The Silent Engineering Crisis Few Are Talking About

Every team has one. The engineer everyone calls when something breaks. What's your plan for the day they don't pick up the phone?

One challenge I don't think enough organizations are addressing: the retirement of highly experienced engineers.

Over the next several years, many companies will lose professionals who have spent decades building institutional knowledge — and the impact will be felt far beyond an open requisition.

The Concern Isn't Headcount. It's Expertise.

It's easy to think of retirement as a staffing gap to fill. But what's actually walking out the door is something far harder to replace:

• The engineer who understands the legacy systems

• The engineer who knows why a process exists — not just how it works

• The engineer everyone calls when something breaks at 2 a.m.

  
  

Replacing a position is one thing. Replacing 30 years of accumulated, undocumented knowledge is something else entirely.

Why This Matters Now

This isn't a future problem — it's already underway. Organizations that fail to plan for this transition risk losing critical operational knowledge that can take years to rebuild, if it can be rebuilt at all.

What Organizations Should Be Doing Right Now

This isn't a problem to solve later. Here are five actions companies should be taking today:

1. Map Your Risk — Identify the "Irreplaceables" - Audit your engineering team and flag anyone within 3-5 years of retirement who holds critical, undocumented knowledge. You can't plan for a risk you haven't identified.

2. Start Knowledge Transfer Now — Not at the Exit Interview - Knowledge transfer takes months, not weeks. Pair retiring engineers with successors well before their last day — through shadowing, documentation sprints, and structured handoff plans.

3. Build a Bridge Workforce - Consider contract or fractional engineering talent to bridge the gap while internal successors are trained. This buys time without sacrificing institutional continuity.

4. Recruit for Successors Before You Need Them - Don't wait until someone retires to start the search. Proactively identify and recruit mid-career engineers who can be mentored into these critical roles over 12-24 months.

5. Formalize Mentorship as a Job Function — Not a Favor - Make mentorship a measured, compensated part of senior engineers' roles in their final years, rather than something that happens informally if there's time.

The Real Question

The question isn't whether retirements will impact engineering teams. They will.

The real question is whether your organization is preparing for it — or waiting until the knowledge is already gone.

How Makena Can Help

While succession planning itself is an internal organizational effort, Makena can support the recruiting side of this challenge — sourcing the contract or fractional engineering talent to bridge a gap, and recruiting the mid-career successors you'll need to begin mentoring today. If you're identifying a future hiring need tied to an upcoming retirement, we're ready to start that search before the gap becomes urgent.

How is your organization handling succession planning for critical technical roles? We'd love to hear how you're approaching this challenge.

By Jodi Barcelona

Makena Tech Solutions

Jodi Barcelona is the CEO, Managing Director of Makena Tech Solutions, a WBENC-certified staffing and recruiting firm specializing in engineering, technology, finance, and executive search. With more than 27 years of leadership experience in human resources, talent acquisition, and workforce strategy, she helps organizations solve complex hiring challenges and connect with exceptional talent.