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(#100) Engineering Interviews Ethics and The Bottom Line · Mechanical Engineering Made Simple

• 0:00
  Welcome back to IGN Chuckies to mechanical engineering made
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  simple. If you enjoy the podcast, show
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  your support with a like a follow or a comment.
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  It's free for you but means the world to us.
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  Let's keep leveling U together. Today is going to be a wild
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  ride. Usually we are deep in the weeds
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  of thermodynamics or, you know, calculating the sheer stress on
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  a bolt until our eyes cross. But today?
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  Today is different. We are looking at the human side
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  of the equation. That's right, we are moving
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  beyond the calculator and walking through the actual life
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  of a practicing engineer. We've got a stack of sources
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  here based on the concepts of engineering practice curriculum,
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  and it turns out that being an engineer is what, 50% math?
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  And 50% navigating a minefield of ethics, high stakes
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  interviews and straight up boardroom battles.
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  It really is a story about how engineering actually happens in
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  the real world, from the sheer terror of the licensing exam to
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  the conflict between building a sustainable future and, well,
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  keeping the board of directors happy.
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  So our mission for this deep dive is to answer the questions
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  they definitely didn't cover in your textbooks, like what
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  actually makes a project succeed or fail?
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  How do you even get hired in the first place?
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  Right. And what happens when the
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  correct engineering answer clashes with money or politics?
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  We have a really comprehensive stack of sources here, ranging
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  from hiring strategies from industry execs to sustainability
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  frameworks, and even a detailed case study on financing A
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  skyscraper that honestly reads like a drama script.
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  OK, let's unpack this. We have to start at the
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  beginning, the barrier to entry. You graduate with your degree.
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  You toss your cap in the air. You think you've made it, but
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  you aren't actually a professional engineer yet, are
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  you? Not even close and this is a
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  huge misconception in the US. Just having a degree doesn't let
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  you sign off on blueprints. So what's the path?
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  The path to becoming APE or Professional Engineer is a multi
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  year gauntlet. First you graduate, then you
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  have to pass the Fe exam. The fundamentals of engineering
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  exam. And let's be clear, this isn't a
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  little O quiz. No, it is an 8 hour marathon and
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  looking at the pass rates from the source material, it's just
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  fascinating to see the spread between the disciplines.
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  It says a. Lot it really does.
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  For example, for first time takers, chemical engineers were
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  sitting at an 85% pass rate. They are absolutely crushing it.
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  But not everyone was performing at that level.
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  I saw the stats for industrial engineers.
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  Yeah, industrial engineers were sitting at 61%.
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  That is a significant drop. Why is that?
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  Is the exam just harder for them?
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  It's not about difficulty, I think it's about breath.
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  The Fe exam is brutal because it doesn't just test your
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  specialty. You might be a civil engineer
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  focused on bridges. We're an industrial engineer
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  focused on supply chain. Right, but that morning session
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  of the exam covers chemistry, computers, ethics and
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  engineering economics. So if your college curriculum
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  let you specialize too early and you, I don't know, forgot your
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  basic chemistry, you're in trouble.
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  You're in a lot of trouble. You can't just stay in your
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  lane. The exam forces you to be a
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  generalist first. So let's say you survive the Fe
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  exam. You aren't done.
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  No. Now you're an engineer in
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  training. You have to work for four years
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  to gain experience, and then you sit for the PE exam.
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  Only then do you get the stamp. But before you can get that
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  experience, you have to actually get a job.
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  And this is where we shift from the technical hurdles to the
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  social ones. The sources included notes from
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  executives at major engineering firms, presidents, CEO's, VP's
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  of human resources. And they were asked what they
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  actually look for in a candidate.
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  Yeah, this is where a lot of 4.0 GPA students crash and burn
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  isn't. It it really is.
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  They are not just looking for someone who can solve a
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  differential equation. I love this part.
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  There was a VP of Human Resources at a 200 million
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  environmental services firm who laid it out pretty simply.
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  They look for enthusiasm, obviously, but they have this
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  specific metric. The glass of beer test.
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  The glass of beer test. It sounds so informal, doesn't
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  it? It does, but it cuts to the core
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  of team dynamics. The question the hiring manager
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  is asking themselves is would I want to sit and have a drink
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  with this person? It feels a bit like a popularity
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  contest. Yeah, it makes sense.
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  It's not about popularity, it's about tolerability.
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  I mean, engineering projects can drag on for months or years.
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  You are in the trenches with your team.
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  So if you are the smartest person in the room but you're
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  abrasive, arrogant, or just painfully awkward to talk to,
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  you fail the test. You become a liability to the
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  team culture. OK, so personality matters a
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  lot, but you still have to answer the interview questions.
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  The sources recommend something called the Star method.
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  Is this just HR jargon or is it actually useful?
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  Oh, it's the gold standard because it provides structure to
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  your answers. And engineers, you know, they
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  love structure, but they often struggle to tell a story about
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  themselves. Star that situation task action
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  results. Right, and it stops you from
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  rambling. A bad answer to tell me about a
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  time you solved a problem is usually vague.
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  Oh, I'm a great problem solver, I work hard.
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  That tells me nothing. It's just.
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  Fluff. Total fluff, but using Star
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  you'd say the situation was we were over on the HVAC project.
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  The task was to cut costs by 10% without sacrificing performance.
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  Okay, much more specific. The action I took was
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  researching alternative heat exchangers and renegotiating
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  with the vendor and the result was a 15% savings and we
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  finished two weeks early. That's so much more powerful,
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  especially that last part. The result?
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  You're quantifying it. Exactly.
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  You have to quantify it. Don't just say it worked, say
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  how much money or time you saved.
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  Speaking of interviews, the sources also listed the top
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  mistakes candidates make and some of these made me laugh but
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  also cringe a little because they are so avoidable.
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  Painfully common number. One on the don't do list Jekyll
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  and Hyde behavior. Oh, this is an immediate.
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  Killer being nice to the hiring manager but rude to the
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  receptionist. It just shows a fundamental lack
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  of character. If you treat people with less
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  power poorly, you're not going to be a good leader or team
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  member. It's an instant fail.
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  Another big one is the weak handshake.
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  It sounds like a cliche, but it registers as a lack of
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  confidence. It's the first physical contact
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  you have. A limp fish handshake sets a
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  tone of passivity. And the other big one, please,
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  for the love of engineering, turn off your cell phone.
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  The source material literally wrote that in all caps.
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  Turn them off. You would be shocked how often a
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  phone buzzes or rings during a critical answer.
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  It's signals that you don't value the interviewers time.
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  And there's a rule of thumb for rambling.
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  Keep your answers to 2:00 to 3:00 minutes.
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  It happens all the time. You get nervous, you start
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  explaining the technical details of your senior project, and 10
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  minutes later the interviewer has forgotten what they even
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  asked you. OK, so let's assume you aced the
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  interview. You gave a firm handshake, you
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  didn't check your texts, and you got the job.
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  Now you have a stamp. You have authority, but you also
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  have a massive burden. This is where we get into the
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  ethical compass. Once you are a professional, you
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  are bound by a code. We have the fundamental canons
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  from the ASCE, the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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  And this isn't just a suggestion box, right?
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  It's like the constitution of the profession.
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  It really is, and Canon 1 is the most critical.
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  Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare
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  of the public. That word paramount is heavy.
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  It's everything. It means that public safety
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  overrides your client's budget, your boss's deadline, and maybe
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  even your own job security. That is a tough spot to be in if
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  your boss says we need to cut costs on this concrete and you
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  know it makes the building unsafe.
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  You have to say no, and if they persist, you might have to blow
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  the whistle. Canon 3 struck me as well.
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  Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful
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  manner. That sounds like you can't just
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  spin things because your client wants good PR.
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  Precisely. If a developer wants you to say
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  their project won't cause traffic, but your data says it
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  will, you have to state the data.
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  You can't be a hype man. You are a guardian of the truth.
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  And Canon 5 build professional reputation on merit, not by
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  competing unfairly. It's all about integrity.
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  But here is where it gets really interesting.
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  Because in the real world, being a guardian creates it's
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  conflict. You have ethics on one side and
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  money. And politics on the other, that
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  is a eternal struggle. And to illustrate this, the
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  curriculum provides a case study called Financing A Skyscraper.
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  It is a brilliant way to see how these abstract ethics collide
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  with cold hard cash. I love this case study because
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  the characters are so perfect. They are archetypes of the
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  people you meet in every single boardroom.
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  So you have the board of directors and they are terrified
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  of risk. They want you to run a
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  sensitivity analysis. Which is just a fancy way of
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  asking what happens to our money if everything goes wrong.
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  Exactly. If the market crashes, if
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  construction is delayed, how much do we lose?
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  So first we have can be leased, he's the real estate marketing
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  expert. And the names are significant
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  here. Can be leased, can be leased.
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  He is risk averse. He fears demand is weakening.
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  He wants a smaller building, maybe 800,000 square feet.
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  Low risk. Get it done fast.
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  He's the guy saying let's not get crazy here.
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  Exactly. Then you have the environmental
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  expert. Am I green?
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  Am I green? She is pushing for
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  sustainability. She argues that tenants will pay
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  20 to 40% more rent for the prestige of a green building.
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  She sees the long term value, the moral imperative.
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  And backing her up is the architect.
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  You pay me. You pay me a cousin of IM pay.
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  Apparently she loves the very green idea because it's an
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  architectural statement. She wants to build a monument.
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  But then there's the engineer concrete.
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  Concrete the skeptic. He looks at MI Green's proposal,
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  and he starts crunching the numbers.
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  He argues that the Green building costs an extra 100
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  million in construction. And takes six months longer to
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  build. Right.
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  And his counter argument is brutal.
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  He says it only saves 10 million in utilities.
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  He basically says look, I can save you 5 million just by
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  cutting out the fancy architecture, which I'm sure you
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  pay me loved hearing. Oh, I'm sure and this is the
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  core conflict of engineering practice.
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  You have MI Green and you pay me pushing for innovation and
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  sustainability, which aligns with those ethical canons about
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  the environment. But you have can be leased in
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  concrete looking at the Ledger and saying this doesn't make
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  financial sense. So how do you resolve a fight
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  like that? You can't just arm wrestle for
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  it. You need math.
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  You need the math of decision making, specifically project
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  evaluation using equivalence and net present value or NPV.
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  OK, let's unpack NPV, because this is the tool that decides
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  whether the skyscraper gets built or not.
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  It all comes down to the time value of money.
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  The core concept is that money today is worth more than money
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  tomorrow. Right.
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  If I give you 100 today, you can invest it and have more in a
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  year. If I give you 100 in a year,
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  you've lost that opportunity. Exactly.
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  So when Concrete says the green building saves 10 million a year
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  in utilities, that 10 million in year 20 isn't actually worth 10
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  million today. You have to.
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  Discount it. We have to discount those future
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  cash flows to see what they are worth right now.
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  The source gives us the formula for present worth.
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  It's M divided by the quantity 1 + I to the power of N.
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  OK, let's break that down. Dollars is the money you get in
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  the future. I just as the interest rate.
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  And dollars is the number of years out.
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  Correct. So one plus I and in our day
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  because that one plus I in deal is in the denominator.
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  The further out in the future you go, the larger Donald gets,
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  the smaller the present value becomes.
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  So that 10 million saved in year 20 might only be worth a
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  fraction of that in today's terms.
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  A tiny fraction, which puts the Green team at a massive
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  disadvantage. Their costs are upfront.
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  That extra 100 million for construction happens now.
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  Their benefits, the utility savings, happen later.
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  This is why sustainability is such a hard sell in traditional
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  engineering economics, isn't it? The math naturally favors low
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  upfront costs. It favors the cheap and dirty
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  approach unless you can prove the long term value is just
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  massive. But the board wasn't just
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  worried about money, they were worried about risk.
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  And the sources make a really interesting distinction between
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  risk and uncertainty. This is a crucial distinction.
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  Uncertainty implies a lack of knowledge.
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  You don't know what's going to happen because you haven't done
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  your homework. So if you don't know the soil
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  conditions, that's uncertainty. Right.
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  And the antidote to uncertainty is research.
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  Go drill a hole. Do the test.
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  Eliminate the unknown. Risk, on the other hand, is
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  different. Risk means we know the
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  probabilities and the consequences.
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  We know there's a 10% chance of an earthquake.
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  We can't eliminate it, but we can manage it, and the sources
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  break risk down into specific categories.
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  There's engineering risk, like soil conditions or fault lines.
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  That's the stuff we usually think of.
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  But then there is political risk.
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  Will the government change? Will permits be denied?
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  Imagine spending millions on design only to have the City
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  Council vote no. And social risk.
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  This is the Not in my Backyard crowd, the M&B wise.
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  That is often the wild card. A project can be engineered
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  perfectly and financed perfectly, but if the neighbors
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  protest or if the community rises up against it, the project
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  is dead. So what does this all mean for
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  the modern engineer? It sounds like we can't just be
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  the hero who comes in, conquers nature, builds the bridge, and
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  rides off into the sunset. That hero archetype, the 19th
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  and 20th century engineer bringing progress, is evolving.
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  The sources talk about a shift toward integrated sustainability
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  assessments. We have to look at the triple
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  bottom line. Right.
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  It's a balancing act. You have the economic leg, is it
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  lower cost and profitable? You have the technical leg, Is
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  it safe and durable? And now you have the social
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  environmental leg. Is it non-toxic?
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  Is it user friendly? Does it maintain ecosystem
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  integrity? And there was a framework
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  mentioned called the Seven questions to sustainability.
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  I like this because it moves away from just profit to asking
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  some really human questions. It was developed by the MMSD
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  task group. Instead of just asking how much
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  does it cost. Question number one is our
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  engagement processes in place? Our engagement processes in
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  place, that sounds like corporate speak, but it
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  basically means did you talk to the people who actually live
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  there? Precisely.
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  Question 2 is even more direct. Will people's well-being be
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  maintained? It forces the engineer to look
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  at the community impact. The sources gave a real world
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  example of this the groundwater replenishment system in Orange
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  County. This is a classic case.
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  They were taking wastewater, sewage and turning it into
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  drinking water. Technically it was brilliant,
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  but socially that is a hard sell.
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  People call it toilet to tap. They do, yeah.
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  I wouldn't want to be the marketing guy for that.
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  Here, have a glass of recycled water.
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  Not the easiest pitch. But because they applied these
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  sustainability questions, because they focused on public
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  engagement and well-being, they were able to gain public
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  acceptance. They proved that the yuck factor
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  could be overcome by transparency and clear benefits
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  to the water supply. It really shows how the job has
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  changed. You aren't just calculating flow
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  rates, you're managing public perception.
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  If we connect this to the bigger picture, the engineer today has
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  to be a diplomat, A financier and an ethicist.
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  You have to pass the technical exam, yes, but then you have to
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  pass the glass of beer test to get hired.
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  Then you have to navigate the can be leasts and the concretes
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  who want to cut costs. And finally, you have to answer
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  to the public and the environment.
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  It is a lot of pressure. But it also makes the profession
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  so much more vital. It's not just about keeping the
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  building standing, it's about making sure the building should
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  stand. That is the ultimate take away.
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  Engineering practice isn't just about calculating the load on a
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  beam. It's about navigating the
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  interview, upholding ethics when the boss wants to cut corners,
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  balancing the budget against the You Pay Me architects of the
• 15:44
  world, and ensuring the project is sustainable for the future.
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  So here's a question for you to Mull over.
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  We talked about concrete versus MI Green.
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  Concrete says the green building cost 100 million more upfront.
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  The math says the net present value is negative.
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  Financially, it's a loser. But MI Green says it saves the
• 16:03
  environment. Exactly.
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  So do you build it? At what point does the hero
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  engineer have to bow to the financial reality?
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  If the math says no, but your conscience says yes, who wins?
• 16:14
  That is the question that defines a career.
• 16:16
  If you haven't already, get over to our YouTube channel
• 16:19
  Mechanical Engineering Made Simple, where we post hands on
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  how to videos, visual breakdowns, and practical
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  engineering walkthroughs. You can actually use a family
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  that solves together, stays together.