What is an Engineer?

[Anonymous]

I watched a social media clip unrelated to career paths that featured two Engineers (a married couple) and humorously both said that no one ever knows what an Engineer does, nor even fellow Engineer’s. But didn’t go into detail on either of their jobs.

Okay someone tell me .. what exactly is an Engineer? What does one do in this role?

[Anonymous]

Good question for ChatGPT.

[Anonymous]

An engineer, in the context of creating and building in the physical world, is someone who can do for a nickel what any fool can do for a dollar.

[Anonymous]

-Arthur Wellington, per wikipedia

The famous quotation, 'An engineer can do for a dollar what any fool can do for two," is a shortened version of this statement below, which appears in the introduction to his magnum opus, "The Economic Theory of the Location of Railways," published in 1877:

"It would be well if engineering were less generally thought of, and even defined, as the art of constructing. In a certain important sense it is rather the art of not constructing; or, to define it rudely but not inaptly, it is the art of doing that well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion."

[Anonymous]

I think it really depends. Generally, it is applying math and science to create things. I have three youngish engineers in my family
— one works for a defense contractor and designs parts of drones for intelligence and attacks
— one works for pharma and designs experiments on a cellular level that have to do with something I don’t really understand
— one works for a manufacturer of large equipment and is in charge of AI stuff having to do with development of manufacturing

[Anonymous]

a lot of folks that hold engineering roles in tech don't actually have engineering degrees (me, ee): network engineers, software engineers, cloud engineers, etc.

but they do tend to *build* systems, networks, and platforms that others use to operate their projects or programs.

my friend who is an actual engineer (electrical engineer degree) works on large rockets.

[Anonymous]

We make practical solutions to whatever problem somebody will pay us to solve.

[Anonymous]

They drive the train

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I watched a social media clip unrelated to career paths that featured two Engineers (a married couple) and humorously both said that no one ever knows what an Engineer does, nor even fellow Engineer’s. But didn’t go into detail on either of their jobs.

Okay someone tell me .. what exactly is an Engineer? What does one do in this role?

[Anonymous]

Engineering is the sum of ability to see a need and fill the need. Build a solution to the problem.

[Anonymous]

There's so many kinds of engineering that without more context it's difficult to explain what the people actually do. It's like the title scientist, it means nothing without more context.

[Anonymous]

I am not an engineer, but I worked in an engineering firm.

The structural engineers did a lot of structural inspections in which they went out to job sites and looked for cracks. They documented whether the structure was safe or unsafe.

The structural engineers also did a lot of wind load calculations on structures to determine if the structures were safe and to determine if the roofs were safe.

The civil engineers did a lot of road design for DOT.

We also CAD operators that did the blueprints.
The engineer signed and sealed the blueprints, documenting the accuracy.

[Anonymous]

Engineer is someone who builds and/or operates a solution that solves a problem. The solution needs some form of math and science.