12 Essential Skills Every Engineer Needs To Learn Part 1

Presenter: Happy Holden, PCB Technologist 

I have been working in electronics manufacturing for over 50 years now.  I was fortunate to be part of this industry in its GOLDEN YEARS, from 1972 to 2000!  In this period, all the modern devices that we use today, calculators, mobile phones, tablets, medical devices and portable computers, etc. were invented and went into production.  In 2000, with the Internet Bubble bursting, we have now been mostly just enhancing those devices.  The big boom has been with Internet software applications and the devices that it inspired.

But this presentation and the successive columns I will be writing is not about these wonderful devices, rather it is about the engineering skills and capability that all those engineers demonstrated to come up with these wondrous new devices.  Over the years, I have concocted a list of twelve (12) essential skills that I think every engineer should strive to master.  Most are not taught in college engineering courses, but are acquired through company training or individual efforts.  It is these 12 skills that has let too many of these new devices or software and to the success of electronics in the last 50 years.

12 Essential Skills

The 12 engineering skills are just my opinion, but over the last 45 years, they have been what I have observed as the essential tools that engineers, including myself, needed to complete the Project, develop the Product, meet the Schedule, or solve the Problem.  These were the important skills that got me the promotion, or the opportunity for a challenging job, etc.  These 12 skills are the subjects for my future e-Book in pcb007 and are listed here...