[sdiy] Who Needs a Degree?

[Tom Farrand]

Does having a degree make that much difference?  I don't know because
I cannot experience the path not taken.  I do know that as a contract
engineer, one is only as good as the last project you worked on.  I've
done a few projects that scared the hell out of me due to cost
considerations.  Is my $10,000 first article going to work or did I
design a brick?  How many hours will I spend on the phone with a UL
engineer discussing the various contradictions in 60601-1?  Will the
FDA accept my FMEA submittal?  You must be a seasoned designer,
wordsmith, diplomat, customer service representative, mind-reader,
salesman, draftsman, materials engineer, buyer, technical writer,
packaging engineer, PCB layout expert, and bookkeeper.  Oh, and you
must be self-directed, self-reliant, frugal, and know what is and is
not important to the customer ... who speaks little English.  We buy
custom prototype parts from China ... how's your Mandarin?

The debug phase of a project is very exciting.  In not more than 3
hours after pulling the prototype PCB from the antistatic bag, the
boss wants to know how it is going.  In a recent response I proudly
held up the prototype and showed him the charred crater where an
inductor used to live.  Donning a big smile I added that the inductor
glowed like the sun for a few seconds until the substrate caught fire.
 Thankfully he got the hint and left me alone to fix the problems,
lick my wounds and pop the stack on my ego.  Contract engineering is a
whole other world.  And I just love staring into a microscope to swap
out fifteen 0201 resistors for a different value ... on fifteen
fucking prototypes!.  Re-seat that 360 ball-BGA part?  Sure, no
problem.  I live for shit like that.

I miss the "good old days" where a project would go from inception to
Production in 10-18 months.  Some dweeb from marketing would call a
meeting and gesture what he wanted and then my group would make it
happen.  (Marketing does not believe in writing things down.  That is
a secretary's job.  If it's "technical" the engineer will sub for the
secretary.)  Things were always busy but the buyers would handle
getting us the samples we needed.  Receiving and Shipping would handle
getting stuff in and out.  Drafting would take yellow pad sketches and
turn them into works of art.  Technical writers would get my
requirements document and begin to write user manuals, and so on.
Engineers were allowed to focus on the job of engineering.


My point is, what demands are placed on a person, often determines how
others will assess their performance.  When there are many people to
support the engineering function it is much easier to be Superman.
When you are pretty much the the only dog pulling the sled, the trip
is a bitch and you don't look very good when it's over.  Your reward
is taking shit for not billing out more than 80 hours to projects in
the last two weeks.  What was that 5.5 hours of time on "Office"?

Degree or no degree?  The answer is irrelevant.  What you do with what
you've learned is what matters.  How it got there ... who cares?

Peace.
Tom Farrand



On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 10:30 PM, Dave Manley <dlmanley at sonic.net> wrote:
>
> Jason Proctor wrote:
>>>
>>> What do others that interview do?
>>
>> a company i used to work for had a hard and fast rule hiring engineers -- they had to be able to read and write code in the interview. it freaked a few candidates out, which was of course not a good sign. it wasn't a perfect way of sorting the wheat from the chaff, but it was very effective overall.
>>
> For new/junior engineers:
>
> 1. Sometimes I give puzzles that are easy to state and don't rely on a trick to solve.  In between the tedium that makes up the majority of engineering, solving puzzles is much of what we do. No?
>
> 2. Give them a piece of suitably complex code (usually Verilog) and ask them what it does.
>
> The most intimidating thing I was ever part of was at one company where two or three people simultaneously grilled the interviewee.  Fortunately, the practice was stopped.  I can remember one candidate who when asked a reasonably simple question responded, no doubt after watching some NatGeo special: "Sir, like the frog that emerges from the bottom of a dry riverbed when the first rains come, so that knowledge will return to me when the need arises."  One of the three interviewers just shook his head and got up and left without a word, leaving the other two of us to carry on.  A few weeks later the candidate came back to our office and stated he'd got a job elsewhere, and said the person who asked the question was an ass.  He was told to leave, or the police would be called.
>
> BTW, I've worked with a number of non-degreed engineers - in my experience these people were top-notch engineers, and deserved the title.  On the other hand in school I had classes/labs with a number of  soon-to-be BSEE's that obviously had no future in engineering unless they were off to become sales reps, or useless FAEs for some distributor.
>
> -Dave
>
>
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