Originally Posted by Unregistered

Whoa, to be fair, engineers nowadays are churned out by the thousands by both local and overseas Unis. Some are sponsored by prospective employers and others on their own steam. Some graduate from top ranked Unis and some from not-so prestigious Unis.

So there is a wide spectrum of capabilities out there. Some will do well becoming technical managers (managerial track) while some will develop along the technical career ladder. As in many other professions, there will be the non performers.

I cannot comment on how engineers perform in the private sector as the employers / companies are way too varied - from the very established companies like IBM, HP to very small SMEs. But in the Civil Service and Defense Industry side, engineers are paid quite well. Good honours fresh grads joining the CS / Military can expect up to $4K pm. Their careers some more quite stable with many opportunities for professional training and upgrade. Understand they are even given increments for advanced degrees! Many of the bosses are themselves engineers so there is less of an issue about being too technical with the bosses.

Actually the only issue with the CS/Military/Defense industry is that they are choosy tending to take in only Upper honours and above. But they are prepared to pay higher for these talents.