Career Paths for CAD Professionals

I worked for someone once who wanted to promote me to a sales position. I think he was surprised at the scowl he got from me. Honestly, it was a huge insult, although I know he didn’t mean it that way. He thought a promotion was a good thing. Unfortunately, a lot of technical people don’t see a move to sales as being a move up.

So, what kind of options are available for CAD people, or indeed technical product development folks of any stripe?

Technical people are often technical people because they may not be overly outgoing, or interested in dealing with people and people problems. We don’t want to move into people oriented positions because it makes us uncomfortable, and we don’t see a move to managing people’s days off or trying to convince people to spend money on your product regardless if it fits their needs or not. There really should be an upper track for technical people.

If you find that your place of work does not have positions for senior or director level jobs for folks who specialize in technology, there are some types of jobs you can look for in other places.

CAD Administrator

This is an obvious jump for a CAD pro. There are a lot of pluses and minuses for this type of position. It is a step forward, and it does require a lot of technical skill, and it is or can be a step forward into more decision making, budgeting, shaping the product development process. But at the same time, there is no guarantee that there is another position beyond CAD Admin. You can get pidgeon holed if you can’t move to a technical director position. Still, CAD Admin gives entry level CAD users something to aspire to that is directly in their field.

This deals directly with the CAD software administration, but can also include documentation and change process.

Product Development Process Manager

A lot of technical people at least understand process. A lot of companies understand the need for a structured process to govern how they develop their products. This governs how you move from customer needs or a new internal idea to a real product definition to development to prototyping/testing, manufacturing, repair, and continued development. This kind of job can be ideal for a technical person who isn’t going to be satisfied retiring as a keyboard thumper.

Contractor/Consultant

I’ve written before on how to do this. For some people, it’s a real option. You’re sick of working for “the man”, and want to make some decisions for yourself. You need more flexibility with working from home, or non-traditional hours, or you think you’re worth more than you’re getting. This is one way to prove yourself against the world. It’s also a great way to meet a lot of companies that might serve as your next employer.

It takes a special kind of person to do this kind of work effectively. You have to be able to work alone, and direct your own activities, as well as be able to track down work. It’s true that the better you are at your actual job, the less marketing type scrounging around you’ll have to do.

Trainer/Author/Analyst

Maybe you still retain a lot of technical knowledge, but you’re not interested so much in actually doing the technical work. There are still a lot of fields you can get into. There is a demand for trainers, and even for people who write about technical topics.

Before you get too excited here, don’t expect to max out your retirement fund as a writer. Technical books published by a publisher pay the author very little (on the order of $1-2 per hour). A lot of people come to me and ask how to become an author, or something like that. I tell people that if you are independently wealthy, after your unemployment runs out, or get dropped from public assistance, and your family kicks you out and you can’t find a place in a homeless shelter, and even the jail doesn’t want you, then you might think about becoming a writer. All of those things are more profitable, and the people you meet at those places are preferable to people you meet in the publishing industry.

Sometimes you can get companies (not a publisher) to pay you to write about specific topics. This would tend to be white papers, and usually for marketing people. This is the one way marketing folks actually get real, hard technical information.

You can think about blogging, but I’ve got more bubbles to burst for you there. Blogging can be a necessary part of an online presence, even if you just do it on a particular platform like Facebook or LinkedIn. I prefer to host my own, and then it can be ported to various platforms. At one point I was paying for groceries from (advertising on) my blog. That was pretty good. But unless you’re a really captivating writer, or are constantly writing about sensational train wrecks, have a lot of connections around the industry, and are willing to generally promote someone else’s point of view, blogging will be mostly a self-indulgent exercise in narcissism. It’s hard to maintain a blog, it takes a lot of dedication, and a long time to make it pay off, especially if you’re not a web sleaze. No bitterness there at all 8oP

Community Manager

With all of the on-line forums around these days, companies need a lot of technical folks who can administer a forum. This borders on people oriented marketing work, but you need a deep technical understanding to create content that will draw the right kind of people.

Be Open to Possibilities

Having goals is great, and important and all that, but you’ve got to remember that 20 years ago when you set your goals, some of the things that exist to day didn’t exist back then. So within each goal-oriented future, you’ve got to include a little room for opportunism. It’s not always just a single straight line path, sometimes there are forks in the road, and often there are multiple outcomes that will fulfill your overall goals.

If you’re open to new possibilities, there is a wide range of stuff that all of your technical expertise will qualify you for. Also, its my opinion that employers would do well to provide a way forward to keep senior technical people and all of that product knowledge within your company. I think employees want to be loyal, if companies will only allow them to be.

If you’re open to new possibilities, there is a wide range of stuff that all of your technical expertise will qualify you for. Also, its my opinion that employers would do well to provide a way forward to keep senior technical people and all of that product knowledge within your company. I think employees want to be loyal, if companies will only allow them to be.

And, always remember what’s important. What’s important to you may seem crazy to someone else, so I’m not going to venture to tell you what should be important to you. But, you might consider reading this little LinkedIn article. It feels good to do what’s important to you. At least it does to me.