Career Advice

If he's indeed a hardware engineer, there is work in modeling and hardware verification for people with such skills.

Programmable is the keyword; products and employees.

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  Keith
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keith
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Hi

I need a bit of advice on what career path I should follow. I have recently finished universtiy and am quite good a DSP, C, C++, Java and C#.

At this point I relise I cannot persue all these paths and would would like advice from current engineers on what would be the best most rewarding career to follow (and one that has a future)?

Look foward to your advice

Cheers Tuurbo

Reply to
Tuurbo46

That's individual. I have a blast with C++ and perl and doing some mathematical modeling. Other people may like other things. Generally speaking, you can make the most $$ doing things that you like.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus29245

OK, you ask a hardware group about which software route to take....hmmm

Progammable nanotech. All the people here are state of the "current" art, take a leap forward

martin

Reply to
martin griffith

recently

like

#define REWARDING ....????

money, nekkid wimmen, lots of holidays ???

But, really, there is no such thing as "career" - if you are willing to learn and can apply yourself then opportunities tend to throw themselves at you; it's really just grabbing them. It will be a random walk, but it will go somewhere.

Reply to
Frithiof Andreas Jensen

Why on earth not? Lots of the folks in this group do all of that, plus designing and stuffing their own boards. Some of us even make things that work, occasionally, when we're not wasting our time swatting trolls on Usenet. Narrowing down your skill set is the thing that really has no future.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

That was cruel.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Stephens

Dominos or McDonalds.

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Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
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Don Lancaster

The one that you love.

Good Luck! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

I'd say you really only have two significant skills you're presently here: Those of someone designing signal processing routines and those of a generic programmer. C, C++, Java, and C# can be used to program whatever you want, and all the good programmers I know end up spending most of their time in one language or another, but being familiar with lots of them -- and ready to change if they switch jobs.

Saying you're good as DSP is pretty vague, unless you're saying you really are quite experienced in most areas with it -- algorithm design (filters, control systems, demodulation/modulation, etc.), architecture (fancy filter bank arrangements and other architectures that typically aim to parallelize a design so that you don't need to come up with 100GHz MACs :-) ), as well as implementation (in DSP chips from the likes TI or Analog Devices, in FPGAs, in high-end CPUs such as Pentiums, even in esoteric devices such as CCDs).

Good programmers will always be in demand, as will good DSP people -- and there are a lot fewer DSP people out there than "generic" programmers. So, if you enjoy everything you've listed equally, I'd go the DSP route if you can get a job in it, and if not find the most interesting sounding programming job and still play around with DSP stuff in your spare time. If you're interested in it, you can often readily parlay being a firmware programmer into performing digital design. (I've worked at places where the digital hardware was designed by people with software backgrounds, and it was quite scary! :-) )

---Joel Kolstad

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Joel Kolstad

Hello Phil,

ROFL!

Absolutely. Engineers have got to be or become generalists. Being a niche specialist is usually a sure path towards hardcore unemployment.

Regards, Joerg

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Joerg

Spell checkers seem to be the best career move, IMHO.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Paul Hovnanian

I read in sci.electronics.design that Bob Stephens wrote (in ) about 'Career Advice', on Mon, 7 Nov 2005:

OTOH, he might just take the advice ..... and end up as CEO!

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Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
If everything has been designed, a god designed evolution by natural selection.
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Reply to
John Woodgate

If you just finished university (either BS or MS), chances are you are not quite good at DSP yet...

If you have a PhD in DSP, good for you! But it is still inappropriate to call yourself an expert in DSP.

If you want to compete with high school kids from now on, go for the remaining items on your list (i.e. C, C++, etc.)

Good luck!

Reply to
Luo XiaoZen

Oh? I had an interview at Maxim not too long ago where the 2nd Level Manager specifically said he didn't "believe" in generalists.

He wanted someone that had done that exact same job (or very very close) for at least 5 years.

Period.

My previous position at a Semiconductor place did that work as well as about

3 to 4 other major functions. As near as I could figure out from the feedback the rest of the interviewing group liked me (the Design Manager in particular) but as you might guess I didn't get that job.

In today's job market he may even be able to get one. And yes, I know the problems with being too specialized as well.

Robert

Reply to
Robert

What scary stuff did they design ..? =)

Reply to
pbdelete

Hello Robert,

That doesn't mean that the view point of this manager is correct. Whenever I hired engineers I expected them to be well versed and willing to explore other disciplines. I have never had use for an engineer who would says "transmission lines are not my specialty, I am an FPGA designer". Not even as a consultant. Actually, I expected a lot more. For example a good awareness of cost. When I asked them in design reviews what the total cost would be they better had a good ballpark figure. And that doesn't mean parts only. They had to know what stuff like placement or laser trimming costs. I also expected them to be willing to go out to users (in this case the cardiac catheter lab), don a lead vest and find out what our key customers thought and wanted in new products.

IMHO the best engineers are those who would also have most of the skills to run a business. A hot shot specialist in a small area might make a lot of money for a few years only to see his whole trade vanish or move to Asia some day. Sorry, but that won't be me.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

I read in sci.electronics.design that Joerg wrote (in ) about 'Career Advice', on Tue, 8 Nov 2005:

I agree. But I put forward this view at an IEE (not IEEE) meeting about

30 years ago and was rewarded with hard stares and sharply in-drawn breath.

You might have gone far in consumer electronics. (;-)

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Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
If everything has been designed, a god designed evolution by natural selection.
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Reply to
John Woodgate

Do what you like the most. However, do yourself a favour and never specialise too much. Always keep up with technology.

If you choose software and looking at you language skills, i would drop the DSP C and C++ and go for the C# and Java. All the former are getting to specialised these days and dont pay enough. However, never forget the low level stuff.

I program c++ now, but without a low level understanding from my asm days I could never be able to use the debugger to its best. Talk to most C#/Java/VB people and they would not have a clue about what a memory location is or how to trace the call stack. These are skills you should retain for life.

Reply to
The Real Andy

Hello John,

They are mostly scientists who won't understand such thoughts too well. I am a member of IEEE but I sure hope that the organization embraces business thinking some more. A lot more.

I think I might have caused too much of a ruckus there. The hard cost thinking is what I would have loved but the designs are often rather, well, antique. Just look at how long it took them to figure out class D audio or comb filters. I wouldn't have been sitting there quietly, in medical ultrasound we are pushing the envelope a lot harder.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

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