Hey, it’s Collin. Welcome to Engineering Echelons, a newsletter full of ideas and insights to help engineers excel at management.

Here’s what I’ve got for you this week.

• New and noteworthy news

• Something to consider

• Some insights to delve into

• And more…

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Alright, let’s get into it.

Noteworthy Headlines

ABC Economist Warns of Recession Risk (ENR)

Highlights:

• “I underestimated the U.S. economy’s resilience [in 2023 and 2024] and so I’m fearful of doing that again,” said [Associated Builders and Contractors chief economist] Basu. “But from my perspective, inflation is poised to stay higher for longer, interest rates [will stay] higher for longer, many consumers are already exhausted financially, and asset prices are shaking.”

AEC Valuations Remain Strong (Zweig Group)

Highlights:

• The median AEC firm consists of 45 full-time equivalent employees, six owners, and holds a book value of $2.6 million. Financially, these firms reported a net service revenue of $7.7million, pre-bonus profit of $1.2 million, EBITDA of $1.36 million, and a backlog of $7.6 million. These figures show a growth in human capital and overall firm value compared to last year’s data.

• Engineering firms in particular have experienced significant backlog growth.

• Architectural firms continue to see stability in institutional and healthcare-related projects.

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Management Perspective

The point of an interview is to discover and connect various pieces of information about a person and/or a company to develop an idea of who they are and what they are capable of. It is the mental model “the map is not the territory” in action.

Obviously, you cannot create a perfect representation of a person or company from a few interviews. Despite the shortcomings, interviews are still helpful in learning about others. And knowing these deficiencies sets you up to be more effective at interviewing.

When you are the interviewee:

• Before (and during) the interview, understand where the company and/or hiring manager’s priorities lie. This tells you if you are a fit and would enjoy working there. And it allows you to strategically emphasize how you support those priorities.

• Get the hiring manager on your side by having them envision you at the company and tell you the secret to success. Ask questions like “Let’s say I’m hired and after one year I was very successful. What was it that made me successful?” You can invert this question too to identify potential downfalls.

• Develop deep questions about the company and hiring manager(s) to uncover what they are like, what the company culture is like, etc. Remember, you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you!

When you are the interviewer:

• Devise questions that uncover capabilities and motivations. Ask questions that tease out specific insights, like “What’s the difference between being good in _____ role versus being great at it?”.

• Look for non-linear thinking by asking questions like “What changes could we make to yield a 10x improvement?”.

• Seek out teachers by asking a candidate to teach you something. It could be anything, but the more relevant to the role the better. Asking this out of the blue gives you insight into what that person is familiar with, how they react under pressure, and how they organize and present information.

• Uncover self-awareness by asking questions like “What are you better at than anyone else?” It tells you about how you can capitalize on their capabilities while also giving insight into a person’s humility. This is a better version of the basic question asking what’s your strengths and weaknesses.

• Encourage and field questions. If a candidate doesn’t have many questions it could be a sign of timidity, disengagement, lack of preparation, and more.

This is just the beginning of improving your interviews. Throw away the boilerplate, lazy questions and routines like “Tell me about yourself,” and “Where do you want to be in 5 years?” and so on. Build off of these better questions to develop your own methods to get more out of interviews.

Management Insights

David Brooks on wise people:

“Wise people don’t just possess information; they possess a compassionate understanding of other people. They know about life.”

—

James Clear on the effect of time:

“Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.”

—

Dan Levy on probabilistic thinking:

“Thinking probabilistically about the world involves three distinct elements: 1) Understanding what these subjective probabilities actually mean; 2) Assigning probabilities to many things (events, beliefs, etc.) in our lives, to help us better understand the world around us and make better decisions; and 3) Updating these probabilities appropriately when relevant new information comes in.”

Management Resource

The Effects of Tariffs: How the Machine Works (Ray Dalio via LinkedIn)

Talk of tariffs is everywhere. But what are tariffs? How do they work? What are their effects? What are the effects of their effects?

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. He has written at length about economics, global finance, and currencies. This is one of his shorter posts that gets to the first principles and second-order effects of tariffs.

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Looking forward to hearing from you. See you next time.

Collin

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