[mp05]

You're onto something but it flies in the face of a bit of convention as you're probably not the standard personality that gets into engineering.

I think it's a fine career to go to school, get your BS in whatever technical field you choose, and work as engineer #52354 at Ingersoll Rand, or Boeing, or whomever, and retire after 30 years of being master of your highly complex but perhaps limited domain. That is a very valid definition of an "engineer". These people probably have very fulfilling personal lives that you'd probably see as miserably boring, and that's okay.

I've thought hard lately about this sort of thing, and one thing that seems clear to me is that management likely sees the "standard engineer" is a cost sink where someone like yourself may escape that sort of criticism as your value transcends just engineering and into other departments that directly generate revenue.

For what it's worth, we sound like the same type of engineer but I've worked to try and turn what may be contempt for the stereotype into something more... collaborative.