Gen Z Engineer

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Right under my apartment block they opened a supermarket. From my balcony there is a view no real estate brochure would ever describe. Pallets. Trolleys. Containers. Concrete and rust arranged in a kind of harmonious urban composition.

I have a ritual. Morning coffee, balcony, watching. Down there, young guys in work hoodies push pallet jacks. Sometimes in one direction. Sometimes in the other. Sometimes they attempt a maneuver that in the automotive world would be called parallel parking.

I sit, watch, think. Partly about the fact that they move in their own rhythm. Partly about the fact that their rhythm is nothing like the one I grew up with. And then the question comes. What will Generation Z engineers be like?

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Because this is them. Just without the diploma. Still in tracksuits, not in shirts with embroidered logos. Still with a pallet jack, not with a laptop. But the mechanics of movement feel similar.

Generation Z did not learn the world from textbooks. The world came to them in notifications. In how-to videos. In search engine suggestions. A pallet jack for them is somewhere between a work vehicle and an interactive gadget. The task is simple. From point A to point B. Route optimization welcome.

And now I see them in the future. On the engineering desk. Fast. Resourceful. CAD open next to a window with memes. AI in their pocket to double-check details. If something takes too long they lose interest. Not from laziness. They are simply used to everything happening right away.

A screwdriver? Yes, but with a 3D printer and a simulator close by. A soldering iron? Fine, as long as there is a short TikTok video showing how to do it in three moves.

And when I look from above I feel that future engineers will be exactly like this. A bit technical, a bit digital, always somewhere in between. They will not tinker with machines the way their predecessors did. But they will not be entirely removed from them either.

They will be fast, yet easily bored. Creative, but only if someone explains why. Confident, though not always right.

And me… I finish my coffee. The pallet jack disappears around the corner. I only know one thing. Before I notice, one of these boys will stop maneuvering a pallet jack and start maneuvering an engineering career.