BLUF: Is my current position harmful or beneficial to my engineering career?
I have 8+ years of hobby level electronics engineering experience then after I graduated college with a degree in computer engineering I took my first position within the intelligence community as an electronics engineer. However, my real position is an "intelligence specialist" which has a heavy focus on publication. Essentially, I attend meetings, write reports on reports, and occasionally I am asked to authoritatively speak about trivial technical topics "because you are an engineer". Granted I do look at code and equipment from time to time but I perform little to no actual engineering. On the job training, in terms of technology, is surface level IT in nature.
Frankly I feel like I was deceived into thinking the career path and job duties where engineering in nature. My assumption was based on the interview questions and other reasonable indicators. After talking to my supervisor and others about my concerns I realized that their concept of engineering is basic and disconnected from the industry. Here is an example: during a recruitment fair the powers to be wanted to display an unclassified advanced electronics device to get potential hires excited that we work with interesting/novel technology. However, this device is locked up in the basement, we examined it only once, wrote a brief report about it and that's it, nothing else. There was no malicious intent with their actions, just an unsettling disconnect that grossly misrepresents the nature of the job.
Due to several factors, I will be in this position for likely a few more years, through my late 30's. I lose sleep at night because of my concern that when I am ready to find a new position I will be non competitive due to the nature of my current position. I'm still working on my hobby electronics, attending training (Security+ and similar), and perhaps will attain a masters degree.
What do you all think? Is my current position harmful or beneficial to my engineering career? What can I do better for myself and the department I work for?
I have 8+ years of hobby level electronics engineering experience then after I graduated college with a degree in computer engineering I took my first position within the intelligence community as an electronics engineer. However, my real position is an "intelligence specialist" which has a heavy focus on publication. Essentially, I attend meetings, write reports on reports, and occasionally I am asked to authoritatively speak about trivial technical topics "because you are an engineer". Granted I do look at code and equipment from time to time but I perform little to no actual engineering. On the job training, in terms of technology, is surface level IT in nature.
Frankly I feel like I was deceived into thinking the career path and job duties where engineering in nature. My assumption was based on the interview questions and other reasonable indicators. After talking to my supervisor and others about my concerns I realized that their concept of engineering is basic and disconnected from the industry. Here is an example: during a recruitment fair the powers to be wanted to display an unclassified advanced electronics device to get potential hires excited that we work with interesting/novel technology. However, this device is locked up in the basement, we examined it only once, wrote a brief report about it and that's it, nothing else. There was no malicious intent with their actions, just an unsettling disconnect that grossly misrepresents the nature of the job.
Due to several factors, I will be in this position for likely a few more years, through my late 30's. I lose sleep at night because of my concern that when I am ready to find a new position I will be non competitive due to the nature of my current position. I'm still working on my hobby electronics, attending training (Security+ and similar), and perhaps will attain a masters degree.
What do you all think? Is my current position harmful or beneficial to my engineering career? What can I do better for myself and the department I work for?