Global Projects: A Path to Career Growth

This article is part of our exclusive career advice series in partnership with the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society.

In your career, you are likely to face many choices and job opportunities. One I faced was whether to participate in a development project involving teams from around the world. It presented a great opportunity for personal and professional enrichment.

Throughout my 40-year career with Honeywell, I have held leadership roles for such projects in Australia, China, Finland, and India.

You might be offered similar assignments. Here are some benefits of taking on international projects.

Gain professional insights and advancement

As a rule, international projects are large in scope and involve many critical components, making them ideal for your professional growth. Such projects are likely to be identified by your organization as essential to the business and, as such, present opportunities for individual achievement and recognition.

They also can give you the opportunity to work with many technical aspects—which would allow you to see beyond the scope of smaller-scale projects.

Likewise, you can gain an understanding of different global markets and how to meet diverse customer needs.

It can significantly expand your company’s market reach to enter new geographic areas. It also can lead to a better understanding of local preferences, regulations, and technical standards, making the products more appealing to customers in other countries.

Planning for working globally

When embarking on a global, multisite assignment, seek help to define your role. The project could require you to take on several different positions such as project manager, program manager, scrum leader, architect, requirements analyst, designer, and user experience lead. Which role would be best suited for you? You should decide based on your skills, long-term career growth, and the project’s needs.

Regardless of which role you have, it is important to have an understanding of the team’s other members, including their skills and competencies and how best to interact with them.

A key decision early on is whether you’ll have to colocate at one location and, if so, for how long. There are different types of colocation, including frequent travel between offices, a temporary relocation known as a “bubble assignment,” and an expatriate assignment that involves relocating to another country for a period of time.

Travel between offices makes sense when there are more than two locations involved in the project and your role requires your presence at each. Although weekly communication can be done via virtual meetings, there is no substitute for occasional face-to-face interaction.

Participation in global product development empowers engineers to drive innovation, achieve career growth, and make a meaningful impact in the global marketplace and on society itself.

Bubble assignments require longer on-site presence but without the rigor and complexity of an expat assignment. Generally, bubble assignments last three to six months.

Expat assignments are suitable when the project scope requires a multiyear engagement. They involve relocating to that country for the duration of the project. You and your employer should be clear about taxes, salary, benefits, housing, and other implications.

Your compensation is a significant consideration. It’s not just about how much money you earn. Consider maintaining your salary in your home country’s currency. The benefits include maintaining your bank and automatic payroll deposits, avoiding currency fluctuation and potentially adverse inflation.

Depending on the length of your stay, you might have to pay income tax in several countries. Make sure you understand the tax implications before embarking on any long assignments.

In addition, find out about your health insurance coverage when living abroad.

Trust is the word

Many critical aspects define a successful global assignment, including communication across time zones, managing cultural barriers and expectations, ensuring each site has employees with the expertise and skills needed, and setting clear project goals and time frames.

Most importantly, establish and maintain trust. Every member on the global team must have everyone’s best interests, including the company’s, in mind.

Trust is not easily gained, but it can be easily—and quickly—lost. To establish trust, the project leadership must be transparent, communicate frequently, set clear goals and boundaries, and define roles that match the participants’ skills, capabilities, and long-term interests.

It’s also critical that you and your team fulfill your promises on time.

Overcoming challenges

Large, complex, multilocation projects present other significant challenges that must be understood and managed.

Think about your company’s organizational structure and boundaries. Is there a consistent reporting structure with shared goals and expectations? Or are there potentially competing interests at the executive level?

If the latter, think about how you will navigate those boundaries. And find a way to align the organization in a way that benefits all participants and teams.

A method Honeywell has used to navigate such challenges is to create a “hub and spoke” approach to the critical disciplines of program management, architecture, and design. The approach includes offering management, verification, validation, and quality assurance with the intent that each participating site has representation in all four cornerstone areas.

Consider your computer systems. Is your company set up to allow for IT collaboration across sites and geographic boundaries? Having the right multisite computing privileges to ensure frictionless virtual teamwork is vital.

Are there legal issues such as export restrictions or government regulations? Are there intellectual property constraints when working with other countries? Also consider other impediments such as tariffs and customs duties; where the parts of your product are manufactured; product and component licensing; and use of open-source technology.

Addressing those issues starts with training the workforce in different countries about company-approved methods and restrictions, as well as having multisite tools that allow for intercountry collaboration.

Discover personal enrichment

In addition to contributing to your professional growth, actively engaging in a global development project can be personally enriching. Working with people in different countries, with distinct cultures and languages, can broaden your understanding of the world and can create lasting friendships.

That can extend to your family by hosting international colleagues in your home country and by affording your family the ability to travel with you. Children and adults can benefit from engaging with diverse people from around the world.

Taking an active part in global development offers numerous advantages for an individual. You can broaden your horizons, gain exposure to diverse markets, and develop a deeper understanding of global consumer needs. The experience can enhance your problem-solving skills and encourage innovative thinking.

Engineers who navigate the challenges of global product development become more adept at overcoming communication barriers, managing logistical complexities, and adapting to varying consumer preferences.

Ultimately, active participation in global product development empowers engineers to drive innovation, achieve career growth, and make a meaningful impact in the global marketplace and on society itself.