---
title: "Engineer"
chunk: 1/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:47:33.022400+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

An engineer is a practitioner of engineering. The word engineer (Latin ingeniator, Ir is the term and or title of an engineer in countries like Belgium, The Netherlands, and Indonesia) is derived from the Latin words ingeniare ("to contrive, devise") and ingenium ("cleverness"). The foundational qualifications of a licensed professional engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or in some jurisdictions, a master's degree in an engineering discipline plus four to six years of peer-reviewed professional practice (culminating in a project report or thesis) and passage of engineering board examinations.
The work of engineers forms the link between scientific discoveries and their subsequent applications to human and business needs and quality of life.

== Definition ==
In 1961, the Conference of Engineering Societies of Western Europe and the United States of America defined "professional engineer" as follows:

A professional engineer is competent by virtue of his/her fundamental education and training to apply the scientific method and outlook to the analysis and solution of engineering problems. He/she is able to assume personal responsibility for the development and application of engineering science and knowledge, notably in research, design, construction, manufacturing, superintending, managing, and in the education of the engineer. His/her work is predominantly intellectual and varied and not of a routine mental or physical character. It requires the exercise of original thought and judgment and the ability to supervise the technical and administrative work of others. His/her education will have been such as to make him/her capable of closely and continuously following progress in his/her branch of engineering science by consulting newly published works on a worldwide basis, assimilating such information, and applying it independently. He/she is thus placed in a position to make contributions to the development of engineering science or its applications. His/her education and training will have been such that he/she will have acquired a broad and general appreciation of the engineering sciences as well as thorough insight into the special features of his/her own branch. In due time he/she will be able to give authoritative technical advice and assume responsibility for the direction of important tasks in his/her branch.

== Roles and expertise ==

=== Design ===

Engineers develop new technological solutions. During the engineering design process, the responsibilities of the engineer may include defining problems, conducting and narrowing research, analyzing criteria, finding and analyzing solutions, and making decisions. Much of an engineer's time is spent on researching, locating, applying, and transferring information. Indeed, research suggests engineers spend 56% of their time engaged in various information behaviours, including 14% actively searching for information.
Engineers weigh different design choices on their merits and choose the solution that best matches the requirements and needs. Their task is to identify, understand, and interpret the constraints on a design in order to produce a successful result. The work of an engineer requires problem solving skills.

=== Analysis ===

Engineers apply techniques of engineering analysis in testing, production, or maintenance. Analytical engineers may supervise production in factories and elsewhere, determine the causes of a process failure, and test output to maintain quality. They also estimate the time and cost required to complete projects. Supervisory engineers are responsible for major components or entire projects. Engineering analysis involves the application of scientific analytic principles and processes to reveal the properties and state of the system, device or mechanism under study. Engineering analysis proceeds by separating the engineering design into the mechanisms of operation or failure, analyzing or estimating each component of the operation or failure mechanism in isolation, and recombining the components. They may analyze risk.
Many engineers use computers to produce and analyze designs, to simulate and test how a machine, structure, or system operates, to generate specifications for parts, to monitor the quality of products, and to control the efficiency of processes.

=== Specialization and management ===

Most engineers specialize in one or more engineering disciplines. Numerous specialties are recognized by professional societies, and each of the major branches of engineering has numerous subdivisions. Civil engineering, for example, includes structural engineering, along with transportation engineering, geotechnical engineering, and materials engineering, including ceramic, metallurgical, and polymer engineering. Mechanical engineering cuts across most disciplines since its core essence is applied physics. Engineers also may specialize in one industry, such as motor vehicles, or in one type of technology, such as turbines or semiconductor materials.
Several recent studies have investigated how engineers spend their time; that is, the work tasks they perform and how their time is distributed among these. Research suggests that there are several key themes present in engineers' work: technical work (i.e., the application of science to product development), social work (i.e., interactive communication between people), computer-based work and information behaviors. Among other more detailed findings, a 2012 work sampling study found that engineers spend 62.92% of their time engaged in technical work, 40.37% in social work, and 49.66% in computer-based work. Furthermore, there was considerable overlap between these different types of work, with engineers spending 24.96% of their time engaged in technical and social work, 37.97% in technical and non-social, 15.42% in non-technical and social, and 21.66% in non-technical and non-social.
Engineering is also an information-intensive field, with research finding that engineers spend 55.8% of their time engaged in various different information behaviors, including 14.2% actively seeking information from other people (7.8%) and information repositories such as documents and databases (6.4%).
The time engineers spend engaged in such activities is also reflected in the competencies required in engineering roles. In addition to engineers' core technical competence, research has also demonstrated the critical nature of their personal attributes, project management skills, and cognitive abilities to success in the role.

== Types of engineers ==