As an engineer (software) myself for a few years, I can encourage you that is rewarding, challenging, and in the right position you can have quite a bit of autonomy to drive decision-making and execute on your own vision. Depending on the role and organisation, it can be far from merely technical; the outline you give of the college project sounds exactly like engineering to me!
That said, there are few or no places where engineers are completely unconstrained. But there are routes from engineering into more ‘overseeing’-type roles, e.g. architect, tech director, technical project manager. A lot of those people do much better if they have solid engineering experience of their own first.
Some different thoughts on which I have much less or no experience but seem relevant:
management consulting. Have you heard of that? I think they solve hard problems and have some room for vision.
entrepreneurs obviously have an opportunity to create and oversee a vision. I gather that a lot of the time it helps to have related experience in the relevant industry/field beforehand
As an engineer (software) myself for a few years, I can encourage you that is rewarding, challenging, and in the right position you can have quite a bit of autonomy to drive decision-making and execute on your own vision. Depending on the role and organisation, it can be far from merely technical; the outline you give of the college project sounds exactly like engineering to me!
That said, there are few or no places where engineers are completely unconstrained. But there are routes from engineering into more ‘overseeing’-type roles, e.g. architect, tech director, technical project manager. A lot of those people do much better if they have solid engineering experience of their own first.
Some different thoughts on which I have much less or no experience but seem relevant:
management consulting. Have you heard of that? I think they solve hard problems and have some room for vision.
entrepreneurs obviously have an opportunity to create and oversee a vision. I gather that a lot of the time it helps to have related experience in the relevant industry/field beforehand