My brother and I grew up seeing technology entering our household. My cousin’s house was the first one to have a PC running Windows 98 with a dial-up internet connection. My father stayed ahead of the most recent consumer electronics. When we went to buy a 3-CD VCD player, he (and I) were like happy kids in a candy shop. I have also seen my father fix things around the house. Today when I look back, I see how he unknowingly had an engineer’s mindset. He could dismantle a device down into pieces, fix faulty wiring, and repair leakages, while I remained wondering, ‘How does he know it all?’. He didn’t study engineering. Hell, he didn’t even complete his bachelor’s degree.
That’s when I realised that to be able to do all of the above does not require a degree or education. It’s a way of thinking and how we see the world. People with an engineering mindset thrive in solving complex problems. They are able to break it down step by step into a series of smaller problems. They bring modularity to solutions. And they iterate. If they’re stuck, they are not stopping until they can ‘debug’ — fully grasp what went wrong and why!
I could say the same about my brother too. We were lucky to have access to computers and various other electronics at an early age. While I enjoy exploring and discovering new and shiny things, he enjoys going behind the scenes and truly understanding how it all works.
Apart from family, I have had the pleasure of working with many talented engineers. Their passion for their work and their ability to solve complex problems has been nothing short of inspiring. Working alongside them has only enriched my approach towards design. I have learned to break down problems into smaller parts, identify the root cause, and develop solutions.
As a designer, we are wearing multiple hats at all times. And our profession requires us to collaborate with people from multiple domains to build something we envisioned truly. I believe it’s valuable, although not necessary, to have an engineer’s mindset, as it balances the eccentric side of your brain with the rather practical side, or the right with the left side of the brain, if you will!