From my experience in different companies, I rarely had to work with as many colleagues with the title "technical specialists" as in Ford. Problem, the level of expertise, knowledge, experience is just miserable.
With due respect to many technical leaders who deserve their titles, but the majority doesn't. The number of years of experience isn't a criterion when the basics are missing. I know what i am talking about because i worked with gurus in their fields and they wouldn't call themselves TSs. It is surely a source of pride and admiration to work with suppliers who would laugh at us
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I know many TS that earned the title by other means than their education or performance. Some without an engineering degree and a tech degree. Yuck it up with the higher ups and give them pigs for a roast free of charge and wow new title. Do they do any work themselves? Always push it back on the others in their group.
@4tvq+1sYpqbjn what is hurting you? The comment was about the TSs who don't deserve such title, without any offense to good ones (the minority @ Ford). Unless you are one of the "elite" to be bothered by the sad reality.
@4tvq+1sYpqbjn not as useless as most Ford Technical Specialists.
:-) this stupid site is useless.. just a bunch of kettles calling the pot black.
@1roj, don’t chastise someone’s grammar if you don’t know which is the correct version of “your” to use.
Back to school!
OP - You're grammar is appalling.
@1uct+1sYpqbjn , you are more right than you know. Technical Specialist has become a self proclaimed title at Ford. The real TS program died years ago. A TS used to have to prove technical expertise. But now just getting your FnF manager to promote you to an LL and then claim whatever TS title you fancy. No one will stop you or really even care.
Power of technical staff in product decisions and processes separates Japanese vs. the rest of the industry. This is not secrete. It is available from benchmark. But this will never be told because it will undo the existing management system.
Right people doing the right things vs. right people could not do a thing and wrong people doing lots of bad things can make a huge difference in product quality/reliability/durability.
Ignore titles. People should be judged by their actions and wahat comes out of their mouth. Too often we yield to others because they have a fancy title. But just because one is a Director or X, doesn’t mean they are the best person to make the decision of what we are talking about. Doug F has a big title, but there are things in code reviews where he is out of his scope and they should yield to our team expert who has 25 years of kernel experience.
When you have a cr-ppy LL6 and everyone leaves your group, just change your title to Senior Technical Specialist. Keep introducing yourself as a TS to the new-hires into the group. Eventually, you will get the full LL6 during the next cycle when everyone leaves the group again to flee the tyrannical LL6.
When chief, manager, and supervisor titles are inflated, you also wind up with inflated TS. The lack of output coming out of Ford engineering over the last 5 years is incredible.
They say it takes about 10,000 hours to "expert" into any related field. I'm not talking about people that know or claim to know what they're doing, but instead talking about people that know how to take it to the next level. They know the tips or tricks that only comes from putting in that amount of time or experience into the field. To these people, they probably forgot more than you will ever know collectively.
Those that know, don't tell "unless it's to interview to achieve and showcase potential skill, or those that organically grow as a guru and elevated into a position. If you have to interview into a position for title sake, then it's likely you aren't the expert you think and hope you are, in which as to why there are a lot of stupid people spanning multiple professions. When you find yourself chasing, the put up or shut up part comes following. Fake it or make it only takes you so far before it exposes you as reliable and accurate, or a fraud.
I'm around 25,000 to 30,000 hours into my specialized field. As a younger buck with still with a lot of experience, I wanted to help very large groups of people, showcase value, and I did accomplish all of that. But, when you've done your time, and you know your sh*t, sometimes, just sometimes, you just want to be left alone to do your own thing. It's time to pass the torch to those with more drive that are up and coming. Do your work, collect your nice salary, auto-pilot your career.
That's not a bad gig either. It's something to hang a hat on.
I saw several deserving and experienced engineers passed up for TS due to DEI. This ki-ls moral. Because everyone knows they didn’t deserve it.
@OP. There are two issues here. The first one is too many positions created as TS. The second, and the biggest issue, most of these positions are given to the FnFs crowd. So the only way to know who's who is experience. You will find many fools, some of them aware of their limitations and keeping quiet, others showing their ignorance as soon as they open their mouths. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to find the real TSs.
I found the real knowledgeable people in the teams interacting with mine, and I tend to go to them directly, bypassing LL6s and their processes. They tend to do the same, reaching out to me when they need something. Most of the time, these interactions are not in Agile, nor in the PM tracking sheet, nor in LL6s view. It is a shortcut that allow us to complete tasks quickly, without all the waste of time and red tape.
Competent people at Ford are few and far between, with more leaving the company every year. Treasure them.
I feel embarrassed when my colleague, who is so called technical specialist, asks our suppliers stupid questions. He could have asked internally or do some research. Shame shame
If we had real well deserved technical specialists, indeed, there is a lot :) we wouldn't have as many quality issues as we do