your brand already exists. Is it working for you?

tl;dr:

• your professional brand exists, whether you manage it or not. It's either helping or hindering your career.
• the myth of "my work speaks for itself" is dangerous. In a competitive world, your work whispers, it doesn't shout.
• reputation is built on performance (what you do) and perception (what people say you do). Engineers often neglect perception, leading to being pigeonholed, invisible, or misunderstood.
• personal branding isn't "selling out"; it's clear communication. It's about ensuring your value is accurately understood and your contributions are recognised.
• take control of your career narrative. Start small, like updating your LinkedIn headline, to turn your brand into a powerful asset.

You have a professional brand. Even if you've never spent a second thinking about it, it’s there. It’s floating in the ether of half-finished LinkedIn profiles, in the way a colleague describes you to a new team member, in the memory of your last project success, and in the shadow of your last project failure.

It’s an asset, or it’s a liability. It’s accelerating your career, or it's quietly holding you back.

Your brand exists whether you manage it or not. The only question is, did you build it by design, or is it being built for you by default? For most engineers, the answer is the latter, and that is a massive career risk.

the lie of passivity.

There is a deeply ingrained myth in the engineering community, a belief so pervasive it's accepted as fact: "My work speaks for itself."

With all due respect, that is the most dangerous lie in modern engineering careers. Your work doesn't speak; it whispers. And in a busy, competitive, and noisy professional world, whispers don't get heard.

Think of an engineer you know—let's call her Sarah. Sarah is brilliant. Her technical skills are second to none. Her designs are elegant, her analysis is flawless, and she’s the one the entire team turns to when a problem seems unsolvable. But when the Technical Lead role opened up, it went to Ben.

Ben is a good engineer. But more importantly, Ben is the one who puts his hand up to present the team’s findings to management. He’s the one who summarises a complex project success in a short post on the company’s intranet. His LinkedIn profile clearly articulates his specialisation in renewable energy grid connections.

Sarah’s work was impeccable, but it was sitting silently on a server. Ben’s work was good, and he made sure the right people knew about it. Whose work "spoke" louder?

the two-sided coin of reputation.

Your professional brand is built on two things: your performance (what you do) and your perception (what people say you do). As engineers, we are masters of the first. We are trained to deliver, to solve, to build with precision. We obsess over the quality of our performance.

But we dangerously neglect perception. And when you don't manage the perception of your work, you leave it open to interpretation. This is where an unmanaged brand becomes a liability.

• You get pigeonholed. If the only perception people have of you is "the reliable engineer who is great with complex spreadsheets," you will never be considered for the creative, client-facing, strategic roles. Your brand traps you.
• You become invisible. You can't be chosen for an opportunity no one knows you're qualified for. An unmanaged brand is a cloak of invisibility that hides you from promotions, interesting projects, and career-advancing challenges.
• You are misunderstood. In the absence of a clear narrative shaped by you, people will invent their own. Your quiet, heads-down focus might be interpreted as a lack of leadership ambition. Your preference for technical work might be seen as poor communication skills. Without your input, the story writes itself.

your brand is not about selling out.

Many of you might be thinking. "Personal branding" feels unnatural. It sounds like empty self-promotion, something for salespeople or influencers, not for serious technical professionals.

Let's reframe that. This isn't about bragging; it's about clear communication. It is a professional responsibility.

You would never submit a technical drawing with ambiguous labels. You wouldn't deliver a project report that was poorly formatted and difficult to understand. You take pride in communicating complex technical information with clarity and precision.

Why would you not apply that same standard to the most important project of all—your career?

Managing your brand isn't about making yourself famous; it’s about making sure your value is accurately understood by the right people. It's about ensuring your skills aren't overlooked and your contributions are correctly attributed. That's not selling out; that's just smart engineering.

take the wheel.

Your career story is being written every single day. By your actions, your inactions, your successes, and the perceptions of others. Stop being a passenger and letting your brand be built by accident.

Don't get overwhelmed by the idea. Start small. Start now.

Open your LinkedIn profile. Look at your headline. Does it just say "Civil Engineer"? Change it. Add your specialisation. Add the value you deliver. Make it: "Chartered Civil Engineer | Specialising in Transport Infrastructure & Sustainable Urban Design."

That’s it. In 30 seconds, you’ve just taken the wheel. You've started the process of turning your brand from a passive liability into an active, powerful asset.

Your career is your design. It's time to own the narrative.