KOREAN ENGINEERS FACE MANDATED CAREER CHOICES

Since 1990, the electronics industry has driven economic growth in Korea and has become on of the chief national industries. Accompanying the industry growth, an increasing number of engineering opportunities have emerged. The engineers largely like the profession, although some feel they have too little choice about how their career progresses.

For example, Senior Engineer Kyung-Fan Shin at the Overseas HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) Development Group of Pantech and Chief Engineer David Yoon at the Mobile Communication Lab. of LG Electronics, both majored in electronics engineering in the early 1990s. Both have also worked since 1996 as engineers in the telecommunication field in Korea, which has experienced the rapid growth of the electronics industry. Moreover, the two have worked as engineers in mobile communications and directly on mobile handsets. More than any other segment, mobile communications has been the heart of the Korean electronics industry for more than 10 years.

Generally, engineers sacrifice their personal life in Korea to survive in the competitive field. Work that continues for 365 days a year and frequent overtime hours are the symbols of the profession. Given those facts, you might expect this duo to complain about such conditions, but generally they like their jobs.

“Engineering is an realistic and creative occupation,” says Yoon, who develops GSM (global-system-for-mobile)-communication and WCDMA (wide-code-division-multiple-access) mobile phones at LG Electronics after working for the Wireless Telecommunication Division of Samsung Electronics. “When the products I develop are used in everyday life and the end users are satisfied with them, I feel joy as an engineer.” However, he notes, “As the lifetime of products is getting shorter, I have been under stress due to the pressure for shorter development cycles and excessive work hours. But I have the greatest sense of accomplishment when I acquire command of new technologies and resolve problems.”

“Engineers design the world by exploring new areas and leading technologies,” says Pantech’s Shin. “So, Korea has to accommodate the trends of the global market as well as the Korean market and should make efforts to continue to do self-development. These requirements represent the pride and pressure of engineers.”
The demand that engineers move beyond design jobs proves to be the biggest complaint of Korean engineers. “I envy engineers who have worked in foreign countries for 30 to 40 years,” says Yoon. “It is difficult to be an engineer for more than 10 years in Korea. In most cases, engineers are promoted to engineering management in accordance with a promotion system. Because personal choice is not allowed, the prospect of working in an engineering role throughout a career is not guaranteed.”

The engineers identified mobile phones and mobile communication as technologies on which Korea should continue to focus. Global standards are now incorporated 4G technologies that Korean companies developed. Accordingly, Korea should lead in 4G technology and have a competitive edge when the market accelerates.
Other strengths include robotics. “We should focus on robot technologies in the long haul,” says Pantech’s Shin. “The trends of technologies will change from mobile phones to robots at home and overseas. The robot technologies are applicable to a variety of fields, such as games, electric home appliances, and industries. Many Korean companies, including Pantech, are paying attention to the technologies or are now developing them.”