Recently there has been discussion around the internet about developing engineers, so I will summarize my own thoughts. First, the comments that left an impression on me included the following.

• I studied by myself rather than being taught by someone
• Engineers are like athletes
• Engineers should study even in private time
• If you like programming, studying is not painful; if not, the job is mismatched
• Engineers should not be expected to study privately as overtime work
• If they are embedded engineers and so on, studying during work is enough
• There are environments where it is easier to grow
• Not only engineers, but wanting results without studying seems wrong

My own opinions are as follows.

• It is possible to create an environment and mechanisms where engineers can be developed
• A company organization should prepare such an environment
• Even if the environment is prepared perfectly, there is no 100% guarantee that someone will become an excellent engineer
• For excellent engineers, assigned duties, compensation, and other treatment should be considered
• Excellent engineers study programming even in private
• A company organization must not force labor outside working hours
• A strong team is a diverse team, and it is not composed only of programming knowledge
• A company organization should design itself so that engineers who do not study programming privately can also demonstrate their abilities
• At that time, it should also be considered that excellent engineers want to work with excellent engineers
• An organization must not impose individual values, but values should be shared between individuals
• An organization’s thinking is reflected through system design
• An individual’s thinking must be communicated in a safe place separated from compensation and similar matters
• For individual career development, a company organization listening to the person’s hopes and giving optimal advice will become one of the organization’s strengths
• The final goal is to build excellent products. The optimum for the organization and the individual differs by situation. Each time, priorities should be set strategically and decisions made

That became long…

I work in the field of education x IT, and as part of organizational design I am involved in team design and training while also doing development. Because I have knowledge in both engineering and education, I tried to organize my thoughts.

Finally, I will add two things I want to write as supplements.

Mindset cannot be trained

When developing people, it is important to clarify what can and cannot be done. Now that the internet has developed, learning materials are everywhere. There is even content for learning how to learn. For these things, people can make appropriate judgments among books, videos, schools, online information, and so on, and learn. People who can move forward should keep moving, and those who want to but cannot do it well should receive advice.

However, mindset cannot be trained. All you can do is act on it and wait. Forcing someone to do something they do not want to do has the opposite effect. How to create this mindset is the difficult point in development.

You can act on mindset through appropriate goal setting, coaching techniques, 1on1 meetings, career setting, evaluation systems, and various other methods. But you cannot create mindset from zero. Mindset can only be built by the person themselves.

Study things unrelated to work in private

When engineers study or take side jobs, it is better to choose fields where they can gain knowledge they cannot get from their work. It is fine to work on adjacent fields, and it is also OK to work on completely distant fields. But there is no need to privately study what can be obtained through work.

I think the same about side jobs. If you do a side job for compensation, I recommend increasing your compensation in your main job instead. It is better to gain experience you cannot get in your main work, such as business negotiation experience or decision-making experience in other fields.

Not only for developing a better career, but also over a long life, I think there will be at least some discontinuous, jumping experiences that differ from the choices made so far. In those moments, activities that broaden the frame of your work can be useful. So if you are going to study privately anyway, I think it is good to study things not directly related to work.

Not only engineers, but anyone who wants to walk a good life cannot do without daily self-improvement. Sometimes rest is necessary, and sometimes people may worry or get lost. For that reason, while making various comments, I thought it may be the responsibility of people around them to help broaden their field of view.