Dress standards for engineers

[VK3DRB]

Many years ago I had to wear a suit and tie at IBM with a white shirt... to fix card punch machines in my field. Today, I find few engineers wear ties in my country. In fact go into the city of Melbourne and you see very few men at all wear ties.  Usually wearing a tie means you are going for a job interview.

At our workplace, the dress standard is open neck shirt and trousers (not jeans), but it is complete causal on Friday. I wear leather soled black leather Florsheim shoes at work, even on casual Fridays not because they look good, but because of ESD purposes.

Should engineers dress up? Or is looking dapper in the workplace a load of ? Should we take pride in how we look, whether we are dealing with customers or just interacting with an oscilloscope or a compiler? What is the typical dress code in other countries?

Here is a T-shirt I wear in some Fridays. I would have had disciplinary action used against me if I had dare worn this at IBM.

[dr.diesel]

All three of the big places I've worked is jeans and just about any T-shirt.  Sports, beer, cars etc, just about anything, no tank-tops though.

[Tinkerer]

At my company, the dress ranges from jeans and a tshirt to actual suits. Typically though, people are only dressed with suits if they are seeing customers. Even the vice president wanders around in jeans and a tshirt most of the time.

[free_electron]

Ties are for sales and marketing bullshitters.
Business casual. Polo shirt ,shirt (long or short sleeve depending on season), trousers or jeans. shoes ( not sneakers , tennis shoes or the likes )

Real engineers wear coveralls , a hat and a bandana and are covered in soot , coal dust and grease. Steam engines produce that ...

[tom66]

My workplace is smart casual, basically nothing you'd be embarrassed to go to the shops/cinema/pub in.

[linux-works]

depends on a lot of things.

I spent my first bunch of years in the boston area and the east coast of the US is much more conservative than the west coast.  I did wear jeans and sneakers and when it got hot, short pants and a tee shirt.  most people wore button down shirts or polo style shirts which are a step up from a simple tee shirt.

when I moved to silicon valley, though, I found I was over-dressing   over time, I converted to wearing sandals and shorts most every day to work (the weather is nice here and people are much more casual, as well).

its also cultural.  in my field (software) most of my co-workers are from india and china and korea.  folks from other countries seem to not want to dress too casually.  I've never once seen any of my foreign co-workers wear shorts and rarely do they even wear tee shirts.

for interviews, I will wear long pants (jeans) and a nice polo shirt, sometimes a company logo shirt (still polo style, with a collar).  I will never ever ever wear a tie for work or for an interview.  if I saw an engineer wear a tie for an interview, I'd think he was 'new around here' or was more of a management type person

[lewis]

No dress code in my business, wear whatever the hell you like. I love it when sales reps come in all suited and booted and there'e me in a cheap t-shirt covered in fag* ash and flux and jeans with solder holes in.

*that's British for 'cigarette', our American friends

[Phaedrus]

Here it's almost anything. T-shirt, jeans, shorts during summer. They do ask you to put on a polo and good jeans or khakis when the top brass is in town. But that's like once a year.

[Rigby]

Ties are for sales and marketing bullshitters.

100% agree.  Not always true, but my first thought when I see someone in a tie is that that dude is either being forced to wear a tie or he wants to wear a tie, and neither are good.  People that approach you with a tie and a smile want something you have.

[con-f-use]

The only places I find appropriate for dress coats are banks. Not because it creates an air of confidence and professionalism but because I want them to suffer in their cheap suits!

[mikeselectricstuff]

Many years ago I was working at a computer show, demoing something I'd designed. Someone came up to me and said "You're not wearing a suit, you must know what you're talking about"....

At trade shows, dressing down is a good way to avoid unwanted hassle from sales people - once you get talking to the people you actually want to talk to, they quickly realise you're serious regardless of clothing.

 

[N2IXK]

Jeans and T-shirts are the rule at the lab I work in, as well. Khakis and polo shirt for a major client meeting or similar a few times a year.

[KJDS]

When I'm contracting then I'll wear a suit, though the jacket is usually hung on the back of my chair and I don't always wear a tie, though there is usually one in my suit pocket in case it's necessary.

Some places I've worked at have had an unofficial "no jeans" rule, which is odd, especially when it was enforced on dress down Fridays.

[lewis]

Can't imagine you in a suit Kev...

[linux-works]

a job I had (over 25 yrs ago) caused me to travel to the UK and once even to oz, to do some internal (employee) training.  I was teaching the course and for the Edu guys, we had to wear a tie while on stand-up.  I did notice that the techies that I dealt with in both the UK and oz were dressed up a lot more than the folks back home in the US were.  they seemed much more formal, overall.

the most strict was when I had to teach in japan for a week.  the students ALL wore white dress shirts, ties and jackets and they wore their jackets while in class, even while sitting in their seats.  I don't think anyone felt comfortable enough to take off their jacket and put it on the back of their seat.  VERY formal social structure, there.

[KJDS]

Can't imagine you in a suit Kev...

The last contract i did I turned up for the interview in my best Armani, slightly concerned that my hair had become very long whilst I'd been working abroad. Fortunately the bloke doing the questioning had longer hair than me. One of the permies in that place once looked us up and down and inquired, "was it the same hedge you were dragged through?"

[denelec]

No dress code where I work.
But nobody come to work dressed in rags.
I often wear (clean) jeans.

Like they said in Dilbert: "A well-dressed engineer has no credibility". 
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2004-11-07/

[nctnico]

Depends on where you are going. I usually wear a shirt (with buttons) and trousers (not jeans) but no tie. For some reason that makes me look 'technical' altough at some of my clients I'm completely overdressed that way.

[Hypernova]

its also cultural.  in my field (software) most of my co-workers are from india and china and korea.  folks from other countries seem to not want to dress too casually.  I've never once seen any of my foreign co-workers wear shorts and rarely do they even wear tee shirts.

Give it some time, it was probably like that in my dad's time here too. But these days no self respecting RD (what we call eng's who do actual R&D) would wear a suit to work. The only restriction in most places is no shorts.

[vk6zgo]

Dressy Engineer:- Open neck shirt,tailored shorts,long socks & Hush Puppies.

"Dressed down" Engineer:-Tee shirt,"footy" shorts,steel toed boots----Optional:- liberal coating of Red dirt, & a cold "tinny" in his hand.

In other words,"Ginger Beers" dress a lot like Techs!

[GreyWoolfe]

I'm a remote field service tech.  When working from home, T-shirt, shorts and flip flops.  If I have to actually go to a site, business casual:  company logoed polo shirt and slacks.  The sites get dress down Friday, we don't.

[ajb]

We generally request that everyone at least wear pants.  Otherwise we're pretty flexible. 

One of our techs is not a fan of shoes as a concept and used to come to work in bedroom slippers.  He wised up after a blob of solder found its way to his foot.

[Robert.Adams]

Ties are for sales and marketing bullshitters.
Business casual. Polo shirt ,shirt (long or short sleeve depending on season), trousers or jeans. shoes ( not sneakers , tennis shoes or the likes )

Real engineers wear coveralls , a hat and a bandana and are covered in soot , coal dust and grease. Steam engines produce that ...

Same at my company.  Business casual seems to be the industry standard.  So many people here seem to be lucky enough to be allowed jeans...

[linux-works]

We generally request that everyone at least wear pants.  Otherwise we're pretty flexible. 

One of our techs is not a fan of shoes as a concept and used to come to work in bedroom slippers.  He wised up after a blob of solder found its way to his foot.

I forget who it was: maybe google or maybe SGI or some other company like that; but there was a famous quote about coming to work in 'bunny slippers' and the fact that it was ok, as long as you got your work done

I spent a few years working at SGI (what is now the 'google campus' but it used to be 25 buildings of SGI) and that was one of the most casual places I ever worked at.  and how do you like this for a switch: engineers all had offices (doors, hardwalls) and managers had cubes!  they called them 'pods' for some reason   engineers did 'real work' and so got quiet offices.   managers were secondary, in the pecking order and so they usually didn't get offices.  a real shame to see SGI go /dev/null and even worse, seeing google buy up all their real estate ;(

[VK3DRB]

We generally request that everyone at least wear pants.  Otherwise we're pretty flexible. 

One of our techs is not a fan of shoes as a concept and used to come to work in bedroom slippers.  He wised up after a blob of solder found its way to his foot.

... engineers all had offices (doors, hardwalls) and managers had cubes!  they called them 'pods' for some reason   engineers did 'real work' and so got quiet offices.   managers were secondary, in the pecking order and so they usually didn't get offices.

In Japan (IBM) managers did not have offices - they shared desks like everyone else. I liked that. Managers and engineers were equals. Some Dickensian workplaces have managers getting car parking and the workers don't. It should be first come, first served.

I had my own office in the past. Not very practical when you have to interact with other engineers but it does have its benefits. At IBM I once had a desk next to the coffee/chat machine. The machine used to make a drilling type noise whenever someone pressed the coffee button. I lasted one week before I spat the dummy and demanded to relocate to the engineering lab where I could work in peace and quiet with the occasional visit from fellow engineers.

People who do not program or develop electronics have no idea how annoying noises can affect productivity.