Here's how you can establish credibility and influence with your boss in aerospace engineering.

Gaining credibility and influence with your boss in aerospace engineering is crucial for career growth and project success. Start by deepening your technical expertise: stay updated with the latest technologies, and industry standards, and obtain relevant certifications. This commitment to continuous learning makes you a valuable team member. Delivering high-quality work on time builds trust. Ensure your work is meticulous and error-free, reinforcing your credibility. Effective communication is essential; present technical information clearly and concisely, tailored to your boss’s preferred style. Show that you value feedback by implementing suggestions and asking clarifying questions. Proactive problem-solving is highly appreciated.

It goes without question that if you have genuine credibility for doing a task better than most of your peers, you would be incentivized and trusted to do the job. Since many other employees might have similar technical skills, the X-factor to setting an employee apart is soft skills - more precisely, communication and the ability to articulate a problem and its solution better than most. In the aerospace industry, complexity ramps up rapidly; the ability to boil things down to the fundamental truths and reason up from there builds a solid framework to troubleshoot any issue. To stand out, you should develop these core skills: absorbing and using information, breaking complexity into simple bits, and having a collaborative attitude.

Problem solvers, or should I say aerospace engineers? Yes, we are meant to be good at one singular thing: solving critical problems through our technical acumen. In my professional life, I have been respected and valued significantly when I solved a problem for an organization or an individual, which was a roadblock to their progress. This skill is not something you could read about or watch videos on, but it develops through getting your hands dirty and digging into the impediments' core. A way to do this is to start with acceptance and proceed with calculated deductions to mitigate the issues or generate an alternative solution. Corporate strategic consulting firms use this framework to solve issues across different sectors.

This is a very important step next to taking initiative in my opinion. It's good to take initiative but it is worthless if you are not able to communicate your ideas clearly. Be sure of what you are saying and that confidence will only come through thorough research and analysis. Document each and every step, keep a record of every reference material. A lot of times, I've witnessed good ideas gone wrong only because the communication wasn't clear. My advice to this would be representing every important data or results in ppt and keeping a record of all calculations and analytical results. It has helped me a lot. Wherever you can, include graphs, tables, screenshots or pictures for better visual understanding. This helps avoid confusion.

Relationships can make or break your professional career. I believe that if you want to grow fast, stay solitary, but if you want to go far, build an impactful network. Professional relationships differ from personal ones because they are forged through portraying exceptional ability and being consistent at your job. Peers, juniors, and leaders, whoever you could have in your arsenal of quality relationships, would aid your industrial growth. Entropy causes humans to learn about diverse perspectives and broaden their intellect when interacting with other witty individuals. This can be honed not by being selfish but by providing value - the essence of establishing relationships.

Taking initiative is the best possible way to establish credibility and influence your boss and peers around you. Dive deep into your area of research/work, explore new tools and softwares. That's how you will be able to come up with solutions. Whenever you get the chance, do a brain-storming session with your peers or seniors. Remember that taking initiative is not the end of it. You have to be extremely vocal about your ideas and solutions. Be thorough with your research and quantify your results as much as you can. The Aerospace sector depends majorly on numbers so be sure to provide ample data in terms of range, percentages, etc. Taking up initiative and self projects is very important and an admirable quality.

I believe this is very self explanatory and well articulated. There are a lot of sources available hence a lot of information. Aerospace is a sector that is bettering itself with every passing second. What you read 5 years ago, may or may not be relevant today. Hence, staying up to date by reflecting and adapting to new information is very crucial. Engage in research and knowledge transfer from your peers or seniors. Take what is relevant and be aware of present technology and innovation.

Most of the important points have been captured in this article very effectively. To sum it all up, take initiatives, do thorough research, engage in discussions and brain storming sessions, take feedback, and most importantly communicate your ideas and thoughts clearly. Use shared document platforms like Google sheet, Google slides, etc to present them. Remember that taking an interest and initiative is extremely important and will speak volumes about you. Don't worry if you are not an expert or are a fresher, as long as there is a will; there will be a way!