Engineering advancement inherently means becoming management
Not necessarily, at the company I work for, they have two advancement tracks for engineers: management and individual contributor. The individual contributor track goes something like associate engineer -> engineer -> senior engineer -> principal engineer with a bunch of different sub-tiers in those with raises associated with them. Yeah, you cap out at principal engineer, but at that point, you have a good salary and equity and would be considered a success by most metrics.
Yes any work is going to require collaboration, but that doesn’t necessarily require a lot of social skills. Even the most socially awkward person can explain technical requirements to a colleague and ask them to implement them. There’s a difference between communication skills and social skills, and success in academics requires good communication skills.
I’m not saying social skills aren’t valuable, I’m just saying they aren’t required to succeed in this current capitalist economy.
Not necessarily, at the company I work for, they have two advancement tracks for engineers: management and individual contributor. The individual contributor track goes something like associate engineer -> engineer -> senior engineer -> principal engineer with a bunch of different sub-tiers in those with raises associated with them. Yeah, you cap out at principal engineer, but at that point, you have a good salary and equity and would be considered a success by most metrics.
Yes any work is going to require collaboration, but that doesn’t necessarily require a lot of social skills. Even the most socially awkward person can explain technical requirements to a colleague and ask them to implement them. There’s a difference between communication skills and social skills, and success in academics requires good communication skills.
I’m not saying social skills aren’t valuable, I’m just saying they aren’t required to succeed in this current capitalist economy.