Technology Management Career Paths

[GLC1968]

I have two real-life examples for you...both of these are women at my company (hi tech) who both happen to be 30 years old.

One is a friend of mine from school. She completed a BSEE with honors and had a minor in business. She also has excellent communication skills which is a feature poorly lacking in many EE's. This gave her an advantage and when she graduated, she had multiple jobs to pick from while her classmates had none. She came to this company as a design engineer and then moved into technical sales. She then completed her MBA and is now a program manager in our advance development group (a VERY good place to be).

The second is another friend of mine. She graduated with a BS in business. Got a job right out of school (also has excellent communication skills) at another company in a planning/marketing role. She came to my company in a similiar position and worked as a liason for some of our outsources. She also wanted to get into program management and at my company, they do not hire program or project managers without a technical degree. This woman had to sell her self hard to get the position and even then, they are starting her out with some very simple (and low visability) projects. She's doing well and learning fast, but was definitely held back by her lack of technical background even though many of us who have one rarely use it anyway.

From my experience, if you want to truly succeed in high tech, having a technical degree will make life much, much easier.


Of course, there is definitely something to be said for choosing to do what interests you the most. Had I done that myself, I wouldn't have had to go back to school at 29 to get another two degrees to do what I should have done at 18.