Responsibilities of a Design Engineer

I was part of a discussion the other day that helped refocus my view of what a design engineer is.  Sometimes it's easy to forget or lose site of why you are an engineer, and what your overriding responsibilities are.  An engineer is a member of a project team.  The purpose of the project team's existence is to develop, create, or improve something that affects the way people live in the universe.  On the surface the engineer does the technical work - designing, analyzing, applying science, testing, ect.  There are many other roles on the project team including the following:

* people who determine what should be done (marketing)
* people who build, assemble or follow directions (technicians and assemblers)
* people who capture information into computers (drafters, designers, data entry)
* people who buy things (buyers)
* people who handle the details (administrative assistants)
* people who focus on agency approvals and design process (product and quality engineers)
* people who investigate and discover new technology (scientists)
* people who coordinate schedule and manage costs (project managers)

Everyone on the team is important to the success of a project.  The design engineer is the one who has ultimate responsibility for the success and quality of the project though.  Success in this context is defined as the project meeting the goals of the customer for quality, cost, and safety.  Whether the project is ultimately successful in terms of providing value and return on investment is much more complicated, so this definition is limited to the project in a vacuum.  Executives are important because they're responsible for those larger more ambiguous questions.  The design engineer is the only team member who interfaces directly with every other team member.  The design engineer does not directly manage any of these people but must work with them to make sure they are performing their role in a way that leads to success for the project.  All of these other team members have conflicting priorities and responsibilities, and the design engineer must provide the cohesion that brings everyone together for the success of the project.  It is the responsibility of every design engineer on the team to take ownership of the whole project and look out for all aspects of the design, not just particular sections that they are working on.  It is particularly the responsibility of the systems engineer or the lead engineer on the project for the ultimate success of the project.  The definition of project success always includes the safety of whatever is being designed, and the design engineer is responsible for this even when others on the project have competing goals to safety.  To a certain degree, the definition of project success always contains the quality of whatever is being designed, but the engineer must make the proper tradeoffs between quality, schedule, development cost, and unit cost.  Safety should never be compromised though.

A project manager appears to be in the leadership position for a project, however, the engineers are the ones ultimately responsible for the success of a project.  A project manager should never be a sole decision maker or gate keeper on a project, and engineers must step up into leadership roles.  Decisions are made by the team as a whole with the leadership of the engineers and the weight of the project managers to execute those decisions.  The project manager must make sure the team has the resources necessary to complete the project, and is the interface to customers and manufacturing.

This view of what a design engineer is clearly shows the skills and qualities that are most important in a design engineer.  They are:

* Ownership and drive to get things done
* Communication
* Leadership
* Decisiveness
* Continuous self improvement and learning

People who are very smart and have great technical understanding and background, but do not have at least some of the above qualities won't make good design engineers.  As I move past the 10 year mark of my career in design engineering, refocusing on these aspects is necessary to move forward.  It keeps you focused on the true excitement of being a design engineer - working with others, looking at the big picture, making trade offs, and making something happen.