Many of us engineers fancy ourselves as artisans who get to avoid working that 2nd job to pay for our art.
But the reality is that we pay the bill inside the companies we work for. Our art has to meet certain deadlines and specifications decided by others. We have to spend time in meetings about nothingness. Whether we get funded still comes down to dollars for value, with the exception that instead of the grants artists get, we call it salary.
Very little in life can be extracted from the fact that we must provide value to others and often on their terms, even if that value is doing little but filling up their meeting so they look very in charge.
I solve this by having a good book on my phone for when I am in meetings and ensuring that there are always many things I am doing beyond my job. There is plenty of opportunity for the purely fun "let's build something cool" type of engineering outside of work that can still contribute to your career.
But the reality is that we pay the bill inside the companies we work for. Our art has to meet certain deadlines and specifications decided by others. We have to spend time in meetings about nothingness. Whether we get funded still comes down to dollars for value, with the exception that instead of the grants artists get, we call it salary.
Very little in life can be extracted from the fact that we must provide value to others and often on their terms, even if that value is doing little but filling up their meeting so they look very in charge.
I solve this by having a good book on my phone for when I am in meetings and ensuring that there are always many things I am doing beyond my job. There is plenty of opportunity for the purely fun "let's build something cool" type of engineering outside of work that can still contribute to your career.