Engineering Brain Trust

Boeing claims that they are unable to hang on to engineers because the engineers are bored, they don't make enough money and...well, they just don't like their management. Here's a link to the real audio file of the story on NPR.

I find it very interesting that other folks who are Engineers (of a different stripe, but the disposition of the engineer carries across disciplines, IMHO) are also complaining that the companies they work for are not interested in what they want or what they think.

Furthermore, I'm tired of big corporations bitching that we all want too much money. Where do you think we got that idea? If we ask for more money, we are probably interviewing and are aware of what we are worth. They claim to be unable to compete with start-ups (or that's the big complaint in the networking industry). That is such bullshit. Big companies offer stability and great health insurance and reasonable work schedules. If they'd pay for the A Team and then listen to their ideas, they'd be paying a lot less in the long run.

Even Boeing made comments like "we just put this new guy in charge of keeping us from losing engineering brain trust". Do you know how many companies I've heard that load of tripe from? They need to listen to their employees and give more creedence to exit interviews. Hell, the last company I worked for didn't even do exit interviews on the dozen engineers (that's about 75% turn for that department) they lost in May, June and July. Is that a waste or what?

I've decided that I'm not taking a permanent job for at least one year. I'm going to see how the contracting thing works out, and I don't want to judge it by one contract, so I need to give it a year. My current contract is six months, but they usually get informally extended (ie I keep showing up and they keep paying me) for a couple of months ending up at eight or nine. I like the place where I work now, but as I am unwilling to work for stock options instead of cash, I can't see why I'd stay on as an employee. I think the company has an excellent idea and all, but I just can't put 25% of my compensation in the hands of the NASDAQ.

Everyone I know who left Broadwing has received something so much better that they now believe they were being totally screwed by Broadwing. Frankly, after talking to a cow-orker today, I'm under the impression that Broadwing has now developed a very bad reputation within the networking industry.