Essential Insights for Engineering Management

Artificial intelligence has made its presence felt across countless industries and professions, with engineering management close to the epicenter. Companies leverage data to make important decisions about resources, risk, and recruiting; AI has made that process more powerful and more fraught with potential complications for engineering managers.

Demand for engineering managers grows across healthcare, technology, construction, manufacturing and other industries. If you plan to pursue an engineering management career, an advanced degree – such as a master’s in engineering management – can provide a pathway to reaching your goals.

Engineers are behind many of history’s most significant innovations. From developing safer automobiles to perfecting the first spacecraft, engineers have toiled away behind the scenes doing the creative thinking, designing and building that allowed humanity to reach its loftiest goals, with the help of an engineering management degree.

Engineering manager and tech lead sound like similar titles, but they are two very different roles. While they work together closely to reach shared goals, their roles and responsibilities have minimal overlap. Understanding the difference between the two is critical in deciding if an engineering management degree is right for your professional goals.

Engineering managers are crucial in ensuring projects conclude on time, within budget and in line with the required quality standards. They work in various industries, from construction and manufacturing to technology and renewable energy. As these industries grow, the need for leaders to manage projects and staff increases to keep operations running smoothly.

Successful engineering managers view projects in several ways. “When engineering management is done right, you’re focusing on three big things,” Jessica MacKellar, founder and CTO of Pilot, told First Round Review. “You’re directly supporting the people on your team; you’re managing execution and coordination across teams; and you’re stepping back to observe and evolve the broader organization and its processes as it grows all with the high in demand skill of engineering technology management.”

Understanding the difference between management roles is essential in determining how to plot the course of your career. The right graduate degree program for you depends on your strengths, passions, knowledge and skills. Two common engineering leadership roles are tech leads and engineering managers. Identifying which position best aligns with you can greatly affect professional satisfaction and upward mobility.

Is an engineering management program for you? You wouldn’t be reading this if you haven’t already asked yourself that question. This crossroad is an exciting point in your career as you explore opportunities in management and software engineering manager programs.Navigating more senior roles like an engineering manager, you may find you need to pursue a program more than an undergraduate degree. Deciding if pursuing a program that focuses on management is right for you is an important next step. The alternative would be enrolling in a program aimed at strengthening skills in computer science, systems engineering or web development.

Lipizzi draws on 25 years of professional experience as a working engineer, entrepreneur, and industry consultant to bring the theoretical to life. An Executive MBA from IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland means he has the business acumen to teach engineering management as well as applied engineering.

Cecelia Kaido earned her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering with a minor in mathematics in May of 2020. Shortly after, she began working for the global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin. Drawn to leadership, Kaido was intensely curious about how engineering projects come together. She participated in Lockheed Martin’s leadership program and took three courses focused on a systems engineering distance learning degree.