The Secret Life of Engineers

by Charles Dye

For the last few years I've been asking myself a question about an aspect of our industry many of us may accept as just the way it is, but I don't believe it has to be. Why do we have "engineering secrets"? More importantly, why is each new generation of engineers required to essentially re-discover many of the techniques of the previous generation's masters?

Imagine if the same were true of medicine or science? Each generation would have to re-discover the polio vaccine, electricity and the semi-conductor. That clearly doesn't make sense. In many vocations new techniques are simply shared with colleagues for the sake of improving their industry's common product. Do we as an industry benefit by not sharing with each other? Probably not.

Somehow we've created a culture where techniques we learn are kept secret from one another. Presumably the reasoning behind it is if I know how to do something that you don't, then that makes me a better engineer. But I don't believe that's really true. For example: doctor's all have available to them the same information base to learn from, allowing each of them the possibility to have equal skills. Does that mean one doctor cannot be better than another? No, certainly not.

Then what makes one engineer better than another? In my opinion, two things: their ears and their console-side manner, but not their learned techniques. Knowing how to do something, versus having the taste to know when and why are two distinctly separate abilities. The one that sets great engineers apart from good is clearly the latter. Most of us are aware of this, so why do we collectively perpetuate this cycle of ignorance? Probably because we worked very hard to discover each of the techniques that enable us to get the sound we searched so many years for, and since we worked so hard to learn them, it only makes sense that younger engineers do the same. Right?

Again, I don't agree with that logic, and for that same reason. I think since I worked so hard to learn my techniques, that is exactly why I should share them with others—so they won't have to. At first, it might feel like we're giving away something that will somehow damage our position in the market, but in truth we've each reached the level we're at as engineers because of our ears, and that ability can't really be passed on. It must simply be developed by each engineer on their own.

Recently, the internet has fostered this kind of sharing with forums hosted by some true golden ears. What a younger engineer can learn by asking direct questions of these men and women is great. I hope this is an indication of a new age of sharing. For me, it's very rewarding when I'm able to help others in this way. I feel the more knowledge that we can pass on to the people around us, the higher quality of work that we can all do.