scientists as superstars

I have a similar story from the 1970s, but it turned out rather better.

I was applying to a middle size defense contractor in the Baltimore suburbs, and the hiring manager looked over my resume, and asked which I preferred, hardware or software. I replied that it was very useful to be bilingual, to be able to speak hardware to software and vice versa.

I did get the job, worked there for seven years, leaving only when I decided to move back to the Boston area.

I was an embedded realtime programmer, writing in assembly code on the metal in those days. All the embedded realtime programmers at that company had hardware degrees, which was necessary to do much of anything. Computer science had not yet been invented.

Joe Gwinn

A very sensible response of course.

"My" GEC HRdroid couldn't comprehend anything beyond square holes, and all round candidates has to be force fitted into one of the square holes.

If the interviewer asks questions but listens to the answers and avoids such destructive idiocies, that's just fine.

One technique I developed was to ask ever wilder questions, with the objective of getting them to (sensibly) say "no". That gave me good insight into the validity of their "yes" responses.

My experiences, in companies other than GEC, were broadly similar.

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It clearly hasn't done that for you are James Arthur. James Arthur in parti cular is extremely fond of ignoring actual causalities and telling us that his grossly over-simplified view of the world is the only one we need.

Like peddling half-baked electronics designs to people who don't know enoug h electronics to notice their inadequacies? It does help if you don't know enough about electronics to be aware of the inadequacy of the products, and can sincerely claim that they are "insanely good".

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Not exactly true. I did Theory of Computation Part 1 in 1967 as a graduate student. It didn't go all that far into computer science, but Turing's name did crop up from time to time, and it was taught by professional computer scientists, rather than mathematicians who specialised in numerical analysi s (though that was where they mostly came from).

The proposition that LISP would save the world

might have been around - LISP was invented in 1958 - but you need a lots mo re mass memory than was economically feasible at the time to have long enou gh lists to process to any effect.

I remember those days. And the LISP crowd, and programs that can be written, but cannot be read.

What I meant that the academic area called Computer Science, for which one could get a degree, had not been invented. Computers were of course far older. I got a Masters in CS in 1981.

Joe Gwinn

This would be for interviewing, versus being interviewed?

I've seen customers use that gambit to smoke technical blatherers out as well - they'll agree to anything.

Today, most programmers have CS degrees and do not understand how such things as radars work, and must be spoon-fed.

As for the HRdroid, I forgot to mention that in Mechanical Engineering, they push square pegs into round holes all the time - all you need is a hydraulic press.

Joe Gwinn

te student. It didn't go all that far into computer science, but Turing's n ame did crop up from time to time, and it was taught by professional comput er scientists, rather than mathematicians who specialised in numerical anal ysis (though that was where they mostly came from).

more mass memory than was economically feasible at the time to have long e nough lists to process to any effect.

The University of Melbourne seems to have got in early.

" The original ?Computation Laboratory? became the ? ?Computation Department? as these courses flourished, and, by the late 1960s, a further name change gave birth to the Department of Informat ion Science, as a regular academic department in the Faculty of Science."

They might not have had a chair at that stage - "by 1975, the Department of Information Science had reached the point where a Chair appointment was wa rranted, and Professor Peter Poole was recruited. Poole changed the name of the Department to Computer Science" - but what they were doing was comput er science.

Not exactly primary evidence.

I was thinking of being interviewed. After starting my second job (at a contract design and consultancy company) they told me that I asked far more questions than most candidates. I haven't stopped since :)

I haven't found it necessary when I'm the technical interviewer; there are other more fun and fruitful way of smoking out blatherers.

Oh yes! I've heard them agree to do things that are proven to be impossible, e.g. a solution to the Byzantine Generals problem.

That might be part of the manufacturing process! I hate things that are designed to be impossible to disassemble.

I occasionally point out that it is a known technique to use a hammer to insert screws into wood - for all but the last couple of turns.

What would that be?

Yeah. My favorite is the speed of light and large distributed systems.

Many software types think that clever software can overcome speed-of-light delays. The way you often see this is in the implied claim that a system 1,000 kilometers in diameter has a single state. No it doesn't, and one has to deal with beliefs contrary to fact because node 2 has not yet heard that node 1 changed its mind about something.

Nor have they heard of servo oscillations due to transport lag - trying harder does not work, only causing wilder oscillations.

Press fits are not impossible to disassemble. The same hydraulic press is used to push the part back out.

That square peg will now have rounded corners, but never mind...

Still makes for a weak joint. But screws are not all that strong in wood anyway - mortise + tenon and box joints are far stronger.

Joe Gwinn

Nothing magic.

I get them to describe what they have done in the past, listen (unlike a few interviewers!), ask them why they made their choices, and what they would do differently next time.

I then pose them a simple open-ended design question, and watch their thought processes. One I've used is "a toy manufacturer makes printed roads that young kids push their toy cars around. They want to add some traffic lights. What do you do". I also tell them there's no right/wrong answers.

Once upon a time I would have expected them to include using a microprocessor, but to reject it in favour of simpler alternatives. Now an MCU is probably the best way :(

Oh, I've had arguments about that too :( They tend to persist in the notion that there is a single universal time.

Not many people have done control theory, so that surprises me less.

:)

Oh yes indeed. It is only used for crude things.

Another example is how roof-trusses are held together. A steel plate punched/bent to make many "nails" which is then hammered or press fitted across the (unjoined) timbers.

I take them to a whiteboard and design something with them.

So do I, either directly or indirectly. That will be something that is adjacent to their experience, and/or something that illustrates how the company thinks/works.

The key word is "with"; interviews aren't (or at least shouldn't be) willy waving competitions.

One thing you can't tell from a resume, or the usual interview, is if they understand electricity. Lots of presumed engineers don't. Most recent EE grads don't.

Wanna make a kid panic? Show him a 2-resistor voltage divider. Even worse, a batery and a resistor charging a cap.

That's one reason why I like to see evidence on their CV that they have done things on their own, without it being any part of any course.

Doesn't matter what it is, so long as they can describe what, why, and what they would do differently next time.

You don't need to be able to design circuits to get an EE job at most large companies as a newly-minted EE, seems like it's expected that's one of the things you learn on the job.

All the jobs for "product engineer" have 8, 9, 10 year experience requirements in the field, you start out as a QA guy/paper pusher and work your way up or go into management or some other area.

They definitely don't need every out of college applicant to be able to design circuits they have people for that.

Not back in my day. I was thrown in at the deep end on my first day.

I've always had jobs like that, and wouldn't have had it any other way.

Now you're frightening me!

True. They need salesmen, managers, ... and other boring professions.

At the end of my first job I decided I didn't know whether I wanted to remain technical for the rest of my career. I searched for, and was lucky to find, a job which involved /everything/, from initial client contact, through writing Ts&Cs, project management, and doing it.

Great fun, and I decided I did want to remain technical. And did.

My undergraduate was in a different field so even though I design circuits and write software for a living, now, I've come to an acceptance that my skill in those areas will never be found particularly exciting or valuable to the electronics industry, intrinsically. Do people in other disciplines find it valuable? Yeah definitely I wouldn't be making any money if nobody did.

But I cant stride into e.g. Analog Devices with a portfolio of circuits and be like "Look I design circuits! you could hire me!" they're like "ah that's nice but we wouldn't know what to do with you."

Yeah they're are a lot of newly-minted EEs that can't design circuits or know what a transistor is but they'll get hired. some geek off the street who can do it is not intrinsically exciting to anyone there. Not been my experience so far, at least...

Somebody that can bridge two realms can be very valuable - while those realms need bridging.

One of the best electronic engineers I knew did a biochemistry degree, and then a masters to convert to electronics and systems. His surname was Bragg, and he had well-known forebears :)

I've tended to be a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none; life is too short to be tied down to just one domain.

Nonetheless, I sometimes wish I had been a master-of-Xerox- toner-mechanisms, for example.

I made my bed, and I'm happy lying in it.

If they can't design /and/ can't analyse, then it is difficult for me to regard them as engineers. But there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being a project manager or salesman, provided the engineer is top dog ;)

I think in a globalized world, the role for generalists is shrinking, unfortunately.

What being a self-employed contractor without an EE or CS degree has got me is over the past half-decade is I've probably earned about as much as being a manager at Taco Bell over the same time period. There's always some work available, but never quite enough of it or the top-dollar kind. And my attempts at going corporate so far have always been a "hard pass" on me and I'm not getting any younger. :)

But I much prefer being my own boss and doing something I'm passionate about 25 hours a week than working as a manager at a Taco Bell for 50 at something I hate, I'd be very unhappy in the latter position. So yeah, I made my own bed but whatever happens this exercise never feels like a dead-end job. I had plenty of those.