I am, for reasons beyond my control, at present - yet hopefully “only” - between jobs: being out of my last job is a fact, and finding a next one isn’t (I’m working on it, and have a couple of potential leads), so uncertainty abounds.
I posted about how I feel about this situation on my personal blog over at Diversions Manifold. The philosophical aspect that I want to reflect on here is, now that I’m not working at an engineering company, whether I am also (again hopefully, only temporarily) out of engineering, and, because of that (temporarily) not an engineer.
Staying engineer
Without right now wanting to go down the rabbit-hole of trying to define what, exactly, an engineer is, we can at least posit that the two (engineering and being an engineer) are different states (being and doing): so I am and remain an engineer, but I’m not practicing it.
Briefly to the personal, I’ve been out of my job for nearly two months now, and it’s been tougher than I had expected. All that searching for appropriate new jobs, updating CVs and cover letters, preparing for interviews, accepting rejections, and the frequent switching between hope and - well, not despair, exactly - but certainly concern for the future, have taken a higher than expected toll on me.
But all that work on the CV, tuning each cover letter for each application and now having had a couple of positive-feeling interviews, has made me aware of the wealth of experience I can count on. This experience isn’t just “past”: it now constitutes part of me and my neural networks, enabling me to act in my own unique yet “engineeringy” way. Each item on the CV recalls the nous and the feel I have for the combination of techne and praxis, for the technical and the playful in my profession. Significantly, they all still feel “live”, accessible and deployable for whomever and wherever I end up working with and for. Each item hides, or signifies, a story. Not just “work experience”, but real struggles, achievements, lessons learned or buried for possible future connection to another event: bruises and scratches (usually suffered by mouse and text) that have formed me. Those learned paths haven’t, I feel, become impassable and atrophied in those two months out of practice.
Those same experiences are also devilishly difficult to describe to someone in an hour’s online first interview…
Hearteningly, I find myself looking forward to making use of those skills again, and haven’t entertained thoughts of trying out something else entirely.
So, to me, I’m still an engineer, and potential employers seem to concur. The other question was: am I out of engineering?
Not quite engineering
The one tech-adjacent hobby that I’ve been working on during my gardening leave that could be considered to be “engineering” is resin 3D printing of mouthpieces for brass instruments. Actually playing those instruments (in my case, the trombone), is clearly a different category of activity altogether - and combining the two is a fascinating pursuit.
At present, I’d say my 3D printing is at more of a craft stage than anything engineered. This is not to denigrate crafts at all: they most certainly require ingenuity and a feel for both the materials and what is to be achieved through them; they rely on internal impressions and learned pathways for the craftsman to interpret and “feel”, then to act - or react - at each stage of the process. In all honesty, that also describes rather a lot of engineering: the spectrum of crafts does overlap with that of the technical as well as of the purely artistic. In my case, I’m only now beginning to settle on a half-way reliable print setup that allows me to make design changes and print them without the permanent fear that they’ll fail; concentrating finally on the part itself without worrying about the printing process that goes into producing it.
So, although my equipment and materials have all been engineered to a high degree, my own use of them is not at an engineered level. My craft has not yet been elevated to engineering (I say this whilst bearing in mind that many crafts would be smothered by engineering).
My engineering self does have an idea as to what’s required to make the whole setup more engineered: having a good, reliable technical setup, selecting the best materials for the job, developing reliable tests and parameters to measure and compare each iteration, and gaining confidence in the information available to me.
Just that first point is complex enough, involving optimising factors like print orientation, support structures, UV exposure times, resin bed tilt rates and (quite key) temperature control. My current settings - and challenges - have all stemmed from not-quite-understanding what affects the quality or success of a print.
In philosophical terms, then: epistemologically I’ve been floundering to find the knowledge that will lead to success, still unable to transition between types of knowledge, from having a “gut feel” to a theory and procedure that will - all other things being equal - guarantee a successful print and product.
This is a very common engineering dilemma. We have nous - an idea that something works - which we can even specify in terms of parameters that should lead to a quality product, but we don’t usually delve back down “to the atoms” to understand precisely what’s going on in either theory or practice… until it goes wrong, our assumptions are challenged, and we have to learn new details.
Ontologically, it’s fascinating to recognise that I have converted concepts and ideas into 3D CAD files into sliced printer files into print jobs into actual parts (and surprising amounts of waste), then, on the basis of trials, updated the CAD files to continue the cycle until - still a goal - I have a satisfactory product… for me. After that, I’d have to be able to translate those parameters for other players, and players of other instruments.
Phenomenologically, I have interacted with computer and machine user interfaces, (hermeneutically) interpreted 2D renderings of non-real 3D objects into mental “understandings”, and then, finally, felt, tried and (unfortunately, in many cases) smelt the final product as they emerged from the whole production process, leading to a search for less pungent, officially biocompatible materials to work with, as well as for the “perfect” design.
Sounding it out
Leading on from the phenomenological experience of the part, the “true”, or “real” end of each 3D print is a satisfactory quality of the mouthpiece that’s been produced. Here, at the time of writing, I’m leaning heavily on my “ear” and on the personal feeling of playing a new, plastic mouthpiece, all the while comparing it (is it “better”, or “worse”) to my standard brass mouthpiece, to previous prototypes? That’s not an “engineer’s” way of understanding quality, and it’s far from being scientific. So I’ll also be searching for ways to standardise tests (involving microphones and sound analysis software, for example) which will still, no doubt, depend on me playing the instrument with the new mouthpiece in it. Can I define a standard embouchure and air pressure to play even a standardised sequence of notes in exactly the same way for each variant, like a golfer honing their swing?
Probably not, but I’ll try.
That’s the engineer in me knowing what’s required - but not yet engineering.
Admin it!
One aspect of engineering that I’m very far from with this hobby is the whole admin, bureaucracy and documentation aspect of engineering. Ultimately, engineered products are to be used by customers, so must meet norms and regulations, be economically viable, environmentally acceptable. So, even if I did end up with a technologically proven mouthpiece design, I have the feeling that, without a company behind it, it’s still a craft. Is engineering ultimately also an economic activity? It’s something to consider!
Working it out
Practically speaking, and to summarise: I’m out of engineering, but I still know what it looks and feels like, and feel able to rejoin the ranks of the engineers. Just wish me luck on that front: I don’t want to have to be too philosophical about being out of work…
