Here’s how you can become a good engineer!

All good engineers have these qualities. Check them here

Developing into a good engineer is a lifelong venture. Engineers have created the world we live in today. The industrial ages of mechanisation, electrification, and digitalisation are the consequence of engineering excellence. Each age has impacted the work environment and the skills required for success. With the advent of mechanisation came factories and the nine-to-five work culture. Engineers designed, built and diagnosed the steam engines, the cams and the pistons that mechanised all production processes.

With mechanisation came rapid transportation systems by land and sea, enabling larger global trade. Electrification enabled higher efficiency in operations making mass production possible with every factory tool being motorised and the creation of the modern production line. Engineers designed and built electricity generation, transmission, and distribution equipment that brought electricity to homes, factories and farms.

With digitalisation, the primary work location shifted from the factory to the office. Increasing level of automation and remote operation of factories allowed engineers to focus on electronic design and software implementation for factory and office automation. Today, with the democratisation of digitalisation offered by mobile phones, engineers are building cyber-intelligent systems that digitalise every conceivable decision through algorithms.

Despite the rapidly changing environment, the underlying basis for engineering excellence endures. Broadly speaking, I group engineering excellence into three categories: 

1) Building a solid foundation

2) Developing an engineering mindset 

3) Focusing on execution.

Build a solid foundation

1. Strong fundamentals: When in doubt, always go to the fundamentals. Be it Newton’s Laws or the derivative Navier Stokes Equation, Maxwell’s equations or the derivative static, diffusion or wave equations. It is important to understand the physical meaning of mathematical expressions and be able to hand calculate approximate values of variables for critical verification. It is also important to understand the limitations of numerical methods and determine where experimentation is necessary.

2. Deep technical focus: Rome was not built in a day. It takes time and focused effort to develop engineering excellence. Each new learning experience is just a door that opens up a myriad of unknowns. It is important to focus and develop deep-rooted expertise in a single technical area for a minimum of six years early in one’s career. It is also true that once an expertise is developed, the ability to translate the learning to other technical areas is relatively quicker and easier. However, the credibility from the core technology area sticks throughout one’s career and hence is extremely important.

3. Hands-on expertise: The best way to ‘see’ an engineered part is with your hands. There are a number of hurdles to be overcome between a thought experiment or theory and actual realisation in the field. It is important to take every opportunity to experience the complete product life cycle. Books cannot capture or substitute the lessons of hands-on learning. Speed in engineering comes from a gut instinct of what might work. This instinct is developed through hands-on work.

4. Simulation expertise: Experimentation matters. With advances in simulation, the volumes of iterative physical experiments required have been dramatically reduced through the effective use of validated models. It is important for modern-day engineers to effectively use simulation tools and computational power at their disposal. At the same time, it is important to understand and prevent numerical errors that creep in through a variety of sources.

5. Continuous learning: Once an engineer, always a student. The accumulated knowledge in engineering is huge, but miniscule compared to the amount of unknown possibilities in the physical world. An engineer excels by continuously striving to be at the edge of knowledge and scientific progress. It is the mapping of a new science or material to new market needs that advances the frontiers of engineering.

Develop an engineering mindset

1. Attention to detail: The devil is in the detail. Engineering is about figuring out the details. Many showstoppers are not apparent at the big picture level. Manufacturing issues, cost issues, life issues, and ‘maintainability’ and ‘inspectability’ issues are amongst the many issues that need to be fleshed out. Solutions to problems can create new ones in their wake if regression analysis and testing are not performed. Engineering excellence, hence, is in the detail.

2. System-level thinking: ‘The whole is other than the sum of its parts.’ From an engineering standpoint, it is important to be able to define and model complex interactions among components that make up an engineered system, and implement the system with effective use of available resources. While we work on a component, the system should not be forgotten. In system engineering, the output of a system is typically linked to a customer need.

3. Market and customer orientation: First understand what the market needs and then proceed to make it. Engineering is about serving the market. Every feature should be looked at from a customer’s viewpoint. This does mean not just listening to the customer. It also means anticipating the customer need and changes in the market. It is important to maintain an external connection through journals, tradeshows, databases, industry peers, end-customers and emerging markets.

4. Innovation and change orientation: Innovation is finding new ways of creating value. An engineer should keep abreast with the cutting edge technology, while serving the current market needs. Every new market need and customer problem can be looked at as opportunities to innovate, leveraging the latest knowledge in the field. Innovation is clearly not only idea generation, but also the ability to take the idea to market. Innovation needs the engineer to create with freedom, nurture with passion and change with detachment.

5. Engineering judgment: An ounce of engineering judgment sometimes works the miracle of tonnes of analysis. Engineering judgment comes from the confidence and decision-making capability developed through technical knowledge, experience and an appetite for risk-taking. Engineering judgment enables the engineer to quickly sense and articulate risks, and also come up with optimal solutions to complex technical problems. Engineering judgment is a starting point and needs to be followed by detailed analysis, experimentation and validation.

Focus on execution

1. Critical analysis: Measure twice and cut once. The ability to draw the right engineering conclusions from available data includes understanding whether the data is insufficient to support a claim and what additional data would enable a better conclusion. Also important to critical analysis is knowing which tool or experiment would give you the best information required to make the right conclusion and decision.

2. First time right and design margin: Quality is reputation, quality is credibility and quality is revenue. With products such as aircraft engines and nuclear reactors in the portfolio, there is no second chance. Being right the first time with adequate design margin is of paramount importance. Having the right tests and statistically significant number of tests to ensure confidence in our designs and testing our designs for failure to understand the validity of our design margins is critical for success.

3. Detailed documentation and design practices: Work not documented is work not performed. Every engineering success and every failure has a lesson that needs to be shared. Documenting is also a way to unlock certain missed details. By writing for others, you articulate certain assumptions, which upon expression might throw new light on the problem being addressed. Documenting your work is also a means of collaborating with yourself over time. Design practices are vital to ensure design knowledge developed through intense analysis and experimentation is transferred to the engineering community.

4. Cost / productivity consciousness: One of the responsibilities of an engineer is to take an idea to market. A significant component of success in the market is to be able to give the best value. To ensure good contribution margins while providing excellent customer value, an organisation has to have a handle on the cost and productivity. Hence, the engineer’s job is to also keep in mind the cost and productivity while still optimising quality and schedule.

5. Sense of urgency and desire to win: Sometimes it is all about time-to-market. The engineering incentive is to be the first with an elegant technical solution to significantly enhance human health or comfort in an environmentally friendly way. A sense of competitiveness and a race to be the first have defined many engineering successes from the light bulb to the aircraft engine to decoding the human genome.

Spokes Technologies

17 iPhone Tricks To Make Your Life Easier

Did you know you could actually correct Siri's pronunciation?​

Sure, there's plenty your trusty iPhone can already do. It can help you find your way home, settle bar debates and, heck, even make the odd phone call or two. In a pinch you could probably serve small canapés off it. But this pocketable box of wonder isn't just a pretty vessel into the world of internet joy and messaging madness. Oh no.

There are dozens of cool iPhone features hidden beneath the surface that you probably weren't even aware of. These are some of the best iPhone hacks you didn't know about, and exactly how you can find them.

1. Charge your phone faster with a single button press.

Tired of waiting for your phone to recharge? Well, there is a way to speed up the re-juicing process, and it's surprisingly simple — just engage Airplane mode. By knocking out all your phone's Wi-Fi-searching, data-draining communication skills, it takes the strain off your battery while it's being powered up. Not hugely, true — but if you're pressed for time and looking to eke out every bit of juice, that extra 4% you'll add in 30 minutes connected to the mains could make all the difference.

2. Shave seconds off of your searches.

When it comes to finding out the latest league standings or proving a point, getting where you need to go on the internet is all about speed and precision — something missing when you're forced to knock out type-heavy web addresses. So save time by holding down the period icon while typing out an address to bring up a short-cut series of URL suffixes. From the classic (.com) to the less used (.edu, .ie), there are quick hit shortcuts for all.

3. Discover exactly what your phone knows about you.

Slightly sinisterly, your iPhone is always gathering data on you in the background — be it the apps you're using the most, how much data you're churning through... or even, most creepily, where you are. To see what we mean, head to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Frequent Locations. Here you can see not just where you've been, but how long you've spent in each place. Big Brother really is watching...

4. Replace a toolbox essential.

You've probably filed away the Compass app alongside the Stocks and Find Friends apps in a folder entitled 'Crap I can't delete'. You should pull it back out, though — it's got a secret second function that will help with your DIY duties. No: not using your iPhone to hammer in nails (although it can — briefly — do that too). Instead, swiping left in the Compass app brings up a very useful level — a digital bubble gauge than can check if that shelf really is level. (Spoiler: it isn't.)

5. Lock your camera's focal point.

We all know that tapping the screen while taking a photo will set the camera's point of focus, right? Good. Annoyingly though, every time you move the camera after picking a focal point, it disappears. Well, no more. Instead of just tapping the screen, press for a second or two until an 'AF Locked' box pops up. Now you can twist, turn and swing the thing around without losing focus.

6. Create custom vibrations.

Ever wished you could tell who's calling just by how your phone feels buzzing against your leg? Now you can: In Contacts, select your person of choice and hit Edit. Here you'll see a Vibration option. Selecting this will give you plenty of options, including the Create New Vibration tool. Making your bespoke buzz is as simple as tapping the screen to the beat of your choice.

7. Correct Siri's pronunciation.

Siri's a bit of a smug know-it-all — so  there's nothing better than calling it on its mistakes. Like when it mispronounces peoples' names like an ignorant American abroad. So if Siri says something wrong, just tell it. Following up a mistake by saying "That's not how you pronounce…" will see Siri ask for the correct pronunciation then let you check it's got things right. Because we all know it's Levi-O-sa, not Levi-o-SAR.

8. Close three apps at once.

It's not just pictures and web pages that support multi-finger gestures. You can throw additional digits into clearing up your iPhone clutter too. If you need to shut multiple applications in a hurry — for totally innocent, not hiding anything, honest reasons — you can drag three fingers up on the multitasking menu to cull the clutter quicker. Which means your phone should be faster in even less time.

9. Set your music on a timer.

Enjoy listening to a little soothing background music as you drift off to the Land of Nod? Then you're probably all too familiar with waking up at 3am to some unwanted tunes. Unless, of course, you set your music to turn off on a timer. In the Clock app, slide along to the Timer options. Here under the 'When Time Ends' tag, you can switch out the alarm option for a 'Stop Playing' tag. This will turn off the tunes, be it through Apple Music or Spotify, when the timer hits zero.

10. Take a photo without touching your phone.

An oldie but a goodie iPhone hack is using your volume control buttons to capture a picture — thus saving  your meaty paw blocking the screen as you attempt to hit the touchscreen controls. But if you prefer to be even further removed from your photo-capturing shutter controls? Hitting the volume button on a pair of compatible, connected headphones will have the same effect.

11. Save your data allowance by limiting app access.

You're just a third of the way through the month, and your 2GB data allowance is already starting to look a little stretched. You don't have to cut back on your on-the-go Netflix viewing though. Instead, select which apps get demoted to the Wi-Fi-only B-list. Go to Settings > Mobile Data where you can make the big decisions one app at a time.

12. Improve your battery life.

Spotlight, Apple's connected quick-access for key data and services, is great for offering instant access to the latest breaking news, sports scores and social updates. But that much stuff going on in the background can eat your battery life whole. Unless you turn off Spotlight features for certain apps to eke out more life per charge, that is. "How?" we hear you cry? Just go Settings > General > Spotlight Search and limit what's pulling in data behind your back.

13. Improve your signal by knowing where to look for it.

No need to hang out of a first floor window trying to discover where your iPhone's connection is best. Type *3001#12345#* into your iPhone's dialler and hit call to launch the hidden Field Mode tool. This sub-surface menu turns your bar chart-based signal indicator into a far more straightforward numerical-based signal signifier. Got a score of -50? Then you'll be enjoying HD video streams on the move. Down around -120, though, and you'll struggle to send a text. Just follow the numbers to better signals.

14. Use your phone like an Etch-a-Sketch to erase.

You might have already stumbled across this one in a fit of rage, but like your childhood etch-a-sketch, your recent iPhone activities can be erased simply by giving the thing a good ol' shake. Perfect for the plump of finger and poor of spelling, who want to skip the endless backspace bashing with a firm handset rattle. And if you're shivering rather than shaking? Don't worry: a pop-up will ensure you want to delete before erasing your typing.

15. Find out exactly how long you've been waiting for a reply.

We've all been there: endlessly rechecking our phones for a text reply, wondering how long it's been since we sent our message of love/ ransom demand. There's an easy way to find out, though - simply swipe in from the right-hand side of the screen when in a messaging thread, to show precise delivery times for every message sent and received. True: it's not as morale-beating as WhatsApp's blue ticks, but it will still give you a complex over why it's taking over 42 minutes for your other half to reply. Do affairs really take that long?

16. Share your family tree with Siri.

Does referring to your parents by their given name make you feel awkward? Then teach Siri to know who you're chatting about. Ask Siri to call your dad and the digital PA should ask who your father is. Once a contact has been assigned to the parental moniker, every time you ask for pops moving forward, you'll be backed up by simple, fuss-free calling.

17. Swipe right to retreat.

For iPhone-owning Android converts, living without a dedicated back button can be a difficult adjustment to make. While the iPhone might not have an ever-present command to put things in reverse, there is a simple way to head in the wrong direction. Within a number of apps — from Safari to Mail, via Messages — swiping from left to right on the screen will send you back to the previous page or menu. Who needs a dedicated button when you've got a more elegant solution?

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