The difference between a scientist and an engineer.

What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician?
An engineer believes equations approximate the world.
A physicist believes the world approximates equations.
A mathematician sees no connection between the two.

 
In my latest job I was thrust into the midst of engineers. I gave this no thought, as I just assumed we were all scientists and that was that. I had always been previously surrounded by physicists and was a little unprepared for the culture shock. It wasn't just a cultural difference between engineers and physicists, but a difference between research and development. I will of course be using sweeping generalisations, but they apply well enough. As a scientific researcher I am comfortable with not knowing, after all seeking after knowledge requires an initial absence of knowledge. I am used to things not working out as I expected, and I thrive on trying new things to see what happens. Engineering development is not like that. There is a structured plan, a project, with temporal and financial paths to be trodden. There is a way of doing things  and a list of instructions. Development is cooking from a recipe. From what I have seen engineers tend to think in straight lines, to get from point A to point B. From where I am, if point B is your end point you dont necessarily need to start from point A, and that is a creative, cultural difference. In the commercial industrial world , you the scientist are not in charge, it is the project managers and the fund holders who control things and if they dont want you investigating new areas, then it wont happen, because they have their journey mapped out. Looking at science for science sake is different. It is also an appropriate difference between industry and academia.
Engineers it seems are pre-prepared for this approach, after all that is what engineers do, they control scientific processes and use scientific tools, with a view to making things work better. I have heard the stereotypes  before but  I have witnessed them for myself. As a physicist I want to know why something happens, engineers want to know what it does. The engineers have a much more efficient approach - they will tend to find the module that does what they want and plug it in. As long as they know what the inputs and outputs are they are happy. That doesn't work for me, I want to know how its doing it, and it slows me down.  It is the job of the scientist to hypothesise and then seek prove or disprove the hypothesis. In doing so this provides scientific tools that can be used. Engineers have the task of adding to the toolbox and building something better. The two disciplines are essential and I have seen how conbining the different disciplines within teams provides useful insight into problems. If you want someonje to think differently about a problem you wouldn't necessarily call upon an engineer, If you want something  done well, in a known way dont as a research scientist.