Are you both an engineer and investor?

[Hielko]

 

 

I am a hard core engineer also.

 

Now an interesting question: do you ever use your software skills for investing: like

- run monte carlo simulations

- using programming or matlab/octave

- use scripts to grab financial statement data off the web

 

etc

I do. Built a monte carlo script in phyton once to value convertible preferred stock with a call feature, and having some skills is nice to grab data from the web (used for example the Chrome inspector to pull the raw volume data that was displayed in a graph on the Bloomberg website). You have to be creative if you don't have access to an actual Bloomberg terminal.

[writser]

I am a hardcore user of Google Spreadsheets. The stuff you can do with that in combination with Google Finance is really amazing.

[SharperDingaan]

The reality is that good engineers only get to do engineering for a very short time. You very quickly end up managing other engineers, or managing engineering projects, for which you have zero training; hence the PEng->MBA migration. Do well, & those business skills combine to produce very strong hands-on owners, who grow their businesses from the ground up.  Linear process, but investment knowledge is just a by-product picked up along the way.

 

To know the investment side you really had to have worked in the investment industry, got your CFA along with your PEng & MBA, & then moved back to engineering. You aren't going back as a project manager, your intent is to buy out retiring partners, & your aim is to expand an allready established but limited business. Your Wall-Street/Bay Street time was purely to teach you the skills & funding techniques by which to do it. Zero interest in PM management. Very different engineering game.

 

Most investors will never see this 2nd group of engineers as almost always they will work for private firms. They only become visible when their firm IPO's & then only untill they get bought out by somebody bigger & the interim emloyment contract runs out. Then it is rinse & repeat.

 

SD

 

 

 

 

[yadayada]

An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want."

Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess and that I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

[oddballstocks]

Given the concentration of engineers, I'd be interested to see what everyone's Myers-Briggs results. I'm willing to bet we have a majority of introvert thinkers.

 

INTP

 

ENTJ

[Danger Zone]

Finance student and equity research here. Was basically a coinflip between engineering physics and finance for me though, and I was investing before university. INTJ personality type.

[giofranchi]

+1 to much of what is already written above.  Math, analysis, problem solving, money, ... what's not to like? 

 

I am a material science engineer turned civil engineer. And I started my first company, civil engineering consulting services, 10 years ago.

I didn’t start investing because of the love for math, analysis, problem solving, etc. … well, maybe the love for money … ;D ;D

The reason I started investing is much more straightforward imo: I knew my engineering firm would never benefit from scale… it is not an easily scalable business… and therefore almost doesn’t need new investments each year.

So, the reason I started investing is to answer the following question: what am I supposed to do with the fcf my firm puts in my hands? ;)

 

Gio

 

[Palantir]

I am an INFP here....definitely no engineer...

[cobafdek]

I am an MD.  None of my non-engineer patients do what the engineers and retired engineers do:  come to each office visit with spreadsheets of all their past medical vital signs, lab test results, etc.  Most also bring a neatly typed brief summary of personal medical events since their last visit with me.  Their medical "specifications," as they say.  My office charts are a mess, but these spreadsheets and notes could virtually tidy them up and even replace them, such that there would be no need for electronic medical records (they are all junk anyway).

 

Because of this, the engineers as a class are my favorite patients.  Moreover, they are rational and therefore easiest to talk to and explain things to, and they are not given over to anxiety (which makes all illness, whether perceived or real, worse than what they are).

If only all my patients could be engineers or retired engineers!

[randomep]

I am an MD.  None of my non-engineer patients do what the engineers and retired engineers do:  come to each office visit with spreadsheets of all their past medical vital signs, lab test results, etc.  Most also bring a neatly typed brief summary of personal medical events since their last visit with me.  Their medical "specifications," as they say.  My office charts are a mess, but these spreadsheets and notes could virtually tidy them up and even replace them, such that there would be no need for electronic medical records (they are all junk anyway).

 

Because of this, the engineers as a class are my favorite patients.  Moreover, they are rational and therefore easiest to talk to and explain things to, and they are not given over to anxiety (which makes all illness, whether perceived or real, worse than what they are).

If only all my patients could be engineers or retired engineers!

 

haha, you know I am an engineer and I am starting to do that. I keep electronic records of all my doctor visits..... thanks for the feedback that it is useful....

 

 

[rcm]

I got an engineering degree, worked for a few years, then went to law school.  I've been a patent lawyer for eight years now.  I usually end up ENTP on Meyers-Briggs.

 

And I write up a medical history summary when I see a new doctor.  Not spreadsheets; law has tempered my desire to put data in rows and columns a little.

[zarley]

INTP; not an engineer.  Not detailed enough to be an engineer.  I'm very much a "roughly right" kind of guy.  ;D

[merkhet]

Mathematics and Neurobiology here. Then law school. Then business school.

 

About to start medical school so I can have the trifecta. (j/k)

[thecynic]

Software Engineer/Architect, INTP here. Invest because I'd much rather read, think & decide than manage people or take care of day-to-day business activities.

[wachtwoord]

I am an MD.  None of my non-engineer patients do what the engineers and retired engineers do:  come to each office visit with spreadsheets of all their past medical vital signs, lab test results, etc.  Most also bring a neatly typed brief summary of personal medical events since their last visit with me.  Their medical "specifications," as they say.  My office charts are a mess, but these spreadsheets and notes could virtually tidy them up and even replace them, such that there would be no need for electronic medical records (they are all junk anyway).

 

Because of this, the engineers as a class are my favorite patients.  Moreover, they are rational and therefore easiest to talk to and explain things to, and they are not given over to anxiety (which makes all illness, whether perceived or real, worse than what they are).

If only all my patients could be engineers or retired engineers!

 

All contact I have had with either general doctors or physiotherapists (sport injury) I always noticed how much they seem to enjoy explaining things to me. I always thought it was general intelligence and my logical stance (it's more fun explaining something to someone who seems to understand), but with my low sample size it could all just have been coincidence. Nice to see it confirmed here :)