Engineering How Do Technologists, Technicians, and Engineers Differ in the Workplace?

[solarei]

Hey people, don't know if this thread's been done to death but I was wondering if anyone has more info on technologists vs Engineers in what they actually do, salary comparisons and career advancement opportunities.

Thanks

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

From what little I've seen of the term, it appears to be a fancy name for a technician. In other words, an engineer designs things, the technologist installs/builds/integrates them.

If they really are not more than glorified technicians, they probably don't make as much as an engineer. However, they don't need to go into debt for school like an engineer would either. If you enjoy working with your hands and getting closer to the real work, then a technologist job may be right for you. But the promotion opportunities probably aren't as good. Frankly, I don't know why this should be, but it is what it is.

 

[ModusPwnd]

At my job the techs are technicians and about half of them have engineering degrees. The rest have military experience or 2 year degrees. They get paid very well too. One of them with lots of experience took a pay cut to be an engineer in a similar position to me.

 

[solarei]

I see, well

@Jake,
From what I've read, all I've seen is that technologists are more hands on than an engineer and actually technologists usually carry a BSc technology degree not an associate like a technician would thus a higher education level. What I'm asking is that since an engineer and a technologist carry a BSc degree, what's the in-depth difference between the two

@Modus
What exactly is the relation between technologists, technicians and engineers in the company?

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

There is this evil disease that infests large organizations which attempts to pigeon-hole jobs into very specific, bureaucratic bits of work.

Technologists, as far as I can tell, are junior engineers. We should just call them engineers and be done with this ridiculous exercise. So instead of calling them full fledged engineers, they call them "technologists". They get to pay them less, and then offer them a good pay jump when they have demonstrated their abilities.

I haven't seen many actual technologists. I've seen junior engineers. I'm supposing that a technologist is a lot like a junior engineer. But I think it likely that a bureaucrat from a large company's HR division can school me on the difference.

 

[ModusPwnd]

@Modus
What exactly is the relation between technologists, technicians and engineers in the company?

I'm still a little new on the job... I don't think the title "technologist" exists at the company I work at. The techs and the engineers work together and do a lot of similar stuff. The techs are more of an on call (during their shift) to provide maintenance and support where the engineers get involved in longer term projects that don't require immediate attention. But of course techs do get involved in our projects and engineers do support techs in time sensitive situations. The techs do have a more limited responsibility set in that their responsibility set is well defined.