simply go where the largest number of productive hours can be had for the least amount of money. This goal simply can not be met in the US for most projects - except those mandated and protected by government regulation.