Journey From Engineering to Marketing

I started my career as a research engineer at the Indian Institute of Sciences. I quickly realized that no matter how much you like the electronics field, you have to know coding; unless you want to specialize in a much narrower hardware engineer role. I found the perfect mix of electronics and computers when I pursued my MS in Electrical Engineering (Computer Networks) at the University of Southern California. After my masters, I worked at Spirent Communications and Alcatel-Lucent for 6 years in engineering roles before transitioning to Marketing. As a software engineer you can end up working on a module/protocol for a long time. While this leads to specialization, I was curious about how all other pieces of the puzzle work together in a business. This is when I decided to pursue MBA from USC. I transitioned from managing a team of 16 engineers to marketing when an interesting opportunity opened up at my company. They wanted to transform marketing from a traditional to a much more digital centric organization. This was the perfect opportunity for me to use my MBA learnings and help with digital transformation across a large organization. Over the years, I have worked in multiple marketing roles such as product marketing, digital/web marketing, e-commerce and demand generation. Below are some observations as I transitioned from Engineering to Marketing:

• Lost in infinity: Engineering especially while coding can be extremely satisfying. You can lose track of time while trying to solve a problem. In marketing you have to look at the big picture. You have to be in sync with the trends and customer needs.
• Convince: Engineers deal in binaries. It works or it doesn’t. Marketing is a combination of art and science where there could be many opinions that may all be correct. 
• Responsibility: Engineers are responsible for a module/functionality. Once a product is launched, you generally move on to the next module/product. A product manager is generally responsible for the success of the product line from NPD (new product development) to commercialization and end of life.
• Technical: We all know that software development work is technical, but product marketing, web and demand generation are also extremely technical fields. There is a varied degree of technicality in marketing. Ex: Brand can be very visual and subjective, where as demand generation can be a very numbers/data oriented subject.
• Crazy hours: In Engineering, the hours are more spread out, and you end up working many hours. Marketing is more focused during the day given that you have to meet many folks in-person or via conference calls.
• Job Security:  All things considered equal, engineering jobs have slightly more job security than marketing. The first place budget cuts start is with SG&A. This has begun to change with Demand Generation as a revenue generation engine, but marketing generally takes the brunt of the cuts,
• Travel and interactions: There are lot more opportunities to interact with customers and folks outside the companies as a marketer then as an engineer. 
• Salary: Engineering roles have better pay (in general) when compared to traditional marketing roles, but the gap is much narrower for more technical/complex roles in marketing such as Product Marketing, Web/e-commerce, Data Analytics and Demand Generation.

I have seen marketing struggle with IT teams while implementing complex web tools. They feel that IT gives them long and expensive estimates. IT on the other hand may feel that marketing doesn’t understand the complexity. Having a software and marketing background has definitely allowed me to navigate through such complexities. In my opinion, the following skillsets are important for future marketing leaders:

• Marketing: Deep understand of marketing principals, brand, content and current methodologies
• Product Management: Seeing the big picture from customer needs to product capabilities, and how everything comes together.
• Demand Generation knowledge is absolutely critical as you are directly tied to revenue. All actions have to be geared to the end result of moving the needle for the company.
• Technical: Having a technical background is a big plus that helps with accelerating deliverables.
• Analytics: Be passionate about data and insights as it enables predictability.
• Customer: Deep dive into what customers are looking for and how you can influence them with messaging, content and brand