5 Best Engineering Management Courses Online to Launch Your Career

Interested in a career that combines both business and engineering? Here are the best engineering management courses to enroll in online.

Managing engineering teams requires a unique skill set that blends technical expertise and business acumen.

Effective managers require the skills to both understand what a team is working on (the technical nature of its product or project) and to lead that team.

Here is a list of the top engineering management courses that you can enroll in online.

These courses will instruct you on the application of management practice to the discipline of engineering.

After taking these engineering management certificates and courses, you'll expand not only crucial management skills, but also your analytical and problem-solving talents.

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What are the Best Engineering Management Courses?

Here are 5 of the best engineering management courses to enroll in online this year:

1. Real-World Engineering Management Specialization

Wondering how to get your first, or next, engineering management role?

In this course, you'll learn software engineering management from Nancy Wang, one of the youngest directors of engineering and general managers at AWS.

You'll also learn from 5 other top engineering managers who make hiring and promotion decisions in the industry, including:

Neha Rungta, Applied Science Director, AWS Identity

Joy Idahosa, Software Engineering Manager of AWS Backup Audit Manager

Caitlyn Shim, General Manager and Director of AWS Accounts, AWS Organizations, and AWS Service Quotas

Cherie Wong, Vice President of Payments Engineering at Paypal

Ann Funai, Founding Limited Partner at Operator Collective, former SVP of Under Armour and CTO of MyFitnessPal

In this specialization, you'll discover the most common interview questions, and, more importantly, how to answer them to demonstrate to interviewers at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and startups that you are most qualified to lead their teams.

You'll also learn how to:

Maximize both "manager quality" and "manager effectiveness," exceed hiring quotas, and adopt and finish goals.

Cultivate elite engineers using: team automation, agile methodologies, coaching, 1-on-1s, longitudinal tracking, recognition, and promotion

Turn around poor performers using: feedback; managing disagreements, conflicts, and escalations; and receiving and giving corrections of errors.

How to partner with technical program managers (TPMs) on complex projects, and how to become a director of engineering or general manager.

Program Syllabus:

Course 1: Leadership Principles for Software Engineers

Course 2: Inspiring Peak Performance on Technical Teams

Course 3: Building Products at Global Scale

Key course features:

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion.

100% online courses

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Flexible Schedule

Set and maintain flexible deadlines.

Beginner Level

AWIT welcomes persons of all backgrounds with an interest in product management or technology industry leadership to complete this Specialization.

Approximately 1 months to complete

Suggested pace of 10 hours/week

English

Subtitles: English.

=> Enroll in the Real-World Engineering Management Specialization on Coursera here.

2. Engineering Project Management: Mastering Project Complexity

Are you an engineer with a technical background looking to improve your project performance?

If so, Engineering Project Management: Mastering Project Complexity is a professional certificate program on edX that you should consider enrolling in.

In this program, you will learn the project management skills you need to successfully manage engineering projects.

Then, you'll discover an approach to mastering project complexity, focused on front-end development and teamwork.

You will also learn to identify what makes a project complex and how to perform a complexity assessment.

Finally, you will learn to identify the complexity footprint of your project and use it to adapt your management processes.

This professional certificate is composed of two courses:

1. Project Management of Engineering Projects: Preparing for Success

4–6 hours per week, for 10 weeks

Create your own project plan and learn the importance of the early project phases in achieving project success. People are key!

2. Project Management: Mastering Complexity

4–6 hours per week, for 5 weeks

Develop the project management skills you need to handle complexity in engineering, infrastructure and other large projects.

Key course features:

Expert instruction
2 skill-building courses
Instructor-led
Assignments and exams have specific due dates
4 months: 4 - 6 hours per week

=> Enroll in the Mastering Project Complexity certificate on edX here.

3. Managing Major Engineering Projects Specialization

If you are an engineer or a project manager and you aspire to get involved with major engineering projects, this 3-course specialization on Coursera is for you.

This popular engineering management course delivers a rigorous exploration of the best practices for planning and delivering major engineering projects.

You’ll learn about the measures of success, how to resolve challenges of governance and typical financing approaches of these projects.

Topics include:

The key phases of a project life cycle and the main characteristics of major projects

The key cost and time performance indicators of major projects

The governance of major projects, its challenges and learn how governance informs project management

Understand major project financing and key financial indicators used in major project finance

Program Syllabus:

Course 1: Major Engineering Project Performance
Course 2: Major Engineering Projects: Governance, Risk and Scope
Course 3: Financing and Initiating Major Engineering Projects

This program includes projects that will give you the opportunity to develop your skills in relation to real-life case studies.

You will develop templates, tools and presentations to demonstrate your mastery of engineering project management techniques.

Key program features:

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion.

100% online courses

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Flexible Schedule

Set and maintain flexible deadlines.

Intermediate Level

This specialization is ideal for graduates from engineering, science and other STEM backgrounds or for professionals with relevant work experience.

Approximately 2 months to complete

Suggested pace of 10 hours/week

English

Subtitles: English, French, Portuguese (European), Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Vietnamese, German.

=> Enroll in the Managing Major Engineering Projects Specialization.

4. Engineering Project Management: Project Financing

Are you involved in the development and execution of technical projects and eager to know what it takes to fund a project successfully?

Engineering Project Management: Project Financing is a professional certificate course on edX that provides you with the fundamental knowledge and necessary tools to create the optimum financing structure for your project.

First you will learn about the key project management skills needed to successfully manage engineering and technical projects.

Then you will deal with the financing aspects of project management in more detail, via case studies and assignments.

What you will learn:

To manage your project successfully in different sectors and contexts

How to successfully work together in a specialized project team

The optimal allocation of the roles, risks and rewards between the various project stakeholders

How to create a financing structure that will provide the best chance of successful project financing

Create a financial risk management plan and the optimal legal conditions for project financing to succeed

This professional certificate is composed of two courses:

1. Project Management of Engineering Projects: Preparing for Success

4–6 hours per week, for 10 weeks

Create your own project plan and learn the importance of the early project phases in achieving project success. People are key!

2. Project Finance: Funding Projects Successfully

4–6 hours per week, for 5 weeks
Learn the key strategies used by project managers to generate crucial funding for their projects.

Key course features:

Expert instruction
2 skill-building courses
Instructor-led
Assignments and exams have specific due dates
4 months: 4 - 6 hours per week

=> Enroll in "Engineering Project Management: Project Financing" here.

5. Management in Engineering: Strategy and Leadership

Last but not least, Management in Engineering: Strategy and Leadership is an engineering management course that's targeted towards graduate engineers.

The focus of this course is on the application of individual skills and management tools required for the management of innovation.

Topics are approached in terms of career options as an engineering practitioner, manager, and entrepreneur.

In this course, you will learn how to:

Carry out risk analyses for developing business and technology strategies

Choose effective development, marketing and operations approaches in specific business cases

Deploy best management practices with an emphasis on technology

Key course features:

Expert instruction
Instructor-led
Assignments and exams have specific due dates
8 weeks: 10-12 hours per week

=> Enroll in the Management in Engineering: Strategy and Leadership course on edX here.

Final Thoughts

Even though engineers play a critical role in business success, the language of engineering doesn't always translate well into the world of business.

However, studying engineering management empowers you with the business and leadership skills you need to effectively collaborate with other business units.

Hopefully you've found an engineering management course above that matches your current knowledge level and learning objectives.

Happy learning!