EEVblab #2 - Are Electronics Hobbyists Useless?

[EEVblog]

Some people have said Dave is asking too much for a hobbyist/student employee to have basic design, layout, construction, debugging, and firmware skills.
Naturally Dave thinks that's bullshit, and that is in fact the *definition* of a good hobbyist.
Job description: http://www.eevblog.com/files/EEVblogJobDescription.pdf
(Since modified to highlight I'm not after professional level skills, if that wasn't already obvious)

[tautech]

Yep. they're out there Dave, come across the them from time to time, hope you can find one and hang on to them.
But will they want "worked for Dave" on their CV?   

[ncoonrod14]

Certainly that's not too much to ask. On the other hand though, I have many friends who are 4th year EE students who I wouldn't trust with the probes of a multimeter if you told them where to put 'em. I also know many people with the skills you mentioned and would love such an opportunity whether it payed or not.

[TeslaPunk]

I would not have qualified in my youth as my boards were wirewrapped. I spent many nights experimenting trying to figure out how manufacturers got those solder traces to stick to a PCB. It never occurred to me that underneath there was copper was clad to the board and etched away. With the wealth of info available to kids these days, thanks to people like Dave, there really is no excuse for not having said skills except they are not "serious" hobbyists.

[AG6QR]

I think you're being reasonable.  I am a professional software guy, but dabble in electronics hardware strictly as a hobby, with no intention of making money at it ever.  I would meet your qualifications, except that I haven't made a PCB yet.  All my projects have been one-off prototypes strictly for myself.  I've built them using a variety of techniques, including at least one of virtually every kind of prototyping board, plus manhattan style and ugly construction.

But you're right, PCB fabrication prices are getting cheaper.  I should have a board made sometime soon.

I'm not applying, because I'm on the wrong continent and I'm already employed.

I guess if you don't get anyone who fully meets your requirements, you may have to relax things a bit, but I wouldn't go relaxing the requirements just yet...

[Gibleh]

I signed up to the EEVBlog forums to write this reply. I have been watching the blog videos for about 18 months now and really enjoy them but never felt the need to post in the forums.

With "hobbyists" being useless, its not limited to hobbyists. I hold a cert. 3 in telecommunication electronics and I don't have have the skills you are asking for. I will admit that my current employment does NOT use any of the skills that I learnt as part of the cert 3. I am willing to admit that I would be more useless at these skill than some, if not most, hobbyists that watch your Vblog.

But in having said that, I do design and make "BASIC" circuits at home in my spare time. Mostly things that I require or find interesting. I have never designed a PCB but rather just use protoboards.
I would class myself as a hobbyist but i feel somewhat deflated after this video. I realize that this was not your intention (I hope)...

Just my 2c worth
Regards,
Gibleh

[amc184]

The description looks reasonable to me.  My only concern would be for a student trying to fit these hours in with full time study.  Might be better for someone studying part time.

[nixfu]

In my own case.  I was an EE student but switched to CompSci my SENIOR year.   It was the mid 80's and I simply decided that I liked all the new exciting computer stuff more.  I don't regret that decision, the 80s, 90s, and first decade of the 2000's were exciting times in IT and provided a very interesting career.

So, while I am not an EE, I ended up an IT professional for the last 20 years, but it was my original interest, and it and ham radio have made it my hobby.  I don't remember everything from school, and lots of it is not all that up to day anyway probably, but it certainly provided a very good 'base' for my hobby electronics experimentation.  In my hobby level electronics I am pretty sure I would fit your skills myself and I have never worked a single day as an EE or with electronics professionally, its all been an IT career for me.

For many people computer stuff is a hobby, for me at the skill level I have now, its almost too easy to do nearly anything IT related and it has become just a "job" that I don't want to do at home as well as work.  So ham radio and electronics provide that same mental stimulation and challenge that computers used to provide me when I was young.

I do believe your best bet to find someone that would fit WOULD be either a hobbyist or maybe a retired EE who used to be technical but at some point got into mgmt, sales, consulting etc, but still has a love of electronics and would enjoy doing it again.

Frankly, I think you should have "Advanced Amateur Radio License" as a job requirement.

If you want a group of non-EE professionals who have serious electronics skills, hang around ham radio people. 

[djcrunkmix]

Dave, you're not asking too much. It is just that you're competing for a person who can be better paid and wouldn't want to work as a lab assistant. These skillsets are there, but you will need to compensate them accordingly. It is not a question about your requirements can be considered a basic skillset - it is the pressure of the market that will determine whether you will find someone or not.

Hell, the reality is that (atleast in the US colleges) majority engineers who graduate with a Bachelors in EE do not have the "basic" skillset you have listed. This has been my experience in a IV league college in America. Not kidding.

I truly hope you find someone who is passionate and willing to work for a lower wage and in a fun environment.

Cheers and my two cents. I apologize if it was harsh.

[miguelvp]

Dave, you're not asking too much. It is just that you're competing for a person who can be better paid and wouldn't want to work as a lab assistant. These skillsets are there, but you will need to compensate them accordingly. It is not a question about your requirements can be considered a basic skillset - it is the pressure of the market that will determine whether you will find someone or not.

Hell, the reality is that (atleast in the US colleges) majority engineers who graduate with a Bachelors in EE do not have the "basic" skillset you have listed. This has been my experience in a IV league college in America. Not kidding.

I truly hope you find someone who is passionate and willing to work for a lower wage and in a fun environment.

Cheers and my two cents. I apologize if it was harsh.

How much did the on Campus Student Lab Assistants get paid? I doubt it was more than minimum wage, at least that's what it was in my times. And since you have to help students you better have the skill sets that he mentions, otherwise you'll be a pretty bad Lab Assistant.

[pickle9000]

I think all a person needs is a hunger for electronics. Dave listed a few things but a hobbyist can also work work a drill and make a case, label it and so on. 40 years ago it was a big deal to have a VOM, fixit shops repairing TV's and such where common place you cold call them hobbyists.

Today there is so much more available, microcontrollers, parts that you can actually buy, datasheets to download. Instructions on how to program. Everything is there.

If you hear of a new (neat) chip, board whatever, do you buy it and play with it? If the answer is yes you are a hobbyist in my book you are doing it for the sheer enjoyment.

Dave is by definition looking for a person that enjoys electronics.   

[IanB]

This has been my experience in a IV league college in America.

Are the IV league colleges on life support? 

[rs20]

I haven't watched the video yet, but all I can say is this: the passionate hobbyist types at my university were better at greenfield design and prototyping before they started undergraduate than the there-for-the-money types at the end of undergraduate. All you learn at university is how to sit exams, and theoretical concepts that the bad students can't connect to FR-4 (and time management, and ethics, actually useful things to be fair, but the ability to prepare a prototype? bahahaha). If I was in Dave's position, I would want the former, and that's exactly what he's going for, so 

[miguelvp]

About Stutent Position Job pay at say MIT:

http://www.eecs.mit.edu/resources/student-hourly-employment

Code: [Select]

HOURLY RATES Freshman/Sophomore Junior/Senior Graduate
Course/Lab Assistant $15.00 $15.00 $15.00
Tutoring Program $11.00 $12.00 $13.00
Problem Grader $10.00 $11.00 $12.00
General Helper $9.75 $9.75 $9.75

I bet TAs are not that far away from this pay rates as well.

Edit: as for Internships MIT requires a one time charge of $30 per position offered. They sure are greedy

[SeanB]

I started off destroying stuff, and eventually got some to work again after I had it apart. Now I fix stuff. Yes the current stuff is amazing, and so much easier than before, but it is regarded as basic. There is little training and most are not interested, but those who are have a wealth of good education available for essentially the time that they devote to it.

[george graves]

I don't think anyone said that some "hobbyists" don't have the skills you listed.  You missed the point.

As a side note, I don't think you're going to find that skill set in a student.  I can't speak for Universities in Australia, but in the States, it's common for a EE grad to have very little hands on experience.  I see a whole lot of student's senior projects made with stuff cobbled together from Sparkfun - all hooked up with jumper wires.

And if you do find a student, then perhaps they could do a summer internship, but a full course load and working up to 30 hours a week?  That's slim pickings.  But....Maybe if they are required to an internship as part of their studies, then that would work.  But that's going to be even harder to find.  Why don't you go to someone of the local universities and ask? Surely they would need to 'vet you before they can sign off on you being part of their education.  They may even underwrite the whole thing.  (Also, they usually have job boards you can post on)  - that would be where I would start.

Anyways, there some helpful suggestions for you.

So that leaves you with an advanced "hobbyist".  If you can find someone with the skill set you listed, doesn't need money, then more power to you I guess.  (ya cheap bastard!)

Maybe the job title should be "Wanted:  Nerd that lives with his parents, doesn't smell too much, won't take up my time, and willing to work for peanuts." 

[han]

Is it possible to hire undergraduate student there? and not full time 30 Hour a week.
I have plenty of side job when i'm in college (at that time experience is more important then money).

[Psi]

I think the term hobbyist is a bit generic. It refers to anyone who has a hobby and doesn't make assumptions about it being a passing interest or a full on obsession.

A "electronics hobbyist" is anyone who plays around with electronics in their spare time.

What Dave wants is an Elite Hacker Hobbyist

A 360deg view of a persons electronics lab/hobby area is the quickest way to classify a hobbyist. 

[Dr. Frank]

Dave,

you have clearly defined the requirements, so it's absolutely not the question, whether these are correct, or not.
These are simply your necessities for that person.

I understand which skills you have in mind, because I started the same way, being a teen..

At the age of maybe 12 I started soldering simple electronics, (after playing around with KOSMOS Radioman for years already), always had these yellow / brown fingers from etching with Fe3Cl, layouts at first directly rubbed on PCB, later on transparent foil and transferred to UV photo resist mask.. and learning each and every aspect of analogue and digital electronics on my own later on.
This evolutionary learning was very common at that time, i.e. 40 years ago, but that faded away later, and maybe now is popular again, as can be observed here in this forum.

Therefore I hope, that you will find such a (younger) person, who would also have to have a charitable attitude.

Because if someone already has all these skills, nowadays the people also know, what it's worth.. and you did not even specify the hourly wage, you old CHEAPSKATE!   

Frank

[GEuser]

LOL good one dave , one has a valid point .

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hobby

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hobbyist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby

And my invention > "A Hobby is what one does when there is nothing better to do"

The other day I noticed a mention of a "Advanced Hobbyist" in the forums , I wonder if one gets that label from the weetbix packets and also if they are free .

It is automatically assumed (by some or most) that a hobbyist is either a basic person with basic intelligence or basic? skills and one needs a accreditation to surpass those hobbyist types , I could list here just how many in the past can be categorised as hobbyists that became world? renowned so called experts in their fields and shed light on many and many unknown things , then became famous and only then became accredited with a label of some sort by the elite dumb bastards ,

but I'm not going to list them as its all only a hobby for me so I do not have too , nor do I care too nor could I be bothered too either .

A hobbyist is just a Hobby no more no less imo of course ...

ps> this post could be much longer yet again who gives a .

[s_lannan]

I knew more about "electronics" before I enrolled in Uni...
Now I know a lot about control theory and math...

[SL4P]

I reckon some of the blame goes to use of tech language* and jargon.
Dave's struggling at the best of times, but it's so easy to toss in phrases like PCB design, SMPS repair, and other 'umbrella' phrases - if you are so familiar with the repercussions and drill-dowen to the necessities of each.

Specific skills may exist, but need to be tuned to a specific project requirements as the newbie learns you and where you've been.

I admit the laundry list was pretty complete, but expecting a young/cheap person with all those skills reedy to go - able to apply them at a semi-pro level is a big ask.

The advent of Chinese consumer electronics and the ever-diminishing school science streams have also shrunk the pool of techno-literate (or inclined) teens over the last ten years.

I suspect Dave may need two 'less skilled' bods at 0.5T to reach all the corners.  Or a late twenties full-time paid colleague to achieve all the ticks.

I agree with everything Dave mentions in the video, but he's reflecting on ten years ago... imagine thews of us looking back 30-40 years!!!

*Microsoft are particularly prolific at redefining tech terms into muddy ambiguous, vague references to their original meaning.

[AndyC_772]

I'd be interested to know what the typical profile of a young electronics enthusiast actually is. I suspect it's changed out of all recognition since I was in that category myself.

Wind the clock back to the late '80s, I was a geek, or nerd, before the world had really worked out what those categories were. I was at school, 8-bit computers were the rule, and a few 16 or 32 bit machines were around (if you could afford them, which I couldn't).

By current standards, those machines were incredibly accessible when it came to programming them. They'd boot up straight into a BASIC interpreter; giving them commands to execute didn't require another computer and a debug cable, you'd just start typing. Some had assemblers built in as well, and I remember proudly stating on my university application that I was fluent in both 6502 and ARM code.

Peer around at the back and there was inevitably some kind of expansion interface, with chip selects, address and data buses there for the attachment of whatever you could come up with - provided you could get hold of a schematic or data book, of course. Very few of my peers actually chose to build hardware (it cost precious pocket money, after all), but we all became reasonably accomplished programmers. The ability to bypass the OS and poke hardware registers directly was both a necessary skill and a badge of honour.

The same age group now has smart phones and tablets, which are about as far removed from a Spectrum or BBC Micro as it's possible to get in terms of how the user interacts with it, and how accessible the underlying hardware is. For this, I really feel sorry for them.

Some other skills - PCB layout, for example - are ones which I'd never have come across before I graduated and went into industry. Routing boards was one of my first jobs, but I had to be taught how to do it by a senior engineer.

Thinking of the skills I had back then, and how I gained them, I can't help but feel today's EE students are at a tremendous disadvantage. They can't be upgrading their phones with custom hardware, nor even learning much by cracking them open and looking inside.

How do they learn?

[pickle9000]

They start learning like most young people do ripping stuff apart to see how it works. Then repairs (cleaning contacts on the tv remote), and so on. 5 seconds on google and your good.

http://www.letsmakerobots.com/

[iampoor]

I don't think anyone said that some "hobbyists" don't have the skills you listed.  You missed the point.

As a side note, I don't think you're going to find that skill set in a student.  I can't speak for Universities in Australia, but in the States, it's common for a EE grad to have very little hands on experience.  I see a whole lot of student's senior projects made with stuff cobbled together from Sparkfun - all hooked up with jumper wires.

And if you do find a student, then perhaps they could do a summer internship, but a full course load and working up to 30 hours a week?  That's slim pickings.  But....Maybe if they are required to an internship as part of their studies, then that would work.  But that's going to be even harder to find.  Why don't you go to someone of the local universities and ask? Surely they would need to 'vet you before they can sign off on you being part of their education.  They may even underwrite the whole thing.  (Also, they usually have job boards you can post on)  - that would be where I would start.

Anyways, there some helpful suggestions for you.

So that leaves you with an advanced "hobbyist".  If you can find someone with the skill set you listed, doesn't need money, then more power to you I guess.  (ya cheap bastard!)

Maybe the job title should be "Wanted:  Nerd that lives with his parents, doesn't smell too much, won't take up my time, and willing to work for peanuts." 

Doesnt this encompass the large majority of people who get degrees regardless of the field? Might also explain why many people have degrees in fields that they "cant find a job in". Usually because they are not qualified!

PS: Im saying this as a 21 year old who acquired most of the skills listed in Daves posting in 6 months without formal education. How? Persistence, Dedication, and the ability to admit when I was wrong...

Its not rocket science. You (Students) either catch up with the world, or you should just start working at McyD's!

[pickle9000]

I'm thinkn' this is a hobbyist.

[bsb0011]

I don't think anyone said that some "hobbyists" don't have the skills you listed.  You missed the point.

As a side note, I don't think you're going to find that skill set in a student.  I can't speak for Universities in Australia, but in the States, it's common for a EE grad to have very little hands on experience.  I see a whole lot of student's senior projects made with stuff cobbled together from Sparkfun - all hooked up with jumper wires.

And if you do find a student, then perhaps they could do a summer internship, but a full course load and working up to 30 hours a week?  That's slim pickings.  But....Maybe if they are required to an internship as part of their studies, then that would work.  But that's going to be even harder to find.  Why don't you go to someone of the local universities and ask? Surely they would need to 'vet you before they can sign off on you being part of their education.  They may even underwrite the whole thing.  (Also, they usually have job boards you can post on)  - that would be where I would start.

Anyways, there some helpful suggestions for you.

So that leaves you with an advanced "hobbyist".  If you can find someone with the skill set you listed, doesn't need money, then more power to you I guess.  (ya cheap bastard!)

Maybe the job title should be "Wanted:  Nerd that lives with his parents, doesn't smell too much, won't take up my time, and willing to work for peanuts." 

I have to agree.  Personally I have 3 associate degrees - computer, electrical, and electronics engineering technology degrees, and a BS in Electronics Engineering Technology.  I've won a national engineering contest from one of the largest semiconductor manufactures out there.  I've done private consulting doing digital design engineering services (design, prototyping, PCB layout, Auto CAD 3D Layout, testing, and firmware development - assembler code not C). I worked with finding suppliers for PCB board production, as well as parts and supplies. I am fluent in web design, and network setup and layout.  I've done work doing Indy film production, from camera operator to lighting design and programming, to stage and set building.  Also for the film work, I designed and built any production automation devices or other technical props where things move (think electronics and the such, to things like squibs for bullet hits and simulated gun fire hitting objects, as well as animated figures).  I was heavily involved in the editing of the digital footage as well.

Still my current employment is outside of electronics (I work in mechanical maintenance currently), and as such I would consider myself an electronics hobbyist as I do not currently make my living doing engineering work.

Would I qualify for your position?  I would surly think so.  I don't do much PC coding as I don't enjoy it, and I would rather do my embedded code in assembler than in any form of C any day of the week.  Yes, that means I have less portable code.  So what?  I'm not designing things to move from controller to controller, I'm designing things I like to build. I can program in C, but resent to doing so.

I've put in the time and practice to learn these things. I've been interested in these topics since grade school, and knew what I wanted to do as both a job and a hobby since middle school.  I spent the money on my own lab starting in High school, and by college I had a better analogue and digital lab than most colleges have.  I've spent a ton of cash on both my own lab, as well as my education.

But here is the bottom line - do you really think the skills listed above should pay less then a sign flipper on a road crew? Last time I was working in the electronics filed I commanded a very nice salary, in the mid-low 6 figure range (USD, not Peso's, Yuan, or Iraqi Dinar).

If you want to pay someone an interns pay grade, then I would expect you will have a hard time finding someone with all the skills you have listed, willing to work for peanuts. Even if they are "just" an "electronics hobbyist", if they have all the the skills you have listed, then I would expect they would want to get paid fair market value for their knowledge and the skills they bring.  What you are asking for is a junior engineer, a programmer, a video production assistant, and a shipping clerk. What you are offering to pay is peanuts.

I would point you over to "The Ben Heck Show" - you know the guy who made the funny barn yard animal toy play sound bites from you.  He has 2 people to help him in his shows.  One for video production and all around general non-technical helper, and another intern with some technical skills. Both do some very light "on-air" work. And I doubt that either works many hours a week. While I do not know the guy, I would speculate that the technical helper would not qualify for your job description, nor would he work for less than a sign flipper.

[Smokey]

I knew more about "electronics" before I enrolled in Uni...
Now I know a lot about control theory and math...

+1

[mikeselectricstuff]

I think it is reasonable to expect the range of skills stated from someone with interest and enthusiasm for electronics, but maybe not from someone that started college with no electronics at all, unless they've become interested enough to learn stuff outside of their college course.
By far the most important thing is enthusiasm and ability to learn on their own. There is no shortage of learning materials nowadays, and hardware is cheap and available.

[wigman27]

Dave,

I certainly don't think you are asking to much at all, I am a first year student, have been doing electronics for a few years now and this is one of my first designs.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Programmable-Constant-Current-Power-Resist/

•   Have experience as a hobbyist with analog, digital, microcontroller design, mainly ATMEL (Both Arduino and standalone ATMEL)
•   I have a web development business (not too busy, just the way I like it) and experience with PC programming, PHP, HTML5, CSS3 Some basic Linux knowledge.
•   Have basic experience in PCB and Schematic design (have researched quite a lot).
•   I am of the opinion that if you can't explain something in a way that's easy to understand, that you don't understand it well enough. Because of this I like to fully understand something before assisting others, this allows me to communicate concepts with ease.
•   Very competent in the use of a PC.
•   I use AutoCAD a lot!
•   Love a good trip to the dump!
•   I am a fully qualified Work Health and Safety Representative (HSR)

Lists all the things you mention, so yes, I am living proof that we do exist and we are even in Australia!

So no, I understand exactly what you are after!

[s_lannan]

I thought it all was quite reasonable.

My opinion was that Dave's videos were a godsend to hobbyists and engineering students, filling in many voids that a university education has.
He's after a go-getter, so the breed of lazy bare-minimum students I saw during my studies need not apply....

*added*
It was actually a little heart breaking to discover nobody had any passion at all in this field when commencing university level studies

[tautech]

Dave,

I certainly don't think you are asking to much at all,

Lists all the things you mention, so yes, I am living proof that we do exist and we are even in Australia!

So no, I understand exactly what you are after!

I hope your name is Sydney  and you have put your hat in the ring. 

[iurius]

At this moment, Dave, I'm afraid you might get into a loooo...ooong search for an assistant. The reason is, people with the level you require are already into business, those who might be willing to get this job are mostly young and unprepared   
  I'm starting thinking that your wife might do a good job if you teach her the basics, especially what concerns mailing, packing, and other logistics stuff (this way the money stay in the "la famiglia"    ).
  All the best! Thank you for the blog!   

[Smokey]

Dave,

I certainly don't think you are asking to much at all,

Lists all the things you mention, so yes, I am living proof that we do exist and we are even in Australia!

So no, I understand exactly what you are after!

I hope your name is Sydney  and you have put your hat in the ring. 

Or he could be willing to change his name.... and buy a hat...

[Kjelt]

Dave, perhaps instead of searching for a small lamb/sheep with 7 legs already standing on all 7 of them, start looking for an eager one with 4 reasonable legs willing to learn to grow the other 3 ones.
If you want someone who already has all the experience what is he going to learn from you? How to connect a BTTF timeclock with the wrong polarity? Just kidding  .
You want an eager smart apprentice, so look for one who fits 60% of what you asked and teach him the other 40% on the job. At least it will be more balanced.

[nathanpc]

This wasn't too much of a surprise to me. I think what Dave was asking was totally fair and are the qualities of a serious electronics hobbyist, but the fact is, most electronics hobbyists today are just "casual". They are in the hobby just to hack something together when they want, build a circuit that they've found interesting, build a kit, etc. Usually the "serious" hobbyists (the ones Dave is looking for) are the people that want to become EEs like me, and absolutely love electronics (and everything surrounding it).

[iemand]

I agree that most students in the third year of electrical engineering at my university don't have the skills you ask for. This is because they see electrical engineering as school stuff and they do not want to do anything as a hobby.

However: there is a group of people who really like parts of electrical engineering and that group does have the skills you describe, they are genuinely interested in electronics and they build their own projects because they think it's fun. It is only because of this that they have (most of) the skills you describe.

During the electrical engineering study at my university you won't learn how to do any IT thing at al (but: the IT of the EE study association is way better managed than the IT of the informatics study association, because some people think it's fun to do and they DO have the skills you talk about). Same for a lot of other skills: the university won't teach you how to design a PCB. The only thing they teach you is theoretical knowledge, mathematics and other skills like writing a thesis and working in a project group. The real, practical knowledge is something you only learn because you want to, not because the university tells you to.

You don't ask too much of students, you just have to swipe away the large stack of applications from people who do not have the skills you will find in real hobbyists.

By the way: I like the new blab video's 

(Edit: There is also a big difference in what I call "hobbyists" and the so called "tinkerers". Tinkerers do not know any theory behind how the stuff they are building works. Even in the hobbyist group there is a huge difference between the knowledge of individual people)

[PelzigesOhr]

Just to repeat what everyone else already told: I believe that there should be students fitting your requirements, too.

I don't know about the school system in Australia, but there are technical vocational colleges in Germany where pretty much all of these skills are covered in practical and theoretical courses over a two year period, even before the students are allowed to attend universities.

[VK5RC]

I don't think Dave is going to have any problems finding a reasonable person to fit the job.
From the South Australian Amateur radio community alone, I can think of 3 or 4 candidates who would be highly suitable, and Adelaide is a lot smaller than Sydney. One "hobbyist" designed and built a GPS tracking balloon (difficult at high altitude) with photos, two way command-control radio link, arranged permission with all the Authorities (very difficult) at about age 18.
These very capable guys / gals are out there and need / deserve support. GO DAVE!

[Tandy]

In my own case.  I was an EE student but switched to CompSci my SENIOR year.   It was the mid 80's and I simply decided that I liked all the new exciting computer stuff more.  I don't regret that decision, the 80s, 90s, and first decade of the 2000's were exciting times in IT and provided a very interesting career.

I think you have described the situation for many. I studied engineering that was mostly electronics with the intention of becoming an electronics engineer. However the electronics industry was dying in the UK but the closest I got to the electronics industry was working in a Tandy shop. All the electronics jobs were going to Japan at the time so experienced engineers were loosing their jobs, there was no hope for a inexperienced recruit.

On the other hand the computer industry was growing massively and there was a great deal more opportunity for employment in IT so that is where my career path went. I also have no regrets as I joined an internet company in the early days of the internet and it was exciting to be part of something as it was developing. Electronics remained for me a hobby but with the explosion of cheap Chinese made products that meant you could get practically anything ready made for a fraction of the cost of building something meant that rarely would I get out a soldering iron during the 90s & 00s.

Fast forward to today and thankfully there seems to be somewhat of a revival of interest in electronics but it is different to how it used to be. You can make some quite interesting things with the most basic knowledge. You don't need to know Ohms law to make an Arduino board play a tune. It was this growing community of people who started off making an Arduino play a tune or flash an LED that reignited my interest and even resulted in a big career change for me that resulted in buying the remaining parts of Tandy from RadioShack to get back into the Electronics business.

[Artlav]

Funny thing is - you think yourself way behind the others, looking at all the cool projects around.
But then Dave makes a rant, and turns out your skill set is quite a bit above average.

Perhaps the problem is that people see the requirements like "laying out the board", think about a couple years of classes and thick books describing al the tricks and potholes, and conclude that it's a professional skill?

Meanwhile, a hobbyist just goes head on into the trouble, oblivious to it's complexity.
Like i told in that stillborn thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/how-you-got-into-electronics-tell-your-story/

On the ZXSpectrum childhood vs Iphone childhood - i can't help but notice that it's a problem that teaches, not capability.
Few things motivate a child to learn about electronics better than a broken game console and a desire to play on it.
What can break in an Iphone? 

[EEVblog]

It was actually a little heart breaking to discover nobody had any passion at all in this field when commencing university level studies

Yes, I was depressed and surprised at this too.
I just assumed (this is before the communications revolution kiddies) that anyone studying electronics would be as passionate as I was, and they would all read Electronics Australia, have their own lab etc, it was a real shock to find out that most didn't care at all. And by most I mean >95% of fellow students I met. I could count fellow hobbyists on one hand.
My straw poll was always "do you read EA?"
Quite a few computer geeks though.
Word quickly got around that I was the guy that knew it all and could get your lab project going when it didn't work.

[Tandy]

On the ZXSpectrum childhood vs Iphone childhood - i can't help but notice that it's a problem that teaches, not capability.
Few things motivate a child to learn about electronics better than a broken game console and a desire to play on it.
What can break in an Iphone? 

This is the same with most things, in the early days when a technology is emerging it tends to be understandable to an individual. But as the field develops things get more and more complex where only professionals can understand and even then usually a team of professionals each with a different area of expertise. The ZX-Spectrum could easily be designed and built by a single engineer but an iPhone requires complex mathematics with impedance matched connections and paths on the board laid out to minimise RF interference etc. Not something someone could just take apart and tinker with.

[EEVblog]

Dave, perhaps instead of searching for a small lamb/sheep with 7 legs already standing on all 7 of them, start looking for an eager one with 4 reasonable legs willing to learn to grow the other 3 ones.
If you want someone who already has all the experience what is he going to learn from you? How to connect a BTTF timeclock with the wrong polarity? Just kidding  .
You want an eager smart apprentice, so look for one who fits 60% of what you asked and teach him the other 40% on the job. At least it will be more balanced.

Who's said I would not consider that? I thought my job description implied that anyway?
I said:

The role is expected to be quite fluid based on your skillset.

But in reality basic electronics design it's pretty much an all or nothing skillset. i.e. someone who can design a decent circuit will almost certainly have skills in laying out a board and building and testing. You are unlikely to find someone who can test and troubleshoot and lay out boards, but can't design basic building block circuits for example.
Ok, but someone might be crap at documentation for example, or firmware, well that can be taught and/or not necessary.

[Tandy]

Who's said I would not consider that? I thought my job description implied that anyway?

Personally when looking at skills on a Job application I tend to assume that I would be required to be proficient in them all.

[EEVblog]

At this moment, Dave, I'm afraid you might get into a loooo...ooong search for an assistant.

Well, seems you are wrong. I already have at least a couple of local decent sounding candidates, and have a another half dozen resumes I haven't looked at yet.
And a couple of decent sounding overseas candidates if I was getting desperate (I prefer local).
Of course it might all come to naught come interview time, but they sound decent on paper.

[madires]

Just to repeat what everyone else already told: I believe that there should be students fitting your requirements, too.

I agree, not many but a few. Long time ago when I studied EE a few percent of the students already had some experience with electronics and/or it was their hobby. The majority had no idea how a resistor looks like or how to read the color code. To find the gems, ask them about projects. Ask them to bring a project to the interview. Makes also a good topic to talk about.

[Wilksey]

I think it is reasonable to expect the range of skills stated from someone with interest and enthusiasm for electronics, but maybe not from someone that started college with no electronics at all, unless they've become interested enough to learn stuff outside of their college course.
By far the most important thing is enthusiasm and ability to learn on their own. There is no shortage of learning materials nowadays, and hardware is cheap and available.

Mike has hit the nail on the head, it's all about enthusiasm!

When I was studying I had high enthusiasm for electronics, and as Tandy pointed out there was not much in the way of industry for EE's, so I focused more on software development, however I never lost my interest or enthusiasm for electronics and I am now doing both software and hardware design and engineering.

These days being around it all of the time, my enthusiasm kicks back in when something breaks and I need to find out why, the rest of the process like design etc, is mostly the same stuff over and over again with a few improvements here or there.  Occasionally I will make something to kill the monotony of treading over old ground, and I think as long as I can get my occasional kicks from it then I will still maintain interest.

I have noticed an increase trend of companies buying more off-the-shelf now, maybe due to the likes of the Arduino, nobody has to think or engineer anything anymore, they just monkey along.

I sometimes program my PIC's in assembler for 2 reasons.
1. To confuse the "new age" engineer
2. To get that warm fuzzy feeling of working with the actual chip rather than a set of libraries put together by some muppet.

I don't know what it's like in Aus, but in the UK the level of what they spit out of Uni these days is diabolical!
You do get SOME that are worth more than given credit for, but from my own experience they are very few and far between.  I.E. I don't consider getting a Arduino or RPi to blink an LED becoming a "EE", it's definitely a start but most stop there as it is "too difficult".

[Wilksey]

At this moment, Dave, I'm afraid you might get into a loooo...ooong search for an assistant.

Well, seems you are wrong. I already have at least a couple of local decent sounding candidates, and have a another half dozen resumes I haven't looked at yet.
And a couple of decent sounding overseas candidates if I was getting desperate (I prefer local).
Of course it might all come to naught come interview time, but they sound decent on paper.

I hope you do find someone, but don't forget, those that say they can, can sometimes not.

What is your timescale for hiring someone?  Just wondering when we are likely to see this new recruit if you find a decent one.

[EEVblog]

Mike has hit the nail on the head, it's all about enthusiasm!

Why do you think I put the word in my first sentence of the job description 

[_Sin]

Personally when looking at skills on a Job application I tend to assume that I would be required to be proficient in them all.

Really? I tend to assume they're shooting for the moon but will, in reality, take someone with a reasonable level of competence, and/or who could pick those skills up fairly quickly. i.e. the skills required are a guide to what the role involves, but it might not be necessary to be an expert in them, rather that the candidate will be capable when needed to be.

Of course if you want to exclude yourself from jobs that you could probably do, that's fine by me. I'll go for anything I think sounds interesting/challenging/fun, and the less competition the better.

On that note, I saw a good quote from Richard Branson the other day:

"If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!"

[EEVblog]

I agree, not many but a few.

Yes, and that's the same with most technical jobs. Usually if you are lucky you end up with 2 or maybe 3 suitable candidates from 50 resumes, and I certainly don't expect any more than that. In fact likely less than the usual full time job because of the more niche nature of casual role.

[84GKSIG]

when it comes to electronics i love to learn and ive designed probably only one circuit that ive taken off the breadboard and made my own pcb with, sadly the C stuff im not so good with, i have a mate of mine whos a fast learner with that sort of thing and if he dosent have the answer right away he will have it soon, sadly nsw is a little far for me from adelaide. i know and feel that some one deserving of the opportunity will come along    for me my passion for electronics started young and i always fall back on it as a hobby to the point where ive built my own mini lab and have enough parts on had that if i feel like making at something at 1 in the morning i dont have to wait till aztronics or jacars opened to get the idea bread boarded. documentation and various other bits and pieces i dont do much of im a little rusty with, how ever i think you will find hobbits of all natures with different focuses on what they enjoy, for me its audio amps and i know every one has a different preferred sub field, another friend of mine was deeply into variable high current power supplies for his slot car racing and thats all he did bigger better power supplies all the time and i always focused on audio related stuff and i still try get my hands on electronics mags how everi do enjoy the 80s eti being based around audio gear 

[AndyC_772]

On the ZXSpectrum childhood vs Iphone childhood - i can't help but notice that it's a problem that teaches, not capability.
Few things motivate a child to learn about electronics better than a broken game console and a desire to play on it.
What can break in an Iphone? 

Really? A games console, or an iphone, or any other piece of high volume consumer electronics for that matter, is a terrible thing to have to understand or debug. They're built from single-purpose BGAs attached to multi-layer PCBs, with little or nothing to probe, and certainly no room for customisation or upgradeability. I'd look for simple mechanical problems, then maybe try searching the internet for the symptoms, to see if they point to a fault that someone else has already identified. If that didn't work, it would go in the bin.

Hardware modification is no longer learning, experimentation, enthusiasm or support for the platform, it's "tampering". Try, for example, to add a memory card interface to your phone, and the physical inaccessibility of free I/O pins is the least of your problems.

[han]

i hope i can watch the interview in live stream? wink2

[ivan747]

Certainly that's not too much to ask. On the other hand though, I have many friends who are 4th year EE students who I wouldn't trust with the probes of a multimeter if you told them where to put 'em. I also know many people with the skills you mentioned and would love such an opportunity whether it payed or not.

That is so totally true, they are even more hopeless with an oscilloscope.
I'll never lend my gear, EVER

But I'm pretty sure Dave can filter those out in the first 120 seconds of an interview.

[george graves]

Because if someone already has all these skills, nowadays the people also know, what it's worth.. and you did not even specify the hourly wage, you old CHEAPSKATE!

But here is the bottom line - do you really think the skills listed above should pay less then a sign flipper on a road crew?

Dave, I'm afraid you might get into a loooo...ooong search for an assistant. The reason is, people with the level you require are already into business, those who might be willing to get this job are mostly young and unprepared   

Dave, perhaps instead of searching for a small lamb/sheep with 7 legs....
You want an eager smart apprentice, so look for one who fits 60% of what you asked and teach him the other 40% on the job. At least it will be more balanced.

LOL - apparently we are all in an alternative realty!!!!   

The only thing we learned is that Dave is a cheap ass.      But - he says that about himself all the time.  So - Nothing learned here! Rock on with your bad self!

Dave, you'll find some one, I'm sure of it.  Finding someone that meets your specs(kinda of), and you "click" with them for the first week - it will be awesome.  A true bro-mance.  Put them on camera too.    But the first time you can't get to a scope cause they are using it to measure voltage of a 9 volt battery,  you'll quietly fire their ass.     Time will tell.  Let's check in on this from a year from now.  Anyone want to place bets?  O0

[nowlan]

1. I would be surprised if you couldnt find someone at a local hacker space wanting to get involved.

2. I think "hobbyist" would be someone who doesnt do this for a living.

[MeganVonTincan]

I think the difference between a professional (someone that wants to be paid) and a hobbyist is that a hobbyist can focus only on the areas of electronics that interest him/her and still be considered a true hobbyist.  I'm sure there are many hobbyists that have never laid-out a PCB and some that have never moved any of their projects off a breadboard.  If someone spends a portion of their free time studying electronics and building-up circuits because they enjoy some aspect of it, I would consider them a hobbyist.  What I wonder is whether anyone would take the term hobbyist even further than I have and include people that simply study and use electronics, but aren't willing or able to do any detailed hands-on electronics work.

[tggzzz]

I don't know what it's like in Aus, but in the UK the level of what they spit out of Uni these days is diabolical!
You do get SOME that are worth more than given credit for, but from my own experience they are very few and far between.  I.E. I don't consider getting a Arduino or RPi to blink an LED becoming a "EE", it's definitely a start but most stop there as it is "too difficult".

That's always been the case - no change there.

I can vouch for that for the last 40 years, and 40 years ago people were saying exactly the same thing. And in 40 years time they will still be saying it.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

LOL - apparently we are all in an alternative realty!!!!   

The only thing we learned is that Dave is a cheap ass.      But - he says that about himself all the time.  So - Nothing learned here! Rock on with your bad self!

Dave, you'll find some one, I'm sure of it.  Finding someone that meets your specs(kinda of), and you "click" with them for the first week - it will be awesome.  A true bro-mance.  Put them on camera too.    But the first time you can't get to a scope cause they are using it to measure voltage of a 9 volt battery,  you'll quietly fire their ass.     Time will tell.  Let's check in on this from a year from now.  Anyone want to place bets?  O0

Quit trolling George.
Place bets on what? If you are so sure you are right about something then say what it is.
If you think Dave can't get a good employee for what he is offering then I think you are wrong.
But getting a good but young employee to stay for a year is probably quite hard and I don't think extra pay will improve the chances very much.
You obviously think differently, but using emoticons instead of an argument is wasting everybody's time, so desist.

ps. If I was younger and in Sydney I would jump at the chance.

[mikeselectricstuff]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

[Towger]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

My thoughts exactly and they would be less lightly to leave for a 'real' job, after a year or so.

[(In)Sanity]

I'm a professional programmer that likes electronics more than I do programming.   While I have some formal education in electronics it's just a hobby for me.   That being said I started programming when I was 8 and soldering around 5,  I'm just a couple years older then Dave.   I could easily handle the requirements he's asking and then some.

Dave,  your not asking too much at all.  The problem is your either going to find someone like myself (only younger) that started really early in the tech fields or your going to find someone trying to figure out their path in life and they'll have little or no experience.    I would go for the retired gray beard type that knows more then you do about some things.   You of course want to watch out for personality conflicts no matter which direction you go.   With all respect I think you would be difficult to work for. 

Jeff

[sergey]

Dave, in my opinion you don't ask too much at all.

The main concern i've got so far from the discussion is about association of EE hobbyist with EE student. hey, i was never an EE student but i'm EE hobbyist since school or so! So what's the matter

As for payment, personally i would have choosed work for EEVblog back in the uni days than working for a software. That could easily be the same order of payment (some companies will pay you really a low just because you're too young, even after graduation, pfff!) but degree of enjoyment would have been unquestionable orders of magnitude higher! Especially if you let the guy to access the lab outside of the official working hours (like in the evenings, weekend etc). That makes the lab really attractive for hobbyists alike, imo.

Anyway, just my two cents, feel free to disagree.

[Howardlong]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

I was wondering that myself, although I'm not sure how many are going to be "quick learners", judging solely from the experience of how my brain works these days in comparison to how maleable it was a few decades back.

Although I am semi retired these days myself, and don't smoke, unfortunately I do regularly have access to a cat, so there's probably no point in applying bearing in mind the boss's lack of tolerance to them.

[Wilksey]

I don't know what it's like in Aus, but in the UK the level of what they spit out of Uni these days is diabolical!
You do get SOME that are worth more than given credit for, but from my own experience they are very few and far between.  I.E. I don't consider getting a Arduino or RPi to blink an LED becoming a "EE", it's definitely a start but most stop there as it is "too difficult".

That's always been the case - no change there.

I can vouch for that for the last 40 years, and 40 years ago people were saying exactly the same thing. And in 40 years time they will still be saying it.

Maybe, but at least in previous years you didn't have it so easy to buy ready made stuff off of the shelf, and PCB's were so damned expensive that you would never even consider getting one made for hobbyist use (hence why I started PCB designer later in life).

I remember programming a 6502 in assembler and actually enjoying it, at the time you didn't have hundreds of resources or the internet, you had a book on 6502 assembly language and a keyboard and screen.

It made you appreciate the way the machines worked and get involved with the hardware more.

Everything these days is virtual, but still run on real hardware, it splits the need to understand the real guts from the virtualised rubbish they run on top of it.

My worry is that in a few years time there will be no real "engineers" as such, just monkeys playing with virtual machines and Arduinos.

[XynxNet]

I don't think you are asking too much from a hobbiest, Dave.
On the contrary I was shocked to learn, that some see this skillset as a match for a professional engineer.

[tggzzz]

I don't know what it's like in Aus, but in the UK the level of what they spit out of Uni these days is diabolical!
You do get SOME that are worth more than given credit for, but from my own experience they are very few and far between.  I.E. I don't consider getting a Arduino or RPi to blink an LED becoming a "EE", it's definitely a start but most stop there as it is "too difficult".

That's always been the case - no change there.

I can vouch for that for the last 40 years, and 40 years ago people were saying exactly the same thing. And in 40 years time they will still be saying it.

Maybe, but at least in previous years you didn't have it so easy to buy ready made stuff off of the shelf, and PCB's were so damned expensive that you would never even consider getting one made for hobbyist use (hence why I started PCB designer later in life).

That's true - you had to make them yourself.

I've just updated a 40 year old hack, and I'll probably blog about it and the construction techniques sometime.

I remember programming a 6502 in assembler and actually enjoying it, at the time you didn't have hundreds of resources or the internet, you had a book on 6502 assembly language and a keyboard and screen.

Oh, that was luxury

The first computer I programmed didn't have a screen. I/O was via 5 channel paper tape, the fastest instruction was 0.576ms,and it had 35mm magnetic film and 8192 words of 39 bit memory (N.B no typos there). Must go and see it exhibited in Bletchley Park.

The first 6502 I specified professionally used me as the hand assembler, and I/O was via a hex keypad and 7 segment displays. That machine was the start of a great empire. viz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_System_1

It made you appreciate the way the machines worked and get involved with the hardware more.

Agreed.

Everything these days is virtual, but still run on real hardware, it splits the need to understand the real guts from the virtualised rubbish they run on top of it.

My worry is that in a few years time there will be no real "engineers" as such, just monkeys playing with virtual machines and Arduinos.

There I disagree - the Arduino et al are a good approximation to bare silicon, and are a very good starting point for kids.

Besides, nowadays the interesting field is bio-hacking. Guess what script kiddies will be hacking in 30 years

[tggzzz]

I don't think you are asking too much from a hobbiest, Dave.
On the contrary I was shocked to learn, that some see this skillset as a match for a professional engineer.

I completely agree with both those points.

[Sigmoid]

I feel that bashing "people today" has become something of a fad in the tech community.

I'm a software engineer, and I do come across dozens of people with software degrees who couldn't design an application to save their lives. I've done interviews with "software engineers" who were unable to draw a UML class diagram. (For all the hardware peeps out there, that's kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor.) So yes, the idiots are out there.

But still, I feel that being a techhead has become synonymous with being a grumpy, grinchy old guy who goes on and on about "these youngsters these days".

Thing is, I think today is a much better time for electronics hobbyists than, say, 10 or 20 years ago. I feel that many people lost interest in hardware around the time computers really exploded. I also felt that software gave you unprecedented horizons, instant gratification, without any of the ferrous chloride, broken drill bits or burnt fingers.

Today, you only need to mess with ferrous chloride if you really want to - etching your own PCBs have become something like developing your own films. Something you only ever do if you really, really enjoy it. We have all these microcontroller and embedded computing development platforms like the Arduino, Beaglebone or Rpi... We have hackerspaces. We have open source hardware. We have the Internet for sharing knowledge.
It really has never been this good.

Of course, partially because of the above, the entry barrier is a lot lower than it has been. We have lots of "makers", a good percentage of whom are, actually, artists. You can be a "maker", design and build functionality, without having decent hardware skills. You can "fiddle" with hardware in the way you could do it with software back in the day. It's important to understand that this is not a drop in the quality of hobbyists, it's simply a new population that has entered the field.
(Some people look down on this, but hey... Look at all the awesome software people there are today. They all started out coding away like monkeys when they were young.)

[Kjelt]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

that needs an almost perfect match in personalities. You could get an ego clash or the "we did it like this for 20 years and I am not going to change that" mentality but it could work all depends on the person.

[Wilksey]

Oh, that was luxury

The first computer I programmed didn't have a screen. I/O was via 5 channel paper tape, the fastest instruction was 0.576ms,and it had 35mm magnetic film and 8192 words of 39 bit memory (N.B no typos there). Must go and see it exhibited in Bletchley Park.

The first 6502 I specified professionally used me as the hand assembler, and I/O was via a hex keypad and 7 segment displays. That machine was the start of a great empire. viz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_System_1

Everything these days is virtual, but still run on real hardware, it splits the need to understand the real guts from the virtualised rubbish they run on top of it.

My worry is that in a few years time there will be no real "engineers" as such, just monkeys playing with virtual machines and Arduinos.

There I disagree - the Arduino et al are a good approximation to bare silicon, and are a very good starting point for kids.

Besides, nowadays the interesting field is bio-hacking. Guess what script kiddies will be hacking in 30 years

You must be slightly older than I am to have experienced the old paper tape days!

Oh, don't get me wrong, I love the Arduino, I love everything it stands for in terms of getting people into electronics.  I know a few people who use them and I have introduced several people to them, there are quite a few platforms now for quick development, and Arduino is still one of the best ones available today and arguably most copied.

To me, the Arduino is a RAD prototyping systems rather than a "learning" platform, it seems logical to me that the next step in learning is to write your own libraries, or not use a library, but that never seems to happen, which just doesn't sit right calling yourself a true engineer by not knowing how the underlying code works.  Maybe that's just me, I don't know!

[_Sin]

I'm a software engineer, and I do come across dozens of people with software degrees who couldn't design an application to save their lives. I've done interviews with "software engineers" who were unable to draw a UML class diagram. (For all the hardware peeps out there, that's kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor.) So yes, the idiots are out there.

Hmm.  I doubt I'd get far drawing a UML diagram, without being able to look it up. I mean, I've *seen* UML, but I've never used it in over 30 years of writing / designing software so I doubt I'd be able to produce anything coherent from memory. And I have a degree, but that pre-dates UML...

Does that make me an idiot?

[(In)Sanity]

I'm a software engineer, and I do come across dozens of people with software degrees who couldn't design an application to save their lives. I've done interviews with "software engineers" who were unable to draw a UML class diagram. (For all the hardware peeps out there, that's kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor.) So yes, the idiots are out there.

Hmm.  I doubt I'd get far drawing a UML diagram, without being able to look it up. I mean, I've *seen* UML, but I've never used it in over 30 years of writing / designing software so I doubt I'd be able to produce anything coherent from memory. And I have a degree, but that pre-dates UML...

Does that make me an idiot?

I was going to ask the same thing,  I"m not given the time to document my code let alone create a diagram.   I also started when I was 8 and was writing 6502 (and later 8086) assembly code by the time I was 12.  Does it make me an idiot that I don't create UML diagrams.   People need to watch what they say.

Jeff

[Sigmoid]

Hmm.  I doubt I'd get far drawing a UML diagram, without being able to look it up. I mean, I've *seen* UML, but I've never used it in over 30 years of writing / designing software so I doubt I'd be able to produce anything coherent from memory. And I have a degree, but that pre-dates UML...

Does that make me an idiot?

I have no idea about the exact field you are in. For the sort of job - enterprise application design - I've interviewed that guy, knowing basic UML was a prerequisite.

I can think of fields where you never draw a single class diagram ever, but they are shrinking. Communicating with fellow humans about the design is just as important as getting the design done.

I was going to ask the same thing,  I"m not given the time to document my code let alone create a diagram.   I also started when I was 8 and was writing 6502 (and later 8086) assembly code by the time I was 12.  Does it make me an idiot that I don't create UML diagrams.   People need to watch what they say.

But would you be able to? Class diagrams are not rocket science.

BTW to answer your question, it doesn't make you an idiot. It makes your boss one.

[Richard Crowley]

No, I don't believe the requirements are unreasonable.

We more practical types were frequently suspicious of the theoretical egg-heads who didn't know which end of the soldering iron to hold.

[old gregg]

what Dave is asking isn't the minimal knowledge to have for electronics ? I don't see where the issue is actually,  hobbyists or "pro" don't matter.

You have the skill or you don't, that all must matter.

[Wilksey]

Not quite the same as forgetting a resistor symbol.

I did software engineering and I never had to touch UML at college.
I have used it but I find it of not much benefit to use it explicitly.
I tend to do most things modularly, or at least split things into functions if it is not OO (like in C), and I will sketch if the function is particularly tricky what the inputs and outputs should be and do basic calcs depending on what the function / class does.

I've written software (quite a lot of) embedded and desktop and some web for the last 20 or so years and I have never had to do much more than a simple brain storm for some of the more trickier pieces of code.
Some people can get lost in UML and end up spending 2 years designing a system without writing a single piece of code, and then the project gets cancelled because it's taking too long.

[Sigmoid]

Not quite the same as forgetting a resistor symbol.

I did software engineering and I never had to touch UML at college.
I have used it but I find it of not much benefit to use it explicitly.
I tend to do most things modularly, or at least split things into functions if it is not OO (like in C), and I will sketch if the function is particularly tricky what the inputs and outputs should be and do basic calcs depending on what the function / class does.

I've written software (quite a lot of) embedded and desktop and some web for the last 20 or so years and I have never had to do much more than a simple brain storm for some of the more trickier pieces of code.
Some people can get lost in UML and end up spending 2 years designing a system without writing a single piece of code, and then the project gets cancelled because it's taking too long.

Lol. I know that sort of thing, and don't really like it. You can overdo UML. But class diagrams? Come on! If you understand OOP, you can draw one. Like if you can program procedurally, you should be able to draw a flowchart or write pseudocode.

To put things in perspective, most of the software I've worked on started its life as a sketched up UML diagram on a whiteboard, with people drinking coffee while shouting each others' head off, erasing and redrawing portions, etc., well before a single line of code has been written by anyone.

A class diagram allows you to deconstruct the problem domain, see the connections, understand what is what. I've seen too much software that was written without the creator taking the time to understand all that.

[jucole]

Are Electronics Hobbyists Useless?   no - only useless hobbyist are useless.

[(In)Sanity]

Hmm.  I doubt I'd get far drawing a UML diagram, without being able to look it up. I mean, I've *seen* UML, but I've never used it in over 30 years of writing / designing software so I doubt I'd be able to produce anything coherent from memory. And I have a degree, but that pre-dates UML...

Does that make me an idiot?

I have no idea about the exact field you are in. For the sort of job - enterprise application design - I've interviewed that guy, knowing basic UML was a prerequisite.

I can think of fields where you never draw a single class diagram ever, but they are shrinking. Communicating with fellow humans about the design is just as important as getting the design done.

I was going to ask the same thing,  I"m not given the time to document my code let alone create a diagram.   I also started when I was 8 and was writing 6502 (and later 8086) assembly code by the time I was 12.  Does it make me an idiot that I don't create UML diagrams.   People need to watch what they say.

But would you be able to? Class diagrams are not rocket science.

BTW to answer your question, it doesn't make you an idiot. It makes your boss one.

Still laughing over the last comment,  I completely agree.   Drives me nuts.   Can I create a UML diagram,  sure.  Wish I was given the time.   I do mostly C# ASP.NET stuff anymore.  I've done everything from assembly to C++,  and even some VB .   I've created thousands of applications and some still being used by fortune 500 companies.   Anymore I feel I'm just in a rut and my talents are being wasted.  Ohh well pays the bills.

Jeff

Edit:  Apparently I can't type UML correctly

[angdis]

I think some folks are going to feel a bit silly when EEVblog fills the job with the so-called "impossible-to-find" candidate.

[miguelvp]

Hmm.  I doubt I'd get far drawing a UML diagram, without being able to look it up. I mean, I've *seen* UML, but I've never used it in over 30 years of writing / designing software so I doubt I'd be able to produce anything coherent from memory. And I have a degree, but that pre-dates UML...

Does that make me an idiot?

I have no idea about the exact field you are in. For the sort of job - enterprise application design - I've interviewed that guy, knowing basic UML was a prerequisite.

I can think of fields where you never draw a single class diagram ever, but they are shrinking. Communicating with fellow humans about the design is just as important as getting the design done.

I was going to ask the same thing,  I"m not given the time to document my code let alone create a diagram.   I also started when I was 8 and was writing 6502 (and later 8086) assembly code by the time I was 12.  Does it make me an idiot that I don't create UML diagrams.   People need to watch what they say.

But would you be able to? Class diagrams are not rocket science.

BTW to answer your question, it doesn't make you an idiot. It makes your boss one.

I was programming C++ even before UML was a concept and we managed fine.

That said I've written plenty of UML documentation and even if someone knows how to create class diagrams most don't know how to do interaction, state or activity diagrams.

But really why worry about UML class diagrams, there are tools for that (I believe Doxygen does it for you automagically), it does sound strange that your job has a requirement for it since anyone can learn class diagrams in a couple of days and if they are used at work then they won't forget, but since most places won't even use them, then it's ok to look it up when needed.

I remember having to download the template separately in Visio for the longer time, I think it finally comes installed by default.

BTW do you actually use UML at work?

Edit: and as for "being kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor" that's just plain wrong, flowcharts are the common ground symbols. There are numerous other diagramming models out there each specific to specific tasks and industries.

[Wilksey]

It's not that I can't draw one, it's just that I choose not to as I seems like a waste of time.

I can't stand sitting in rooms where people shout at each other talking shit all day, which is why I am not a manager

If we want to use UML within reason we can, and include it in the design documentation, but all of that stays internal, and to be honest, nobody else apart from a select few who are in the "overdone" category produces UML.

Most of my software designs start from a piece of paper with a few scribbles on it. We don't produce these idiotic database systems, we produce embedded design controllers for traffic lights (amongst others) and that was started on the back of a dell keyboard box (I lost my notepad), CPLD, core logic, etc, no diagrams whatsoever done for that lot and it works just fine several years later.

And as others have mentioned, back in the day we didn't have UML.

[leppie]

80% of people calling themselves software developers are useless.

[Wilksey]

80% of people calling themselves software developers are useless.

The other 20% can't say "software developer"

[Sigmoid]

That said I've written plenty of UML documentation and even if someone knows how to create class diagrams most don't know how to do interaction, state or activity diagrams.

Which is why I'm a bit taken aback if someone is bogged down with class ones.

But really why worry about UML class diagrams, there are tools for that (I believe Doxygen does it for you automagically), it does sound strange that your job has a requirement for it since anyone can learn class diagrams in a couple of days and if they are used at work then they won't forget, but since most places won't even use them, then it's ok to look it up when needed.

...Tools? We're talking about being able to draw boxes with names, and draw differently styled arrows between them! I mean if the guy had just mixed up arrow styles, I wouldn't have batted an eye... He didn't know where to start.
Also, as I mentioned, in my professional life, class diagrams have been a principal tool of communication, and usually come well before the first line of code. (In fact I generate a lot of code from UML at my day job.)

Edit: and as for "being kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor" that's just plain wrong, flowcharts are the common ground symbols. There are numerous other diagramming models out there each specific to specific tasks and industries.

Well depends on what you're doing. If you're thinking at the level of algorithms, then yes, flowcharts are the basic tool. However, in enterprise application design, before algorithms comes domain. (As in, the real world problem you're trying to solve.) You need to know what you are doing before you can think about the how.
I can't imagine doing that without some kind of class diagram.

If flowcharts are tactics, then class diagrams are strategy. And yes, there are other diagram types. If someone can draw up the domain in ER diagrams, I'm okay with that, even if it's another world. But in cases where you're doing something more complex than a blinking LED, you need domain analysis, and if you have more than one person on the project, you need a way to communicate the design in its entirety.

Software design and programming are not quite the same thing.

[leppie]

80% of people calling themselves software developers are useless.

The other 20% can't say "software developer"

20% rounded, sure ;p

About 0.499999% of software devs actually know what they doing. The other 19.5% guess their way around.

[Sigmoid]

Most of my software designs start from a piece of paper with a few scribbles on it.

See? You have scribbles on paper. If it were an OOP system, I bet those scribbles would look a lot like a class diagram.

We don't produce these idiotic database systems, we produce embedded design controllers for traffic lights (amongst others)

Embedded systems are a world of their own. I'm not surprised you got away without much planning and having meetings in front of whiteboards. If you're making something small and self-contained, life becomes a LOT simpler and more forgiving.

[(In)Sanity]

In my opinion if you have to think about writing code or how to conquer a programming task you've not been doing it long enough.   Sure you want to iron out the details on paper,  but you should already have the whole thing in your head before you've started writing anything.   I guess after 30+ years of daily programming it just comes natural.   

I don't think we should criticize anyone for their technique on electronics or programming so long as they are getting the job done and it doesn't blow up or crash,  or both

Jeff

[Sigmoid]

In my opinion if you have to think about writing code or how to conquer a programming task you've not been doing it long enough.   Sure you want to iron out the details on paper,  but you should already have the whole thing in your head before you've started writing anything.   I guess after 30+ years of daily programming it just comes natural.

I'd argue with that. Human working memory is limited, it holds 7 +-2 abstract items. Also the domain can get really effed up. But this isn't a software forum, so let's leave it at that.

I don't think we should criticize anyone for their technique on electronics or programming so long as they are getting the job done and it doesn't blow up or crash,  or both

Let's add "nobody has to tear their hair out trying to refactor the code" to the criteria.

[tggzzz]

A class diagram allows you to deconstruct the problem domain, see the connections, understand what is what. I've seen too much software that was written without the creator taking the time to understand all that.

IMNSHO experience, a class diagram is one of the least informative diagrams.

What is far more useful are:

• state diagrams, i.e. the Harel StateCharts. No, Mr NewGrad, FSMs aren't only usful for parsers
• interaction diagrams, i.e. the swimlanes. Especially useful in distributed systems, so that you can see overlapping processing
• and the name escapes me, but the diagram that shows which processing is done on which machine, and the communication mechanism
• proper use of parallelism design patterns, e.g. as embodied in Doug Lea's concurrency classes. No Mr NewGrad, you shouldn't be using wait(), notify(), synchronized, volatile

[tggzzz]

That said I've written plenty of UML documentation and even if someone knows how to create class diagrams most don't know how to do interaction, state or activity diagrams.

But really why worry about UML class diagrams, there are tools for that

Precisely. Just so.

[Sigmoid]

IMNSHO experience, a class diagram is one of the least informative diagrams.

What is far more useful are:

I never said it was the most useful diagram. It's usually the first you draw up, though, to get a very high level idea of the structure.

(When given a basic design exercise, the people who were unable to draw one strangely coincided with the people who couldn't for their life figure out which domain object an expected output row was supposed to represent, and how the other domain objects related to that.)

[tggzzz]

In my opinion if you have to think about writing code or how to conquer a programming task you've not been doing it long enough.   Sure you want to iron out the details on paper,  but you should already have the whole thing in your head before you've started writing anything.   I guess after 30+ years of daily programming it just comes natural.   

Yes and no.

No, because putting things down on paper is an essential part of requirements elicitation, i.e. making sure the client understands their problem, you understand their problem, and the client believes you understand their problem.

No, because in many cases the fine detail can and should be left until later, provided that the system structure allows that detail to be expressed. That's one area in which Agile/XP can be beneficial.

[tggzzz]

IMNSHO experience, a class diagram is one of the least informative diagrams.

What is far more useful are:

I never said it was the most useful diagram. It's usually the first you draw up, though, to get a very high level idea of the structure.

Not in the fields I've worked in, e.g. soft real-time high-availability telecom systems, or networking. In those the FSM and interaction diagrams are the starting point.

(When given a basic design exercise, the people who were unable to draw one strangely coincided with the people who couldn't for their life figure out which domain object an expected output row was supposed to represent, and how the other domain objects related to that.)

Quite probably, but nobody that clueless has ever got through to being interviewed by me.

[Sigmoid]

Not in the fields I've worked in, e.g. soft real-time high-availability telecom systems, or networking.

I guess software is an incredibly wide field, and every area has its own specific challenges and ways of coping with them. I see where you are coming from.

In telecom and networking, requirements are pretty much standard I believe. I wrote my thesis in the field of telecommunications network design.
In data heavy application design, you have a gaggle of bankers / traders / clerks who try to explain the requirements, while contradicting themselves every second sentence, and in the end you need to deliver something that will make their lives easier. There are fewer challenges in terms of implementation, but a lot more in making sense of what you're trying to build in the first place.

What I tend to very much disagree with is people stating that time spent on design and documentation in software is time wasted. I had a professor at the university who called people like that "keyboard monkeys".

[leppie]

In my opinion if you have to think about writing code or how to conquer a programming task you've not been doing it long enough.   Sure you want to iron out the details on paper,  but you should already have the whole thing in your head before you've started writing anything.   I guess after 30+ years of daily programming it just comes natural.   

I don't think we should criticize anyone for their technique on electronics or programming so long as they are getting the job done and it doesn't blow up or crash,  or both

Jeff

I completely agree with you on your software dev approach. Coding is the easy part. Finding the perfect elegant solution is the ultimate goal.

[tggzzz]

Coding is the easy part. Finding the perfect elegant solution is the ultimate goal.

Finding the solution is the second part. Unconvering the real underlying problem/requirements is the first part; get that wrong and you'll end up with a perfect, unused product!

My first action when developing something for a client is to say "don't tell me your solution, tell me your problem". I can then often find alternative simpler cheaper faster ways for them to accomplish their goals. And even if I can't, it still helps customer satisfaction.

[(In)Sanity]

Coding is the easy part. Finding the perfect elegant solution is the ultimate goal.

Finding the solution is the second part. Unconvering the real underlying problem/requirements is the first part; get that wrong and you'll end up with a perfect, unused product!

My first action when developing something for a client is to say "don't tell me your solution, tell me your problem". I can then often find alternative simpler cheaper faster ways for them to accomplish their goals. And even if I can't, it still helps customer satisfaction.

Yes,  this is the best approach.  My boss often wants to pretend he's a programmer and give me technical solutions.   I just want the plain English explanation of what your trying to accomplish.   If I understand the problem I can come up with a solution.   He also believes outsourced coders should never be told what it is they are trying to accomplish,  just told to do x, y and z with no insight as to the end goal.  That one I really disagree with.

Jeff

[Rutger]

What a fantastic opportunity for a young student to gain some real life experience and work side by side with Dave.
If I was a young lad (and happen to be living in Sidney) I would be jumping all over this opportunity.

I would not be afraid of the requirements even if I didn't meet all 100% off them and don't think they are too strict.

I think the person you should hire is the one that brings the show and tell projects he/she has been working on, it doesn't even have the 100% related.
The person that shows enthusiasm, curiosity and and eagerness to learn new things would be my pick.

[Leadfootin]

Dave,

You are exactly on the money. If I didn't live diametrically opposite you on the globe a resume would probably be hand delivered. My start as a hobbyist was designing my own receiver circuits when 3Mhz was a fast transistor! Still very active, will be applying and debugging my design for a Weller DEC 1001 temp control circuit as the boards are NLA. Won't be quite as accurate but still very close, 600F-850F. Not hard after drawing out their overly engineered solution. Will post under repairs when happy with my design.

Peter

[edy]

Set the bar high Dave.... Set the bar HIGH. 

I agree with you Dave. Anyone worthy of being part of the EEVBlog under your mentorship will be someone who is self-taught or with a few years of schooling but always learning and ahead of the curve due to passion for the subject!

The barrier to entry is ridiculously low, anyone with enough interest and determination can learn the basics you mentioned. Just look at all the examples out there on how young players have been able to do amazing things on limited budgets, surprising all the experts!

In the world of computers, just think of all those young programmers who designed and built computers in their garages, made amazing software, squeezing ridiculous performance out of tiny codebases (e.g. "Demoscene") and pioneered many of the advances that we attribute to professional corporations today.

In the world of electronics, there are many young players who "GOT THE RIGHT STUFF".

The *ONLY* limitation here is physical distance.

If you have trouble finding someone local who meets your criteria, why not "out-source" to someone who lives further away? Video conferencing, recording and uploading and sharing video, source code, PCB layouts, designing, trouble-shooting, shipping components, etc...  all of it could be done over a distance. How feasible would it be to hire someone in a different country?

[PChi]

I think that Dave is being reasonable but there will be many 'professional' engineers who do it for a living who would be hard pressed to cover all the areas.
There will be someone out there with the ability but are they close to the EEVblog headquarters and can they afford to do it? Time will tell.

[pickle9000]

I think that Dave is being reasonable but there will be many 'professional' engineers who do it for a living who would be hard pressed to cover all the areas.
There will be someone out there with the ability but are they close to the EEVblog headquarters and can they afford to do it? Time will tell.

So as an engineer that could be (is) true, as a hobbyist not really. If you have the hunger for the subject you want to try Kicad or whatever program, play with an Arduino, make a power supply or wireless remote. That's just the way it is, it's not a matter of this is too difficult and quit. You go at it and do it, not being smart enough to know it's not possible is what it's all about. It's not about failure it's about learning.
 

[(In)Sanity]

This is actually kind of an interesting topic.  Here is my list of candidate profiles.

1)   The newb that doesn't have any training or experience. 
2)   The noob that's just going to lie their way past everything and leave you high and dry.
2)   The young person that started soldering at birth and is now the uber geek.
3)   The young person that graduated,  went to school and knows nothing
4)   The ex construction worker that had a mid life crisis and went to school and still knows nothing.
5)   The cable repair guy that thinks he knows everything..but knows nothing.
6)   The 12 year old girl selling cookies in front of the shopping mall that understands quantum mechanics.
7)   The software guy that wonders why everything can't just be typed out or programmed to complete all the work.  Better yet just use spice.
   The retired ex JPL employee working at the fast food joint looking for a sideline.
9)   The gray beard that still thinks analog oscilloscopes are the only way to go.
10)  Dave's evil twin brother who often uploads video's without his knowledge.
11)  A fellow video blogger that will sabotage all the video's and make their own showing how it should be done right.
12)  Dave's son 9 years from now who will point out constantly how lame his father is.   Typical teenager.
13)  Some guy named beaker who will blow stuff up constantly.
14)  A teenage goth who will always get everything right and insist on saying...Whatever when complemented.

I could go on and on.

Jeff

[tec5c]

I think we're all missing the obvious answer here... Sagan! It's about time he started learning how to layout a board, is it not?

Jokes aside.

Dave, a few years ago I approached you about some casual work of the very nature that you're now seeking. At the time, it was deemed unreasonable and so I moved on.
I have a Cert. III in electronics and an Advanced Diploma in electronic and communications engineering. I have a home lab that I have put several thousands of dollars into, as well as a few pieces of gear that I have designed and made myself.

Due to my ever growing interest in electronics, I thought it was time for the degree. Fast forward to now and I have just recently (less than 2 weeks ago) finished my second year at Uni doing EE.
I live close by to Dave and have met him previously, and I now work casually (before Uni, was full-time) at a previous employer of his.

If I were not at a highly supportive & respectable company I would be applying for this position as I can imagine learning a good deal from the experience.

I don't think the demands are too unreasonable. However, I will reinforce what has already been said in regards to EE students who simply don't give a damn.
I will also second the idea of a semi-retired engineer (engineering assistant) who is looking for some casual work.

I believe there is a person out there who is fit for the role you're offering and I wish you all the best in your search.


Jason

[casper.bang]

I think you are a bit unfair when you compare your skill-set back in the 70's and 80's to what you expect now. Many things have gotten easier for sure, but also way more complex - not unlike software engineering, where the abstraction levels have also shifted and where specialization is favored over generalization.

For instance, I consider myself an EE hobbyist, but I decided CAD board layout is NOT a skill I need. That's because I can (out)source this specific production aspect dirt cheap and spend my energy on engineering/experimenting. So while I am sure there are hobbyists who can do everything you ask, I'd argue they could get a better paying job elsewhere - which means it really comes down to what your brand can attract.

[EEVblog]

The *ONLY* limitation here is physical distance.

Yep, and I have gotten quite a few overseas applicants. I will of course have a preference for a local resident.

[EEVblog]

For instance, I consider myself an EE hobbyist, but I decided CAD board layout is NOT a skill I need. That's because I can (out)source this specific production aspect dirt cheap and spend my energy on engineering/experimenting. So while I am sure there are hobbyists who can do everything you ask, I'd argue they could get a better paying job elsewhere - which means it really comes down to what your brand can attract.

Then they are welcome to take a job somewhere else.
Just like any job, it will be suited to some and not others.
My job isn't some magical employment utopia.

[envisionelec]

Ok. I am currently unemployed, live in the US and enjoy designing, debugging and PCB layout. Almost all of my clients I have never met in person. I am an excellent writer and have no trouble deciphering and communicating requirements.

I have designed products for about 10 years with contract assembly projects for about 6 years. I'm 38. Young enough to be somewhat creative and old enough to know better. I can wake up at 3AM for a conference call. AMA.

[Wim_L]

I thought it all was quite reasonable.

My opinion was that Dave's videos were a godsend to hobbyists and engineering students, filling in many voids that a university education has.
He's after a go-getter, so the breed of lazy bare-minimum students I saw during my studies need not apply....

*added*
It was actually a little heart breaking to discover nobody had any passion at all in this field when commencing university level studies

Oh, I noticed the same thing in chemistry. Few of the students had their own little chemistry lab at home. These days, they do have more of an excuse than the electronics students, the police might be too likely to raid home chemistry labs 

However, someone not having all of those skills shouldn't necessarily disqualify them. PCB design, for example, is essential for mass production. But one could be a very capable RF hobbyist without ever making a PCB, dead bug construction will usually do the job just fine for one-off projects.

And don't forget, the difference between amateur and professional is if you're getting paid for it or not, it needn't say much about the level of skill involved.

[Simon]

I'm a hobbyist by definition as i have no formal qualifications yet I've designed safety critical gear to a better standard than a so called post graduate (his version was quite literally lethal and was still lethal on revision 2 despite me pointing out the problems on rev 1). And having modified another post graduates code which supposedly broke it, while he was running around trying to work out how I "broke" it I solved the problems he was supposed to be solving instead of working out what I did wrong.

Some qualified people should not be in the business, the hobbyist will always come out on top if you go for a comparable skills competition. Some people do stuff for fun and to make it the best. Others will muddle through because they are paid but don't really give a shit.

[fireant01]

Are electronics hobbyists useless? My short reply is absolutely NOT!  I am 68 years old and continue to enjoy electronics as a hobby in all forms and I started as a hobbyist in possibly 1958 when I built my first vacuum tube stereo receiver from a kit...I was hooked on electrons from there onward. As a kid I hated high school except for shop and an electronics class available to me, and I later chose to go to a two year technical school graduating as an electronics technician in 1967. Electronics turned me in a productive direction from that point. My path has been a long and enjoyable one in the work force as a  US NAVY electronics technician, TV service tech, and I finally retired from Texas Instruments Linear Circuits Division in 2005. Unfortunately my health prevented me from working long hours there further. I miss working in electronics but I discovered Dave's stuff on YouTube two days ago, and I love the updated information I get from him. Watching Dave's material has reawakened the electronic adventurism I once had. Being retired now allows me the time to tinker and experiment again. I cannot imagine what I would have done in my early life if I had the internet and blogs like this to learn from. My only regret is that I did not go onward to get my Electronics Engineering degree, but raising two children and providing an income somehow got in the way. I encourage anyone who considers that being a hobbyist is a waste of time to completely reconsider that thought. The demand for such skills has never been higher!  Even if you don't make a career of it as I did.  Thanks Dave, for all the enjoyable and educational YouTube material!

[dentaku]

Jut being a student doesn't make a person qualified but a true hobbyist who's learned stuff by themselves because they're interested in it is the right kind of person for the job.

Not everyone is a genius at creatively hacking stuff together and reverse engineering like Mike Harrison but if you end up finding the next Mike, as Aussies might say "good on ya".

[open loop]

I don't think that Dave is asking for too much...

I think one key point is that Dave needs someone he can work with, like any job it's not all going to be like the hobby. Putting items in the mail, sorting out boring stuff to help the business is also important.

Dave needs some who is as passionate about electronics as he is, that will help with doing the "boring jobs" after all it's a small business he has. Having some one who is not self sufficient is going to bug the hell out of Dave.

As for skills , I think the ability of finding stuff out and learning by yourself is going to be a key skill. This is one reason why the hobbyist electronics personas so desirable.

Hope Dave can find someone he can work with...

[Wilksey]

I have to say that the worst thing I find about writing software is feature creep rather than anything else, as people add bits in all of your diagrams as well as code will have to change.  Even if I did an original UML diagram I wouldn't have the chance to maintain it.

I can't say I have ever felt a class diagram useful to be honest, and trust me, when you have a 35 phase 3 radio device with 4 channels per device and throw in a few pedestrians traffic light controller and it's associated logic to deal with, that is no small task!  No UML was used or abused in the making of, and it works just as well as it would had I spend another 6 months drawing the diagrams for it.

[691175002]

I recently graduated, and anyone with a relevant degree should easily meet your requirements.

The only marginally problematic requirement is PCB layout, because it actually costs money and time to have boards made. Many students would rather grab perfboard.

[ptricks]

Hobbyists is too generic a term as it doesn't really describe what the person knows but instead describes that they have an interest in the subject. I might have an aquarium as a hobby but that doesn't mean I research everything about marine life.  You could say advanced hobbyists , but what does that mean ? It is all too relative.

I think Dave was clear in what he wants but I doubt anything was written in stone.  If anyone hasn't applied because the description seemed too difficult , I would re-consider and send an email, tell Dave what you are about and take it from there. Be honest about topics that you don't quite understand and where your understanding level is currently and let him tell you if that will be a problem or not. This approach works not only for this topic but getting a job in general.

[tautech]

The only marginally problematic requirement is PCB layout, because it actually costs money and time to have boards made. Many students would rather grab perfboard.

Not the case in NZ where students have access to Altium labs & PCB etching plants.
Reasonable skills in this area are expected and rightly so for a degree.

[m12lrpv]

I fit your job description as a hobbyist but I already have a day job 
Realistically my day job has been what's allowed me to develop the electronics skills that I have.

Your expectations for a hobbyist are not unrealistic if you were just looking for a hobbyist however you may be putting the cart before the horse when it comes to finding someone to actually work in your lab.

[tggzzz]

Some qualified people should not be in the business,

Very true - but more unqualified people should not be in the business!

the hobbyist will always come out on top if you go for a comparable skills competition.

No, because that depends on the skills. Some skills absolutely require a deep theoretical understanding of the topic.

Some people do stuff for fun and to make it the best. Others will muddle through because they are paid but don't really give a shit.

Cherish the former. Don't let the latter in the door. And that's true whether they have advanced qualifications or none at all.

Guys, define the key characteristics required in that position and recruit a suitable person. Different positions have different requirements and suggesting that one type of person is suitable for all positions is, frankly, imbecilic.

At the very least, read Belbin on the composition of teams. Don't take the details too literally, but his fundamental tenets are valid, usable and valuable.

[IanB]

Many students would rather grab perfboard.

Which for a one-off prototype, is sound engineering judgement. One should spend more time on the bits that matter, and less time (and money) on the bits that don't. If layout considerations don't require a custom PCB there is little reason to spend time making one.

[IanB]

Some qualified people should not be in the business, the hobbyist will always come out on top if you go for a comparable skills competition. Some people do stuff for fun and to make it the best. Others will muddle through because they are paid but don't really give a shit.

I think perhaps you haven't really come across many capable and well qualified people. They are out there, and your eyes would be opened if you worked with one.

[tombi]

Maybe a student is what you want anyway - that is someone who has a basic grounding and wants to develop all the skills in your requirements list but isn't there yet.

There is this series of articles on Hack-A-Day called ScopeNoob where this guy talks through learning to use a scope. Having a noob teach other noobs as they learn might be interesting (especially if he has someone with experience backing him up and stopping him from making obvious errors).

Or alternatively you could hire a non-skilled body to do the scut work (packing/shipping organising, procurement, editing uploading) and mentor local electronics projects in return for the right to video blog their progress.

[casper.bang]

I guess I am just confused by the somewhat provocative and sensational subject line Dave used. My understanding of the term "hobbyist" matched what wikipedia defines: "Generally speaking, a person who engages in an activity solely for fun is called a 'hobbyist', whereas a 'professional' generally engages in an activity for reward and an 'amateur' (from French for "lover of") does so out of personal interest in an activity. While an amateur may be as skilled as a professional, a professional receives compensation while an amateur generally does not." So by definition, a hobbyist can not be useless since he is doing stuff for his own pleasure.

[pickle9000]

I guess I am just confused by the somewhat provocative and sensational subject line Dave used. My understanding of the term "hobbyist" matched what wikipedia defines: "Generally speaking, a person who engages in an activity solely for fun is called a 'hobbyist', whereas a 'professional' generally engages in an activity for reward and an 'amateur' (from French for "lover of") does so out of personal interest in an activity. While an amateur may be as skilled as a professional, a professional receives compensation while an amateur generally does not." So by definition, a hobbyist can not be useless since he is doing stuff for his own pleasure.

It appears Dave picked the opposite of what he thinks. Seems pretty clear if you have watched the blog for a while titles get you in the door, everything else is up to you.

[Simon]

Some qualified people should not be in the business, the hobbyist will always come out on top if you go for a comparable skills competition. Some people do stuff for fun and to make it the best. Others will muddle through because they are paid but don't really give a shit.

I think perhaps you haven't really come across many capable and well qualified people. They are out there, and your eyes would be opened if you worked with one.

Your right, I had to deal with 2 counterparts at a subcontractor and while they seem to have specific skills in one area all round they were a disaster and I had to keep fixing things and telling them how I made their stuff work so that they could make a better one and their only interest was in the little PCB and not in the whole design despite the idea being that they eventually manufacture the complete product infact despite us requesting production intent prototypes the results are going to be a nightmare to manufacture. They were totally uninterested in listening to my ideas and using concepts I had already worked out that worked best with some tricky hardware, result more problems.

We are now working with another person (not same company) who is very passionate about what he does, I have no idea if he has qualifications but he certainly has experience on the job and it's a pleasure to deal with him because if I make a suggestion or throw him a line he understands what I'm on about rather than looking at me blankly. Unlike the other we can discuss the fine detail of how our hardware works because he grasps with ease the limitations and the little things we can use to our advantage to make things actually work rather than sort of work sort of like we wanted. Nothing is perfect in the real world and those who are wiling to understand how something does and does not work and maximise any little advantage are the ones worth it, those who want to plug something into a uC and see it work are the idiots we don't need.

[tggzzz]

Some qualified people should not be in the business, the hobbyist will always come out on top if you go for a comparable skills competition. Some people do stuff for fun and to make it the best. Others will muddle through because they are paid but don't really give a shit.

I think perhaps you haven't really come across many capable and well qualified people. They are out there, and your eyes would be opened if you worked with one.

Precisely.

Such people can technically point the project in the right direction so that the subsequent detailed elaboration and implementation occurs speedily and without hitches.

They can prevent people going down blind alleys and producting things that sort-of-work when the wind is in the right direction.

When people are flailing around not understanding why something isn't working, they can see the theoretical cause and possible solutions.

They can prevent bodged "solutions".

Theory without practice is mental masturbation.
Practice without theory is merely alchemical magic.

[Wilksey]

I'm quite partial to a bit of the old Vero board, more formal than a breadboard I think! And I don't have to remove it when I want to build something else.  There are the downsides of not being able to reuse components or board of course, but given the choice I would Vero board it every time.

BGA's don't tend to Vero board very well and you do need a custom PCB, as well as many other modern SMD components with tiny pin pitches and a lot of them, so I think PCB design is essential for most hobbyists, just a shame they didn't teach it very well when I was at college.

[blueebi]

I consider myself to be a hobbyist. I started 4 years ago with only vague memories of high school physics and CS, but I read a lot, made many mistakes, and tried really hard. I also work in IT as a jack of all trades, so I have many of the skill being asked for.
Here are some boards I've made: http://imgur.com/a/zE4py - home etched PCB

- dirtyPCBs.com - soldered with radioshack fire starter and canonical tip Both have mistakes.
I would consider this job if I had spare time, but my family and job keep me quite busy. I have a hard enough time finding time for my hobbies.
As a last thought, in a job ad you ask for everything you want, but don’t expect to get it. You’ll probably get someone who is enthusiastic to learn everything on your list.

[(In)Sanity]

I think qualified and quality don't got hand in hand.   I've been in meetings before with other so called programmers from other companies and my team and I have walked away shaking our heads going how did that dick head land that job.   Their are many people sitting in many positions that are not even vaguely qualified and do wonderful jobs,   their are others that have all the schooling and credentials and are completely useless.  Then of course you have those who know and can do.   What I found in life is it's not what you know it's your willingness to admit you don't and ask questions of your peers.  Simply learn and keep learning. 

"Stupid is what stupid does."

Jeff

[Sasja]

I've been teaching myself electronics full time during the past two years using resources such as eevblog and dave's pcb design manual and the Art of Electronics and what not. I mean, I live of my savings now, don't make any money at all, and do electronics because i love it. So why wouldn't someone like me consider helping dave out, getting a chance to pick his brain, get to use his lab and so on? Of course there will be lots of less interesting parts to the job, but that's what you get paid something for right? No I'm sure there will be qualified people up for this. Heck, depending on how my interview goes tomorrow i might send something in. Give me a few more days dave!

As it happens i have my first electronics interview tomorrow for a position as junior instrumentation engineer and reading about the average skillset of EE graduates in this thread has been an awesome boost to my selfconfidence . And yes I'm bringing a box full of projects and pcb's to the table .

[Simon]

Some qualified people should not be in the business, the hobbyist will always come out on top if you go for a comparable skills competition. Some people do stuff for fun and to make it the best. Others will muddle through because they are paid but don't really give a shit.

I think perhaps you haven't really come across many capable and well qualified people. They are out there, and your eyes would be opened if you worked with one.

Precisely.

Such people can technically point the project in the right direction so that the subsequent detailed elaboration and implementation occurs speedily and without hitches.

They can prevent people going down blind alleys and producting things that sort-of-work when the wind is in the right direction.

When people are flailing around not understanding why something isn't working, they can see the theoretical cause and possible solutions.

They can prevent bodged "solutions".

Theory without practice is mental masturbation.
Practice without theory is merely alchemical magic.

Sorry to smash your world to bits but what stops a hobbyist and self taught person learning a good deal of theory ? since when does a text book tell you how to design a complete practical system ? if your mind is closed and can't work, it just won't happen. Hence some of the "text book" implementations I have seen that do not work in the real world.

How many times have I come to this forum to ask advice and gone away much wiser, many don't have this capability of seeking peers advice. Even our experienced and competent new replacement has been on here asking advice, because the most powerful thing of all is to understand that you may not have all of the answers and know when to ask for help or others similar experiences.........

[tggzzz]

Some qualified people should not be in the business, the hobbyist will always come out on top if you go for a comparable skills competition. Some people do stuff for fun and to make it the best. Others will muddle through because they are paid but don't really give a shit.

I think perhaps you haven't really come across many capable and well qualified people. They are out there, and your eyes would be opened if you worked with one.

Precisely.

Such people can technically point the project in the right direction so that the subsequent detailed elaboration and implementation occurs speedily and without hitches.

They can prevent people going down blind alleys and producting things that sort-of-work when the wind is in the right direction.

When people are flailing around not understanding why something isn't working, they can see the theoretical cause and possible solutions.

They can prevent bodged "solutions".

Theory without practice is mental masturbation.
Practice without theory is merely alchemical magic.

Sorry to smash your world to bits but what stops a hobbyist and self taught person learning a good deal of theory ? since when does a text book tell you how to design a complete practical system ? if your mind is closed and can't work, it just won't happen. Hence some of the "text book" implementations I have seen that do not work in the real world.

Did you read the last two sentences I wrote? In case you managed to miss them, here they are again:

• Theory without practice is mental masturbation.
• Practice without theory is merely alchemical magic.

On re-reading your points, it appears that you mistakenly believe that because I say "all crows are black birds" that means I believe "all black birds are crows". An elementary logical error.

Absolutely nothing "stops a hobbyist and self taught person learning a good deal of theory". You will not find anything I have said which indicates that I might have such an mistaken belief. Hence your point is a mere "strawman argument".

FWIW, I have met some such people, and greatly respect them. Just as I respect those that have a good understanding of theory.

Do you respect people with a good understanding of theory? If not then it would be hard to differentiate your views from mere (and ignorable) inverted snobbery.

How many times have I come to this forum to ask advice and gone away much wiser, many don't have this capability of seeking peers advice. Even our experienced and competent new replacement has been on here asking advice, because the most powerful thing of all is to understand that you may not have all of the answers and know when to ask for help or others similar experiences.........

Sure, so have I. Yours is an uninformative "motherhood and apple pie" statement.

[Simon]

Absolutely nothing "stops a hobbyist and self taught person learning a good deal of theory". You will not find anything I have said which indicates that I might have such an mistaken belief. Hence your point is a mere "strawman argument".

FWIW, I have met some such people, and greatly respect them. Just as I respect those that have a good understanding of theory.

Do you respect people with a good understanding of theory? If not then it would be hard to differentiate your views from mere (and ignorable) inverted snobbery

As your last statement that I quote says again you are presuposing that I'm in a world of theory or practice. If Anyone gets on in the field they need both of course, but there are plenty of people who supposedly have the knowledge but can't use it, they are admired for their smarts on paper but their practical design work is disastrous. Likewise for a self taught person to do well they still need to learn the theory, but the practical side of it is assured and they have to work much harder to get anywhere and know their theory as opposed to the guy with the piece of paper that gets by by having the piece of paper, the self taught one has to have a WORKING knowledge of theory.

I have nothing against qualifications and am starting to study them myself as my employer seeing that I am capable and they are using my skills wants to make sure I am covered by the theory i need and can be very useful to them and it's probably a sort of reward as they don't need much electronics but they know it's what I'm bent on and it can be handy to them. I obviously have the aptitude, but I too need to learn lots more than i already know. I have slowly acquired respect from my employer and collegues by demonstrating over a couple of years that I actually know what I'm doing and can put my money where my mouth is. Had i come in with qualifications I would have got automatic respect with no questions, I'd not have had to save the day a couple of time from our incompetent sub contractors and saved them a lot of money and made available the ultimate flexibility of having an in house man on the job that is competent.

the sub contractor with post graduate employees is not looking so good anymore as they have frankly fucked it up time and time again but of course I'm not saying that qualifications mean you are no good

[wholder]

I etched my first PCB while I was in high school by following examples I read about in hobby electronics magazines such as Popular Electronics and learned a great deal from such luminaries as Don Lancaster.  This was back around 1969-70, or so.  I got my first job at Mouser Electronics (back when it was a small import company based in Lakeside California) by identifying electronic components on a board.  The job was for a warehouse picker, but I did so well on the test that I got to meet the founder, Jerry Mouser, who gave me a job designing educational electronic kits to sell to schools in their catalog.  I had to design the circuits (mostly adapted from magazine articles), etch the PCBs, write, typeset and print the manuals and then package the finished kits.  I was 19 at the time and had no formal training other than being a "hobbyist".

Wayne

[Tandy]

I think qualified and quality don't got hand in hand.

This is true to some extent, there are plenty of Microsoft Certified Engineers for example that managed to qualify for the course but have no troubleshooting ability. Absorbing facts and being able to remember them to fill out an exam form is not the same as having the ability to develop a good understanding and the ability to think things through for yourself to arrive at a solution.

Education should teach people how to discover, process and apply reason to information rather than just teaching facts. For example you can teach someone that 6x6=36 so they can answer that question on a test form but it is pretty useless unless they understand how multiplication works so they can answer any multiplication question not only the one they have memorised an answer for.

It really comes down to aptitude, someone who has a keen interest in a subject will typically be motivated to keep delving deeper into something.

[(In)Sanity]

I think Pink Floyd said it best.   "Us and Them". 

Each of Us fits on one side of that sentence.  The "Us" always understands the point of view of the others who are "Us".  The same applies to "Them" however they also think they are "Us". 

The only reason I point this out is some of the bickering that goes on with forums.   People sometimes don't stop and stand back and realize you'll never agree with "Them".

Jeff

[Simon]

There is a compromise, those that do it for the love of it qualifications or not, they generally all do as well qualifications or not. All a qualification is for is to create a standard by which you can be pre measured and pre judged before your put to work. sadly our education system is a crap hole.

[jaxbird]

The real important question must be: will Dave's new employee have full access to the lab for personal projects?

I imagine running a little cal side business could compensate for the bad pay 

Anyway, in my experience most reasonably experienced electronics hobbyists are people with fairly successful careers in other fields. Maybe a student (fresh grad) or retired EE is the most likely candidate.

[tggzzz]

... I have nothing against qualifications and am starting to study them myself ...

Revealing, and now I understand your limited view of the world. (Everybody's view is, of course, limited).

I hope that, as you progress, you will come to value "pure theory" not only for itself, but also for the way it can shape and guide practice.

[Simon]

... I have nothing against qualifications and am starting to study them myself ...

Revealing, and now I understand your limited view of the world. (Everybody's view is, of course, limited).

I hope that, as you progress, you will come to value "pure theory" not only for itself, but also for the way it can shape and guide practice.

once again you assume that I don't understand the need for pure theory, that is why I'm studying ? and what stops anyone studying "pure theory" outside of qualifications.

I am not overly concerned about that bit of paper that I may get, what I value is the structured learning system that I will go through that will hopefully leave no stone unturned so that I don't need to keep learning whole ideas part way through a design

[idpromnut]

But in reality basic electronics design it's pretty much an all or nothing skillset. i.e. someone who can design a decent circuit will almost certainly have skills in laying out a board and building and testing. You are unlikely to find someone who can test and troubleshoot and lay out boards, but can't design basic building block circuits for example.
Ok, but someone might be crap at documentation for example, or firmware, well that can be taught and/or not necessary.

I was interested in electronics when I was younger, but never got that light-bulb moment of understanding and so many things about volts, amps, ohms and semi-conductors went over my head.

Fast forward 25 years, I had just become a father, changed jobs, and met a co-worker that was an embedded programmer by trade, and an electronics hobbyist by night. He quite literally set my curiosity off, and I ended up finding your blog and started soaking in knowledge, and experimenting and learning. That was two years ago. I'm now putting together designs based on reference circuits in data sheets, laying out PCBs and having them manufactured in the Far East, assembling them myself and debugging them when I get something wrong.

But I'm not sure I could design these so-called "simple" circuits… 

[free_electron]

I etched my first PCB while I was in high school by following examples I read about in hobby electronics magazines such as Popular Electronics and learned a great deal from such luminaries as Don Lancaster.  This was back around 1969-70, or so.  I got my first job at Mouser Electronics (back when it was a small import company based in Lakeside California) by identifying electronic components on a board.  The job was for a warehouse picker, but I did so well on the test that I got to meet the founder, Jerry Mouser, who gave me a job designing educational electronic kits to sell to schools in their catalog.  I had to design the circuits (mostly adapted from magazine articles), etch the PCBs, write, typeset and print the manuals and then package the finished kits.  I was 19 at the time and had no formal training other than being a "hobbyist".

Wayne

  well done !  that is the kind of self-starter motivation dave is looking for.

[AlienRelics]

You don't need to know Ohms law to make an Arduino board play a tune.

This makes me sad. I hang out in the Arduino forums, and I see this a lot. People coming in and wanting to build something, with no knowledge of Ohm's Law, or Kirchoff's Voltage and Current Laws, and no interest in learning them. They want to just write some code and plug jumpers in.

[VEGETA]

This makes me sad. I hang out in the Arduino forums, and I see this a lot. People coming in and wanting to build something, with no knowledge of Ohm's Law, or Kirchoff's Voltage and Current Laws, and no interest in learning them. They want to just write some code and plug jumpers in.

Well, in one side, it is a good feature of Arduino that simplify stuff to near this level, so anyone can start doing projects.

However, on the other side, it is bad. Because, I believe one should understand what he is doing rather than just follow some steps. I don't talk about finding how to change some configuration bits of the microcontroller or something like that, but to understand what microcontroller means. And this applies to doing electronics circuits.

I can not believe that people do good working projects without knowing Ohm's law xD. who said that is somehow over-estimating it.

___

I read a bit of the discussion  about theory's importance... look, I've seen and met professors and master degree engineers who can describe complex electrical drive methods/circuitry, simulate and analyze it via MATLAB, and  such stuff.... but they can not put one practical example of it!

Not only that, some of them may don't know how to program a PIC or an Arduino. Or talk about a design task like it was nothing! they just say: "Do this, and that... then you have that" << this is the typical behavior of someone who doesn't have ANY practical real-world skills!

They assume stuff will work fast just by following some typical circuits in textbooks with some tweaking. So, don't blame new engineers that lack some of these skills today because that is the type of education they take (or nearly like that).

I myself learned programming PICs by my own... along with all skills (not much fancy) that I have now. because relying on textbooks will take you nowhere!

Don't get me wrong, theory is essential and important. Just it is not everything.

[tchicago]

Hi, Dave. I think it is not a problem for hobbyist to have all those skills. There is a different problem: this is kind of expensive hobby so such hobbyist is probably already fully employed, and barely has some spare time for practicing electronics. So he or she would not be interested in this position due to lack of time

Take me for example (we met last year when I was in Australia) - I'm a purely-software engineer in a large software corporation, and I practice my electronics hobby at home. I have all skills you need, and if I was not a half world away from you, theoretically I'd be happy to help you for free. But in practice comes the question of free time - I'd not have a lot of it and most likely when I have free time this will probably not coincide with the time when you need help.

[Simon]

The whole point of the arduino was to simplify the programming side of things. But as electronics has a long standing history of someone specializing in one area and assuming they know everything this bled over very fast and basically it's a case of just because someone showed me how to flash an LED and told me to use a 1K resistor I can now do this and I don't need to know anything about how it works.

I gave up on the arduino forum when I got things like people insisting on the wrong way of applying back emf diodes and claiming they worked on aircraft systems.

Programming one thing and a vital skill, electronics is a collection of other vital skills involving analogue, digital and the practical applications of both.

[kony]

Heads up, Dave!
There must be at least dozen of students/hobbyists fitting your requirements living nearby, what you are asking for is not unreasonable at all.
You might even consider adding requirement for basics of programmable logic design, if you are seeking for someone in the higher end (read: not lazy to learn).

Such people do exist, only thing is to make it interesting enough for them - sure, publicity and valuable point on resume is something, but what range of project can one expect to work on as lab assistant? You are quite vague in the definiton. Such people, if bright enough, will be sooner or later noticed by someone from industry and be sure they will happily take any field related job when offered. Once bit more expirienced, they will be more and more picky and tend to choose only work related to topics that interests them - so offer something exciting to tinker with, not only vague "what suits your capabilities", then it's on to you to evaulate candidates if they are capable enough to fullfill project goals.

I'd always go for something that interests me even if it's paing less in multiples of what I can earn with my skillset - just because then I can fully enjoy my work and in the end it was all fun. As bonus there are new skills gained with minimum effort required. Another factor I value much more than money is work collective - working with enthusiastic people having same taste of humor as me is priceless, bonus points if it is small garrage company and we are all acting almost like a big family.

BTW: one mistake I see repeated over and over around me - Why do people expect to be taught anything by a school?
Teaching or learning something solely based on memorising facts instead of fully understanding them and applying them and hence encouraging student to be interested in more details is utter nonsense, but not uncommon at all - schoolar system can be fairly regarded as broken in this way.
Also, students will choose path of least resistance in most cases - why would one bother to understand, when memorising random facts is enough to pass exams? And this applies all the way from elementary school up to the college.  I'd bet you will choose someone who's fully, or almost fully selftaught, (just) because it's this way nowdays.



Before one starts flamewar based on my post - I'm not trying to sound like elitist dickhead at all, I'm just summing up all my up to date expirience and my viewpoint leading from it.
 
To be more detailed on my backround: I'm in my early 20's, working for small company focused on highend chemical instrumentation, doing all suff related to hardware, including low level firmware, HW design (from concept trough prototypes, verification, PCB layout, HDL design all the way up to manufacturing preparation and material sourcing), almost all of the mechanical related stuff (or least doing documentation for third party companies). Other guys do rest of the firmware and software work, bureocracy, chemical research and so on. Previously worked about two years for another small company focused on LED technologies - some of it was medical, some aftermarket automotive. I've got my first serious paid project back when I was 16yo teenage.

And you know what ? I'm selftaught. I know about at least three other people in my age brighter than me in our region (and that's about 200k of people in total and fairly limited by my social awkardness), all of them selftaught, too. Such people exist. Just keep looking and make it interesting for them (I'd apply in a heartbeat, BTW - if only just not living on the opposite side of the Earth ).

[AlienRelics]

2. I think "hobbyist" would be someone who doesnt do this for a living.

The two are not mutually exclusive. I think there are quite a few of us who do this for a living and are into electronics as a hobby.

I work in electronics because I love working in electronics. Why wouldn't it be my hobby? That said, why wouldn't I want to do it for a living? Major league baseball players started out as baseball "hobbyists".

I know, I know... I'm responding to things said pages ago.

[AlienRelics]

I feel that bashing "people today" has become something of a fad in the tech community.

Not really. I've always been aware of those "people today" who don't seem to know much about their chosen profession. 2 year degrees, applying for the same jobs I was. They get an interview but I don't because I didn't have that little sheet of paper. Yet they can't read a color code and can barely solder.

It doesn't qualify as a fad, then. 

[Stephen Durr]

Dave, I vote you give the job to Sagan 

[senso]

I feel that bashing "people today" has become something of a fad in the tech community.

Not really. I've always been aware of those "people today" who don't seem to know much about their chosen profession. 2 year degrees, applying for the same jobs I was. They get an interview but I don't because I didn't have that little sheet of paper. Yet they can't read a color code and can barely solder.

It doesn't qualify as a fad, then. 

Join the boat AlienRelics.
Or start doing what I do, freelance work, and then I get paid to correct all the mistakes that the so called engineers make when they burn the factory down when they try to light up a led with a freaking arduino 

[RogerS]

Sorry Dave,

I wouldn't have qualified for your position either back in the day when I first began studying electronics in the 1960's. My breadboard consisted of a 1' x 2' piece of 3/4" pine with a traced copy of the schematic from a magazine taped to it and some small finish brads to use as solder lugs. I didn't learn my first professional layout tool, PADS/Mentor Graphics, until the mid 1990's after working as a technician (shipboard radar and communications) for well over 20 years.

I was taught DC and AC circuit analysis (using a slide rule) , troubleshooting, instrumentation, and layout using pencil and paper drafting skills, blueprinting, and tape out.

If I was looking for help again, I would do as I have done in the past and look for some one that could at least do DC circuit analysis and knew how to use the standard word processor and spread sheets, which in my part of the blue marble is Microsoft office. The important thing to me is that, in addition to the above, the candidate have a can do attitude, strong work ethic, and tolerable personality. The schematic capture and layout of minor non-RF 2 layer boards can be learned quite quickly. The same can be said for soldering. Well, that's my opinion for what it is worth. (PS If some of my words are miss spelled, please cut me some slack not only am I an engineer, I'm a Yank and English is a second language.)

[Corporate666]

It comes down to two things.

First, if you want a candidate to have a skill, it should be because you want them to utilize that skill, and therefore they need to be fairly compensated at fair market value for having and using that skill.  Otherwise, they won't stick around long or they won't perform - and you can't really blame them for either if they're not making fair market value.  There are exceptions like internships, work-study, lab assistants and such, but this is a "real" job and those exceptions don't apply.  Finding someone with all the skills requested who is reasonably proficient in those skills isn't impossible - but the pay will need to be commensurate with that experience.  We don't know what they pay is so this isn't a criticism - I assume we're speaking about a pay level that matches the skillset being asked for.

Second, a very very successful man in the oil business once told me "Don't hire the best.  Hire someone good enough".  That was in response to my first business plan which involved a Star-Trek-like idea to hire the best and brightest group of brilliant over-achievers I could find to build an unstoppable team.  He advised me against it - and he was right.  The problem was that such a group of brilliant people with lots of skills and experience in various fields wouldn't want to be working for my little startup unless they were hard up, and/or they would work there for a short time and turn into a competitor or leave when something better came along.  My friend suggested that if you want to hire an accountant, then hire someone who is happy to just be an accountant, not someone who is a brilliant financial mind with some proficiency in sales, technology and engineering.  That guy won't want to be "just your accountant", and you need "just an accountant".  In other words, it's important to define what specific role the employee is expected to fill, and ensure that you hire someone who is good enough for that role (at that pay), rather than someone who is the very best you can find.  Nothing is more of a hassle than getting a new employee up to speed, so you need someone who will be happy with the job (and pay) being offered. 

[Ecklar]

I believe the general description Dave lays out for a possible employee is perfect.  The description, however, is not describing an undergraduate university student since for the first several years these students are largely taking building block math (calculus 1, 2, 3, 4, linear eq, diff eq, etc) and electives (the humanities namely English, psychology, sociology and all that) or engineering drafting ( God forbid!).  Electronics training for an undergrad EE at this point is vague, nil and largely has very little to do with the pragmatic hardscrabble skills and insights displayed throughout and requested for the EEVBLOG.

Rather that perfect candidate will most likely be some naturally passionate, over the top obsessivly curious, slightly nutty electronics hobbyist with a lab in their bedroom in addition to a practical trade school background, and still at this point, probably vying for the more worldly university degree.  A misanthrope would probably fit if they thoroughly understood Ohm's Law, and while growing up, had dismantled every clock and computer in their neighborhood (treasure) while looking great in a bikini (think video presence and mud runs).

[george graves]

I'd have to say the last two posts are spot on.

Dave isn't replying to this post.    I'll give you 3 guesses why, but you only need one.  It's cause he's sure he's found someone. 

I hope you make us all a lair Dave!

[EEVblog]

There must be at least dozen of students/hobbyists fitting your requirements living nearby

And it seems that's pretty much what I got. About dozen or so locals, majority students, some qualified graduates, some just hobbyists, and the odd person older than me. One thing they have in common, enthusiastic hobbyists all. But that's not surprising because having watched my blog is an automatic filter mechanism for that.

[Lennos]

Look I tend to agree with Dave's description for the role. It is the difference between an enthusiast and a hobbyist. I would say I am an enthusiast, I love to tinker and learn about electronics and fix things that are broken and can do diagnostics of basic circuits, but I couldn't design a PCB layout to save my life (mainly because I am not in a position where it requires me to actually make any money out of it or try and find my first job in the electronics field). I loved mucking around with circuits as a youngster, building also sorts of stuff from the old Dick Smith Fun Way into electronics and old Tandy electronics books in the late 70's and early 80's, and hacking hardware (especially 8 bit computers of the era) but circumstances led me into other careers and I never pursued electronics until more recently despite my passionate curiosity for the subject and likewise be reinvigorated by websites such as the eevBlog.

Still having all the enthusiasm in the world doesn't mean I am of the caliber of a reasonable hobbyist who has been making many circuits at home. While I can solder, use various test equipment and understand basic electronics theory, in my limited experience and probably still ignorant opinion of the subject it is the difference between home theoretical electronics and practical applied electronics (or simply understanding vs doing) where you see the step change. The next for me would be hobbyist to undergraduate university student where the hands on skill meets the advanced theory and solidifies why the hell those things you built actually worked, and turns on the lightbulb why many of them didn't (despite you figuring out that adding/substituting higher value components here and there seemed to solve the problem in one of your hobby circuits).

[EEVblog]

First, if you want a candidate to have a skill, it should be because you want them to utilize that skill, and therefore they need to be fairly compensated at fair market value for having and using that skill.  Otherwise, they won't stick around long or they won't perform - and you can't really blame them for either if they're not making fair market value.  There are exceptions like internships, work-study, lab assistants and such, but this is a "real" job and those exceptions don't apply.

It's never that black and white.
There are many subtle pros and cons to every job, and this one is no exception.
For example:
I offer the chance at a public profile role, you might be able to make a public name for yourself, some people might find that valuable?
I offer a low pressure environment compared to say working in a design house, some people might find that valuable?
I offer the ability to work remotely if needed, and no set hours, some people might find that valuable?
I offer the ability for someone with no qualifications, or lesser qualifications to take a "step up" to job that might look good on their resume, some people might find that valuable?
And there are likely other benefits I can offer over many other employers to some people.

Finding someone with all the skills requested who is reasonably proficient in those skills isn't impossible - but the pay will need to be commensurate with that experience.  We don't know what they pay is so this isn't a criticism - I assume we're speaking about a pay level that matches the skillset being asked for.

Correct, I think it is.
But once again, it ain't that black out white.
There is a huge difference between having the basic hobby level skills (that I am after) to lay out say a double sided low frequency board, and being able to lay out a professional 12 layer board with bleeding edge design rules and GHz signals integrated into a high end system with high end requirements.
Both can be described the same as "PCB design layout experience" in job descriptions.

[EEVblog]

I'd have to say the last two posts are spot on.
Dave isn't replying to this post.    I'll give you 3 guesses why, but you only need one.  It's cause he's sure he's found someone. 
I hope you make us all a lair Dave!

Yes, you were wrong.
Of course I haven't hired or interviewed anyone yet. But I got over 40 applications from people willing to be considered for the role. And based on their resumes (what ones I've read so far) and other stuff they have sent me (public projects, videos, crowd funded project links, websites etc), many seem very talented and well suited. And they range from hobbyists, school kids, EE students, graduates (up to masters), industry experienced, and even retirees. There seems to be no shortage, even knowing up front that it was a not a high level experienced industry paying job. And yes, the majority of them have most or all of the things I'm asking for.

[(In)Sanity]

Dave,  I think whoever you hire should feel honored to be part of such a cool video blog.   That's assuming they get at least a tiny bit of camera time,  the occasional blip.  If you keep them hidden away slaving in the mines they might not like it so much.   People can be funny like that.

Jeff

[JDSween855]

The description and expectation of the position is a realistic one, and I would think it would not be that hard to find someone to fill it.  I also started electronics experimenting in the 1960's as RogerS did with about the same type of gear.  I think a retired electronics repair person, like myself that carried a scope and tool bag from site to site for years and had discrete components in the trunk, would make a great side-kick to the blog.  If I were not also a yank, would have applied when the post first came out.  Any person that has practiced electronics as a hobbyist should have the skills mentioned if they do anything at home for the pure joy of it.  Otherwise, how would you get to do anything except read and wish?  My two-bits.

[Bud]

So before you acquire the mentioned skills you cannot be called hobbyist, can you? What are you then?  Sorry does not make sense to me.

[miguelvp]

So before you acquire the mentioned skills you cannot be called hobbyist, can you? What are you then?

A noob?

[Dr. Frank]

Simply call him "Elton"

(Germans will understand)

[(In)Sanity]

So before you acquire the mentioned skills you cannot be called hobbyist, can you? What are you then?  Sorry does not make sense to me.

A person with interest in.......______________

Jeff

[iva]

[...] And they range from hobbyists, school kids, EE students, graduates (up to masters), industry experienced, and even retirees.

I watch all the videos I can but seldom leave comments. This one though has serious potential, imagine an old grumpy questioning Dave all the time, that's material for a sit-com!!

PS at 17 in the early 90s I would have fit the profile! come on, we had to learn all the stuff from expensive magazines in those days, layout was done with a "student version" of orcad... how come is it that difficult now with all the tutorial material and great open source software available with a click?
The request seemed very reasonable to me...

[EEVblog]

So before you acquire the mentioned skills you cannot be called hobbyist, can you? What are you then?  Sorry does not make sense to me.

You can call yourself anything you want.
But if you want to go for a job saying you have decent hobby level electronics skills, people will expect that you can do all that basic stuff to a moderately competent level.

[Simon]

Join the boat AlienRelics.
Or start doing what I do, freelance work, and then I get paid to correct all the mistakes that the so called engineers make when they burn the factory down when they try to light up a led with a freaking arduino 

Glad to here I'm not the only one but then when a company tells your their staffed by post graduates and don't say in what, well they could have done media studies for all i know.

[tggzzz]

I feel that bashing "people today" has become something of a fad in the tech community.

Not really. I've always been aware of those "people today" who don't seem to know much about their chosen profession. 2 year degrees, applying for the same jobs I was. They get an interview but I don't because I didn't have that little sheet of paper. Yet they can't read a color code and can barely solder.

It doesn't qualify as a fad, then. 

Join the boat AlienRelics.
Or start doing what I do, freelance work, and then I get paid to correct all the mistakes that the so called engineers make when they burn the factory down when they try to light up a led with a freaking arduino 

Obligatory, very famous, very important counter-example, just to keep some balance.

Sir Stanley Hooker, being allowed to do anything he wanted, decided to look at the supercharger on Merlin engines. He saw that the existing craft design was "suboptimum" from a theoretical (and operational!) perspective. His use of maths gave Spitfires, Hurricanes and Mustangs an extra 30% (!) power (i.e. improved climb and height) and 22mph more speed.

Without that maths and theoretical insight, the Battle of Britain would have been lost and my German would be much better than it is.

Theory without practice is mental masturbaton. Practice without theory is alchemical fumbling. Both theory and practice are necessary; neither is sufficient on its own.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/sir_stanley_hooker.htm

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Without that maths and theoretical insight, the Battle of Britain would have been lost and my German would be much better than it is.

It looks like the above statement is wrong. Just gave this a cursory look so I may be wrong instead.
It seems Stanley Hooker's designs only went in after Battle of Britain, October 1940, I think the battle was lost and won by then.
ps. Not disrespecting Stanley's designs.

[VK5RC]

Looking at the stats on those Merlin engines is "mechanical porn"!
 I want an engine that can produce 1200kW at 3000rpm!

[iampoor]

Looking at the stats on those Merlin engines is "mechanical porn"!
 I want an engine that can produce 1200kW at 3000rpm!

I could see Top Gear putting one of those in a Geo Metro. 

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Looking at the stats on those Merlin engines is "mechanical porn"!
 I want an engine that can produce 1200kW at 3000rpm!

I could see Top Gear putting one of those in a Geo Metro. 

How about a '55 Chevy?

(Personally I find the pre-war specials like the Sunbeam Slug - powered by "a pair of Sunbeam Matabele 22.4 litre aircraft engines" - more interesting, but to each their own...)

[Corporate666]

Correct, I think it is.
But once again, it ain't that black out white.
There is a huge difference between having the basic hobby level skills (that I am after) to lay out say a double sided low frequency board, and being able to lay out a professional 12 layer board with bleeding edge design rules and GHz signals integrated into a high end system with high end requirements.
Both can be described the same as "PCB design layout experience" in job descriptions.

I think that because of your personal skillset, you are probably measuring people with a very long ruler, so to speak.  I've gone to lots of conferences and training seminars and there are a LOT of gainfully employed engineers out there who aren't able to do all the things you mentioned a hobbyist should do - I don't think there's anything wrong with that really.. it depends what their job requires.  It's OK to have a lot of depth without much breadth... or even not a lot of breadth or depth - if you're able to do the job required.   I think anyone who is doing professional 12-layer PCB's running at Ghz with top level design rules are very specialized folks who would never be also expected to write firmware, hand-solder and such... they might not even be the same person doing the schematic!  I think that if someone has skills that are commercially valuable, it's probably not fair to call them a hobbyist - aren't they then a professional by definition? 

Anyway, it doesn't really matter - if you're getting resumes then clearly there is interest and hopefully you will find someone good.  It sounds like your job is very non-traditional in many ways, and there is a subset of workers who are interested in such jobs. 

[tggzzz]

Without that maths and theoretical insight, the Battle of Britain would have been lost and my German would be much better than it is.

It looks like the above statement is wrong. Just gave this a cursory look so I may be wrong instead.
It seems Stanley Hooker's designs only went in after Battle of Britain, October 1940, I think the battle was lost and won by then.
ps. Not disrespecting Stanley's designs.

Furthur very lmited research is ... ambiguous. 

The reference I quoted is unambiguously "in my favour". Wackypedia's Merlin entry can be read either way. Hooker started on the supercharger in 1938 and the major result (the two stage supercharger) was immediately post Battle of Britain (i.e. Oct 1940). But my memory and suspicion is that he contributed to the single stage supercharger used in the BoB.

Either way, it doesn't detract from my contention that theory is as important as practice; either alone is much less useful.

[(In)Sanity]

I think the bottom line here is not everyone can be as skilled as others.   In the end those that are, and those that are not still end up with good paying jobs and their employers seam to still like them.   I consider the true hobbyist to be on the high end of the skill set but not at the top professional level.   The true hobbyist vs the enthusiast will have almost as much knowledge as that seasoned professional but not quite.   I consider Dave the true hobbyist that turned professional which in my opinion produces some of the best in any given field.    The exception of course might be medicine where they frown upon hobbyist.   

I would suggest taking the most important skill sets and trying to find a candidate that can fill that more select list.    If they can juggle as well then bonus.

Jeff

[Simon]

Without that maths and theoretical insight, the Battle of Britain would have been lost and my German would be much better than it is.

It looks like the above statement is wrong. Just gave this a cursory look so I may be wrong instead.
It seems Stanley Hooker's designs only went in after Battle of Britain, October 1940, I think the battle was lost and won by then.
ps. Not disrespecting Stanley's designs.

Furthur very lmited research is ... ambiguous. 

The reference I quoted is unambiguously "in my favour". Wackypedia's Merlin entry can be read either way. Hooker started on the supercharger in 1938 and the major result (the two stage supercharger) was immediately post Battle of Britain (i.e. Oct 1940). But my memory and suspicion is that he contributed to the single stage supercharger used in the BoB.

Either way, it doesn't detract from my contention that theory is as important as practice; either alone is much less useful.

You still live under the illusion that hobbyists lack a knowledge or appreciation of theory. Do you have a high flying qualification that you guard closely in case it is spotted that maybe in practice (knowledge and practical ability) you not up to it ?

[Simon]

I think the bottom line here is not everyone can be as skilled as others.   In the end those that are, and those that are not still end up with good paying jobs and their employers seam to still like them.   

Which planet have you been living on ? the world is full of high flying "clever" people who turn out all too often to not be as skilled as was assumed. For 3 months worth of my net wages my employer was happy to have to incompetent prat built two very shoddily designed circuits, in the same time I could have done the same but much better, I then went on to spend 2 weeks fixing this post graduates fuck ups, but he is the one that is probably earning more than me and getting automatic recognition because of his post graduate degree, I'm the one that gets treated like an idiot because I don't have qualifications unless i happen to save the day and a lot of money! - Welcome to life

In this world it's what you have on paper and letters after your name and not your aptitude, enthusiasm or competence.

Too often competence and qualification get confused, a qualification does not guarantee competence, and just because your competent does not mean you got a high level qualification.

[(In)Sanity]

I think the bottom line here is not everyone can be as skilled as others.   In the end those that are, and those that are not still end up with good paying jobs and their employers seam to still like them.   

Which planet have you been living on ? the world is full of high flying "clever" people who turn out all too often to not be as skilled as was assumed. For 3 months worth of my net wages my employer was happy to have to incompetent prat built two very shoddily designed circuits, in the same time I could have done the same but much better, I then went on to spend 2 weeks fixing this post graduates fuck ups, but he is the one that is probably earning more than me and getting automatic recognition because of his post graduate degree, I'm the one that gets treated like an idiot because I don't have qualifications unless i happen to save the day and a lot of money! - Welcome to life

In this world it's what you have on paper and letters after your name and not your aptitude, enthusiasm or competence.

Too often competence and qualification get confused, a qualification does not guarantee competence, and just because your competent does not mean you got a high level qualification.

I don't disagree with you,  the fact still remains that these people hold positions and often for a very long time.   I think the under skilled employee holding a high ranking position outnumbers the skilled.   I never said I agree with the idea or that it's not a problem.   It's just what it is.   

Jeff

[ant907]

I find it very odd that 3rd-4th year EE students would not possess these skills, I can do most of the things you listed but I am still iffy on my programming skills and It has been my hobby for about 3 years . It makes me wonder how these students will fare in the real world when they have to apply there skills in real world applications and not being able to do it.

I think your video is a wake up call to hobbyist and students that electronics is not just on paper.

[Simon]

I find it very odd that 3rd-4th year EE students would not possess these skills, I can do most of the things you listed but I am still iffy on my programming skills and It has been my hobby for about 3 years . It makes me wonder how these students will fare in the real world when they have to apply there skills in real world applications and not being able to do it.

I think your video is a wake up call to hobbyist and students that electronics is not just on paper.

Then they will wind up in a company that undercuts everyone else, possibly underpays them and they produce the sort of crap I have been having to fix and get working

[(In)Sanity]

I find it very odd that 3rd-4th year EE students would not possess these skills, I can do most of the things you listed but I am still iffy on my programming skills and It has been my hobby for about 3 years . It makes me wonder how these students will fare in the real world when they have to apply there skills in real world applications and not being able to do it.

I think your video is a wake up call to hobbyist and students that electronics is not just on paper.

I got my last three full time programing jobs without even submitting a resume.   It's more than just not on paper it's also who you know and what contacts you've made.   My first big fortune 500 company job I got because of who I knew.   I proved myself with that job and made all the others that followed easy to obtain.   I always like to tell people,  be confident but not cocky.

Jeff

[Simon]

I got my last three full time programing jobs without even submitting a resume.   It's more than just not on paper it's also who you know and what contacts you've made.   My first big fortune 500 company job I got because of who I knew.   I proved myself with that job and made all the others that followed easy to obtain.   I always like to tell people,  be confident but not cocky.

Jeff

Yes I got pulled off the street, I got noticed as i worked for my company in a laboring role and was asked back as a QC inspector, then pissed the works manager off for not letting him sent crap out so he bumped me into engineering where they took me as a joke at first but now rely on me heavily.

Of course I'm poorly paid and and lucky to have a job, there will be shop floor workers paid more than me.......... Why, bacause I don't have the bit of paper.....

[(In)Sanity]

I got my last three full time programing jobs without even submitting a resume.   It's more than just not on paper it's also who you know and what contacts you've made.   My first big fortune 500 company job I got because of who I knew.   I proved myself with that job and made all the others that followed easy to obtain.   I always like to tell people,  be confident but not cocky.

Jeff

Yes I got pulled off the street, I got noticed as i worked for my company in a laboring role and was asked back as a QC inspector, then pissed the works manager off for not letting him sent crap out so he bumped me into engineering where they took me as a joke at first but now rely on me heavily.

Of course I'm poorly paid and and lucky to have a job, there will be shop floor workers paid more than me.......... Why, bacause I don't have the bit of paper.....

Yah,  I'm paid a little better then average but could be doing much better with that bit of paper.   I'll never knock anyone who gets a proper formal education.  The funny part is I actually have proper schooling in electronics with the paper bits,  however I found programming to be more lucrative and the bits of paper I have in electronics are worthless now.   I dropped out of the electronics hobby when I first got married and moved, etc.   Over the last 6 or 7 years I picked it all back up and now am stronger than ever.   I try to learn something new in the field each day and I'm never embarrassed to make an ass out of myself with stupid questions.   Remember stupid people are just those who have not yet learned,  we were all that person at one time.

Jeff

[Marco]

The exception of course might be medicine where they frown upon hobbyist.

Recreational use of stimulants is how half of them get through their internships

[Simon]

Well i am now studying, years ago when I was on agency and asked for a day free unpaid to go and study they said no, now they are paying for me to be on a course. It's a case of how obvious I've made it that having someone internal to do electronics is very important regardless of whether we use a sub contractor, because i least I can speak to them and "translate". They know I'd love the qualifications too (I mean it's been made obvious that without them I'm nothing) so it's been a happy ending but for the pay but at least I enjoy the work most of the time.

[tggzzz]

Without that maths and theoretical insight, the Battle of Britain would have been lost and my German would be much better than it is.

It looks like the above statement is wrong. Just gave this a cursory look so I may be wrong instead.
It seems Stanley Hooker's designs only went in after Battle of Britain, October 1940, I think the battle was lost and won by then.
ps. Not disrespecting Stanley's designs.

Furthur very lmited research is ... ambiguous. 

The reference I quoted is unambiguously "in my favour". Wackypedia's Merlin entry can be read either way. Hooker started on the supercharger in 1938 and the major result (the two stage supercharger) was immediately post Battle of Britain (i.e. Oct 1940). But my memory and suspicion is that he contributed to the single stage supercharger used in the BoB.

Either way, it doesn't detract from my contention that theory is as important as practice; either alone is much less useful.

You still live under the illusion that hobbyists lack a knowledge or appreciation of theory. Do you have a high flying qualification that you guard closely in case it is spotted that maybe in practice (knowledge and practical ability) you not up to it ?

As I have pointed out before, the only way you can draw that conclusion from what I have written is by faulty reading and/or logic.

[tggzzz]

I think the bottom line here is not everyone can be as skilled as others.   In the end those that are, and those that are not still end up with good paying jobs and their employers seam to still like them.   

Which planet have you been living on ? the world is full of high flying "clever" people who turn out all too often to not be as skilled as was assumed. For 3 months worth of my net wages my employer was happy to have to incompetent prat built two very shoddily designed circuits, in the same time I could have done the same but much better, I then went on to spend 2 weeks fixing this post graduates fuck ups, but he is the one that is probably earning more than me and getting automatic recognition because of his post graduate degree, I'm the one that gets treated like an idiot because I don't have qualifications unless i happen to save the day and a lot of money! - Welcome to life

And exactly the same points can with equal validity be made about amateurs that don't have a clue about what they don't understand.

That's so well-known it is even given a name: the Dunning Kreuger effect.

In this world it's what you have on paper and letters after your name and not your aptitude, enthusiasm or competence.

That rather defeatest sentiment could easily be uttered by someone with a chip on their shoulder.

Too often competence and qualification get confused, a qualification does not guarantee competence, and just because your competent does not mean you got a high level qualification.

Very true.

But neither does fiddling around as a hobby guarantee competence.

[tggzzz]

Yes I got pulled off the street, I got noticed as i worked for my company in a laboring role and was asked back as a QC inspector, then pissed the works manager off for not letting him sent crap out so he bumped me into engineering where they took me as a joke at first but now rely on me heavily.

Of course I'm poorly paid and and lucky to have a job, there will be shop floor workers paid more than me.......... Why, bacause I don't have the bit of paper.....

The engineering institutions have paths for people that don't have the paper academic qualifications. Why don't you follow those paths and get a post-grad paper qualification, e.g. become a chartered engineer?

Becoming a chartered engineer isn't easy. I know of one person (a one-time boss) that was rejected because he had moved into management too quickly.

[Simon]

And exactly the same points can with equal validity be made about amateurs that don't have a clue about what they don't understand.

That's so well-known it is even given a name: the Dunning Kreuger effect.

And because they posses no qualifications they have limited chances of getting into a place they should not be in. But it is far easier to have qualifications, not have a clue and still get into places they are not competent enough to hold.

The intelligent and capable hobbyists are the ones that understand what they don't know and seek to continually further their knowledge. I'm sorry but your being very dimisive of competent people and assume that competence gets you a qualification.

I have no chips thank you, I am just an attentive observer of the world around me.

We comissioned a guy to design a control board for a safety critical application, by safety crtical I don't men if it fails a car crashes, I mean that if it fails someone dies pretty quickly because it's practically life support, what did the clod do ? he drove a mosfet with 28V when it was rated for 10V and 20V ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM!!!!!!!!, result the systems (fortunetly only on prototypes) failed. Despite me pointing this problem out on his first version he did not correct it on his second version where they failed again.

I have no qualifications but I'm intelligent and reasonably knowledgeable and was suspicious as soon as i saw his diagram. Because I have used the required level shifting circuitry so often myself I was immediately drawn to the lack of it, this is peoples lives we are talking about. He had never even heard of a logic level mosfet, his PCB skills were a disaster

So far my employer has used 5 subcontracted engineers, 2 were conmerchants, 2 were useless and one seems to be very on the ball and a pleasure to deal with.

When a guy comes to you and moans that your thermistor you gave him to use does not have enough resolution (to flat a response curve) and you ask as you know he is using AVR's how many bits he is using and he says 8!!!!! you can either  or  there's just no hope!

[Simon]

Yes I got pulled off the street, I got noticed as i worked for my company in a laboring role and was asked back as a QC inspector, then pissed the works manager off for not letting him sent crap out so he bumped me into engineering where they took me as a joke at first but now rely on me heavily.

Of course I'm poorly paid and and lucky to have a job, there will be shop floor workers paid more than me.......... Why, bacause I don't have the bit of paper.....

The engineering institutions have paths for people that don't have the paper academic qualifications. Why don't you follow those paths and get a post-grad paper qualification, e.g. become a chartered engineer?

Becoming a chartered engineer isn't easy. I know of one person (a one-time boss) that was rejected because he had moved into management too quickly.

As I said because I DO appreciate the requirement for a solid foundation in theory, I am not only doing a HNC in electronic engineering sponsored by my company but I'm happy to do a level 3 in maths required because i appreciate that without it I won't understand the theory anyway. A HNC is the highest qualification i can go for without prior qualifications and although technically a L3 is required they are happy to take on people with some prior experience in the industry. After a HNC I can do a HND, i think that is as far as I will be able to go with employer support and personal motivation as after that you are talking a full on degree. I have mild dyslexia but I'm also quite intelligent and quite mindful of my limitations, hence I've never made a major cockup or put anyones lives at risk because I do have the prime quality which is to know my limits in the first place and then assess what I can do to get round them.

[PlagueDoctor]

When a guy comes to you and moans that your thermistor you gave him to use does not have enough resolution (to flat a response curve) and you ask as you know he is using AVR's how many bits he is using and he says 8!!!!! you can either  or  there's just no hope!

Please tell me that's a made up example, and not a real scenario you've faced... because.. that's just sad.. (and I think I'm barely qualified to be considered an electronics hobbyist, and I know thermistors (most resistors really..) are analogue, and therefore pretty well have an 'infinite' resolution.(without going down to a quantum level))

[Simon]

When a guy comes to you and moans that your thermistor you gave him to use does not have enough resolution (to flat a response curve) and you ask as you know he is using AVR's how many bits he is using and he says 8!!!!! you can either  or  there's just no hope!

Please tell me that's a made up example, and not a real scenario you've faced... because.. that's just sad.. (and I think I'm barely qualified to be considered an electronics hobbyist, and I know thermistors (most resistors really..) are analogue, and therefore pretty well have an 'infinite' resolution.(without going down to a quantum level))

Your not quite understanding, a thermistor does not have a linear relationship curve it's a curve for NTC that is very steep in the low temperatures and the curve is almost flat, ie very small change of R for C in the above 10C range. So the problem was that measuring ambient was difficult because the change in voltage on the resistor was too small for the ADC to pick up.

But when your being a clod and have a 10 bit ADC and insist on using only 8 bits and then ask that the NTC sensor is changed so that it will work with 8 bits because your too stupid or incompetent to use the full 10bits you already have then it is sad. I spent a few hours trying to keep him happy only to find that all NTC's behave in the same way and that it's a fact of life, again i learnt and digested quickly something that a so called post graduate seemed ignorant of, because he wanted to plug an NTC into an MCu and have it work, that is the arduino legacy for you!

But then I have used an NTC at well above ambient where the curve is really flat and had no problems..... I really can't think why 

[tggzzz]

As I said because I DO appreciate the requirement for a solid foundation in theory, I am not only doing a HNC in electronic engineering sponsored by my company but I'm happy to do a level 3 in maths required because i appreciate that without it I won't understand the theory anyway. A HNC is the highest qualification i can go for without prior qualifications and although technically a L3 is required they are happy to take on people with some prior experience in the industry. After a HNC I can do a HND, i think that is as far as I will be able to go with employer support and personal motivation as after that you are talking a full on degree. I have mild dyslexia but I'm also quite intelligent and quite mindful of my limitations, hence I've never made a major cockup or put anyones lives at risk because I do have the prime quality which is to know my limits in the first place and then assess what I can do to get round them.

Firstly, good for you for pushing yourself to go as far as possible given your circumstances and limitations. I find people that don't stretch their capabilities to be boring and, often, completely ignorable.

You will find a lack of maths will be a hindrance - I found the maths at uni to be difficult despite having good grades in both Pure Maths and Applied Maths. Having said that, a lot of maths has somewhat "pictorial" explanations and operation, and that may help you.

It is worth pointing out a little bit of theory about how to make a successful team. The original research was by Belbin in the 70s, and although it has attracted more than a little bovine excrement, the underlying principles are sound and can be used to guide thinking. N.B. both "guide" and "think" are vital - without those you you have process-following pen-pushers.

You will see that my strengths counteract your weaknesses and vice versa.

Principle 1: everybody's personality and experience strongly biasses them towards one of the team roles, but they can often fit into a secondary team role.

Principle 2: there are a number of team roles, each with required strengths and allowable weaknesses.

Principle 3: the team roles can be cut many ways, but the ones I understand are:

• ideas man: spits out novel thoughts, but can't evaluate their real value
• critic: quickly evaluates ideas in the context of what needs to be done, but doesn't initiate many ideas
• contact man: continually talks to everybody, acting as a conduit between the team and the stakeholders and others
• worker: does what they are told to get the job done
• finisher: obsessively dots the Is and crosses the Ts
• chairman: empathetic, causes team to reach a consensus

Principle 4: a functional team needs all those roles, which therefore requires different types of people

Principle 5: unbalanced teams will fail. For example, two ideas men will have a fizzing great time but there won't be any usable conclusion, whereas two critics won't generate anything new. Two finishers will never get the job done, whereas two workers will fill up the time available. Etc.

Your strengths counteract my weaknesses and vice versa.

And that is why both theory and practice (and the people that embody them) are necessary, and neither is sufficient.

[G0HZU]

I'll give my 2p on this based on decades of experience in EE...

A typical and keen hobbyist (but not all hobbyists so please don't be offended) tends to gain experience and knowledge in a kind of scrapbook fashion. Lots and lots of little nuggets of very useful info and experience gained over many years and this can make them appear very knowledgable and even give them delusions of grandeur.

But... and it's a huge 'but'... if you take them away from this scrapbook and give them a fresh problem then it often gets quite scary because you realise that often there is nothing inbetween the little scrapbook nuggets for them to fall back on. Often this means they can't apply basic theory to a fresh problem or they simply make up their own version of physics based on common myths. This isn't good. A little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous if there are no fundamentals to fall back on...

However, if you look at fresh graduates (decent ones) then you tend to get a fairly blank canvas. Initially they lack the skills and experience of the hobbyist but they can be groomed over time to fill in these shortcomings and eventually the hobbyist will be outclassed in nearly every department. But this can take several years.

But you can also groom a hobbyist into becoming a better EE by providing training courses or part time education and this can help fill in the gaps in their 'scrapbook' with some solid theory. Sometimes this can give a real boost to their abilities as they have more and more  'Eureka moments' as the gaps in the scrapbook get filled in. So you end up with a very capable EE but by a different path.

At the end of the day we are all human and made of the same stuff...

[tggzzz]

When a guy comes to you and moans that your thermistor you gave him to use does not have enough resolution (to flat a response curve) and you ask as you know he is using AVR's how many bits he is using and he says 8!!!!! you can either  or  there's just no hope!

Please tell me that's a made up example, and not a real scenario you've faced... because.. that's just sad.. (and I think I'm barely qualified to be considered an electronics hobbyist, and I know thermistors (most resistors really..) are analogue, and therefore pretty well have an 'infinite' resolution.(without going down to a quantum level))

Oh, we've all seen things like that.

One of my "favourites" is people that believe in the concept of reliable communications between more than two computers (thus solving the Byzantine Generals problem).

Another is that, given measurements quantised into bins, you can average two adjacent bins to increase the reaolution of the result (thus busting Shannon's Sampling theorem).

And then there are the people that, in the context of measurements, want an "accurate measurement" without comprehending whether they are actually interested in precision, resolution or repeatability.

Or those that talk about an "average value" without specifying the averaging interval. Or that don't realise that 90% of drivers can be better than average, or that in a sweatshop company the average pay can be £100,000.

[tggzzz]

Well said!

In another field, doctors (while acknowledging nurses often save their butt) tend to say the same about nurses that think they have the same expertise as doctors.

I'll give my 2p on this based on decades of experience in EE...

A typical and keen hobbyist (but not all hobbyists so please don't be offended) tends to gain experience and knowledge in a kind of scrapbook fashion. Lots and lots of little nuggets of very useful info and experience gained over many years and this can make them appear very knowledgable and even give them delusions of grandeur.

But... and it's a huge 'but'... if you take them away from this scrapbook and give them a fresh problem then it often gets quite scary because you realise that often there is nothing inbetween the little scrapbook nuggets for them to fall back on. Often this means they can't apply basic theory to a fresh problem or they simply make up their own version of physics based on common myths. This isn't good. A little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous if there are no fundamentals to fall back on...

However, if you look at fresh graduates (decent ones) then you tend to get a fairly blank canvas. Initially they lack the skills and experience of the hobbyist but they can be groomed over time to fill in these shortcomings and eventually the hobbyist will be outclassed in nearly every department. But this can take several years.

But you can also groom a hobbyist into becoming a better EE by providing training courses or part time education and this can help fill in the gaps in their 'scrapbook' with some solid theory. Sometimes this can give a real boost to their abilities as they have more and more  'Eureka moments' as the gaps in the scrapbook get filled in. So you end up with a very capable EE but by a different path.

At the end of the day we are all human and made of the same stuff...

[Simon]

I'll give my 2p on this based on decades of experience in EE...

A typical and keen hobbyist (but not all hobbyists so please don't be offended) tends to gain experience and knowledge in a kind of scrapbook fashion. Lots and lots of little nuggets of very useful info and experience gained over many years and this can make them appear very knowledgable and even give them delusions of grandeur.

But... and it's a huge 'but'... if you take them away from this scrapbook and give them a fresh problem then it often gets quite scary because you realise that often there is nothing inbetween the little scrapbook nuggets for them to fall back on. Often this means they can't apply basic theory to a fresh problem or they simply make up their own version of physics based on common myths. This isn't good. A little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous if there are no fundamentals to fall back on...

However, if you look at fresh graduates (decent ones) then you tend to get a fairly blank canvas. Initially they lack the skills and experience of the hobbyist but they can be groomed over time to fill in these shortcomings and eventually the hobbyist will be outclassed in nearly every department. But this can take several years.

But you can also groom a hobbyist into becoming a better EE by providing training courses or part time education and this can help fill in the gaps in their 'scrapbook' with some solid theory. Sometimes this can give a real boost to their abilities as they have more and more  'Eureka moments' as the gaps in the scrapbook get filled in. So you end up with a very capable EE but by a different path.

At the end of the day we are all human and made of the same stuff...

and that is why i am often on here asking "silly" questions out of a combination of recognising a gap in my knowledge and the need to tst a theory as others will look at it differently and if it does not add up this becomes aparent and i can rethink

[EEVblog]

At the end of the day we are all human and made of the same stuff...

And at the end of the day, some people are really really good at engineering, and some people are and always will be really really crap at engineering, even if highly qualified.

[Simon]

I'll give my 2p on this based on decades of experience in EE...

A typical and keen hobbyist (but not all hobbyists so please don't be offended) tends to gain experience and knowledge in a kind of scrapbook fashion. Lots and lots of little nuggets of very useful info and experience gained over many years and this can make them appear very knowledgable and even give them delusions of grandeur.

But... and it's a huge 'but'... if you take them away from this scrapbook and give them a fresh problem then it often gets quite scary because you realise that often there is nothing inbetween the little scrapbook nuggets for them to fall back on. Often this means they can't apply basic theory to a fresh problem or they simply make up their own version of physics based on common myths. This isn't good. A little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous if there are no fundamentals to fall back on...

However, if you look at fresh graduates (decent ones) then you tend to get a fairly blank canvas. Initially they lack the skills and experience of the hobbyist but they can be groomed over time to fill in these shortcomings and eventually the hobbyist will be outclassed in nearly every department. But this can take several years.

But you can also groom a hobbyist into becoming a better EE by providing training courses or part time education and this can help fill in the gaps in their 'scrapbook' with some solid theory. Sometimes this can give a real boost to their abilities as they have more and more  'Eureka moments' as the gaps in the scrapbook get filled in. So you end up with a very capable EE but by a different path.

At the end of the day we are all human and made of the same stuff...

 

sometimes it is so frustrating to know what you wish to do, but only know so much lesser than is required

try sitting there having to let an "expert" get it all wrong knowing that he is allowed to just because of a peice of paper for frustration. Try staying calm and professional when a guy wants a better sensor because he does not know how to use the one he has for frustration...... Like I said on a sample of 5 people I have had dealings with "professionally" 80% were not fit for purpose, I'm not saying tnat is across the board but it shows there are plenty of places available for incompetent wielders of pieces of paper, and some of them get to make mistakes that could kill. Never said I was all knowledgeable but it's painful to have to correct other peoples work when they are supposed to be better at you and probably better paid.

[miguelvp]

try sitting there having to let an "expert" get it all wrong knowing that he is allowed to just because of a peice of paper for frustration. Try staying calm and professional when a guy wants a better sensor because he does not know how to use the one he has for frustration...... Like I said on a sample of 5 people I have had dealings with "professionally" 80% were not fit for purpose, I'm not saying tnat is across the board but it shows there are plenty of places available for incompetent wielders of pieces of paper, and some of them get to make mistakes that could kill. Never said I was all knowledgeable but it's painful to have to correct other peoples work when they are supposed to be better at you and probably better paid.

What is more staggering is that you are no expert either by looking at the questions you post in the forum, although you know way more than I do in electronics, but I'm just a programmer after all.

I also find it surprising that those people are even less qualified and I find it alarming by the description of the devices your employer works on (life and death), doesn't sound like an ISO 9001 environment at all.

[Simon]

Well sadly when one has to step in at the last minute to save the day because the paper wielding expert totally screwed it up or can't be trusted and won't do it in a reasonable time frame and with the required flexibility. As i said we are working with a new subcontractor. The idea is not that at the moment that I design these things, but then we have seen what some experts produce it's 50/50 really. As i said I am not too proud to ask and often ask a level slightly below my knowledge as it's nice to have 2 plus people come back and answer as expected and often is develops into collateral discussion that I learn more from and fill those "hobbyist gaps". Ultimately the equipment we work on has a plan B but you need to know a problem is occurring so that you have time to implement plan B. If a system fails outright with no warning because some berk with a piece of paper drove a 10V mosfet with 28V despite being warned it was a really silly idea there is not really much hope.

[tggzzz]

At the end of the day we are all human and made of the same stuff...

And at the end of the day, some people are really really good at engineering, and some people are and always will be really really crap at engineering, even if highly qualified.

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary.

No one individual will ever be good at all aspects. If can restrict you requirements thenyou can find them in a single individual. To cover all of engineering you need multiple individuals.

[G0HZU]

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary. No one individual will ever be good at all aspects. If can restrict you requirements thenyou can find them in a single individual. To cover all of engineering you need multiple individuals.

Yup, that's it...

Back in 1990 I was incredibly lucky to be able to join a fledgling startup company that was set up by a group of very talented (middle aged) engineers that broke away from a well known UK defence/TEqpt company. These guys were amongst the most talented engineers you can imagine and I learned a lot from being able to sit with them and watch how they designed stuff and how they dealt with problems or new concepts etc.

BUT... I also quickly learned that everyone has holes in their knowledge base including these guys and sometimes the existence of these holes in their knowledge came as a surprise even to a comparative novice like myself at the time. But then nobody can know it all. 

However, I also quickly learned that the key to (company) success is to have a team of engineers across all disciplines within EE and to create an environment where nobody cares about these individual holes. The only important thing is to debate the issue as a team and to find the correct answer. Sometimes it pays to have quite a few people in  the room across all disciplines eg HW/SW/DSP/RF/Mech/Test/Production.

It's a great way to do things because it helps fill in the holes for everyone in the room.

If you fast forward to 2014 (nearly 2015!) you can create the same environment over the internet but the main stumbling block would be if you tried to do it as a text based forum. Text isn't the best way to communicate and it usually causes friction and upset and so communication and goodwill can quickly break down.

Back in 1990 I was incredibly priviliged to work amongst those talented engineers that started the company and I know how powerful it can be to get a group of decent engineers in a room with a whiteboard and a few design tools. It's a great environment to learn and share knowledge.

[Simon]

If you fast forward to 2014 (nearly 2015!) you can create the same environment over the internet but the main stumbling block would be if you tried to do it as a text based forum. Text isn't the best way to communicate and it usually causes friction and upset and so communication and goodwill can quickly break down.

Back in 1990 I was incredibly priviliged to work amongst those talented engineers that started the company and I know how powerful it can be to get a group of decent engineers in a room with a whiteboard and a few design tools. It's a great environment to learn and share knowledge.

And for those of us that have to go solo this forum is the closest to what you describe. Currently I am working in a similar team to what you describe, my boss is very mechanically savvy, our sub contractor very electronics and automotive electrical savvy and i sit in the middle making sure they are both talking about the same thing and keeping both up to speed on pitfalls, so I can forewarn the electronics guy about known pitfalls and limitations and I can help my mechanical minded boss over the electrical hurdles so that we can have a meeting and not an electronics and mechanical masterclass instead and get nowhere

[EEVblog]

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary.

The point I was trying to make is that some people are just clueless and useless at almost everything, regardless of their qualifications.

[tggzzz]

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary.

The point I was trying to make is that some people are just clueless and useless at almost everything, regardless of their qualifications.

... or lack of qualifications.

Qualifications and cluefulness are orthogonal concepts.

[Simon]

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary.

The point I was trying to make is that some people are just clueless and useless at almost everything, regardless of their qualifications.

... or lack of qualifications.

Qualifications and cluefulness are orthogonal concepts.

oh there he goes again  qualifications = your automatically clever argument, how long have you lived in the real world ?

[(In)Sanity]

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary.

The point I was trying to make is that some people are just clueless and useless at almost everything, regardless of their qualifications.

My father would say they lack common sense.

[Dye]

First time post, long time reader. I used to be a teaching assistant (TA) in an engineering course of 700 students and 100 teaching assistants. Mixed discipline, but a highly CS/ECE focused school. Candidates like this did exist and our course was pretty aggressive in acquiring them based on measured potential we observed in their course work before the other departments since we were in the intro to engineering course.

The hourly wage was roughly $10-$15 based on skill set. The big problem is the students that did meet this set were destined to leave the teaching assistant program within a year or two for higher paid internships $18-$23/hr range. Even I left and I was the head TA managing the 100 students. The course director just allowed me to manage and coordinate the other members remotely.

We were glad they left, they were destined to fail in their careers if they stayed since we could only offer so much experience and this young for them to only know the scope of what we did would have staggered their talent and aspirations.

One mechanism we had in place for the low retention rate of undergrad/grad students was doubling everything. Every subcommittee of this TA organization from payroll, It, lab management, video, etc had two leads. So a senior trains a junior and they are spaced apart a year or two so there is always a "Master" and "Apprentice." doing this for even your assistant might help if you start losing you new hire every year. 

[Ecklar]

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary.

The point I was trying to make is that some people are just clueless and useless at almost everything, regardless of their qualifications.

The likely candidate will most certainly have a full history of actual doing and making in areas important to Dave first, and then, filled out with 'qualification' as a secondary.  Electronics and making is more accessible than playing the violin but is similar in that to be practically good both need natural inner drive and a talent usually defined as " having a clue." 

In any endeavor, one ALWAYS needs to be able to visualize it in their own personal way.  They can 'see' it.  There are many engineers out there with no talent.   A frequent poster here once stated how he saw himself as a pilot flying through circuits.  Boy, I wished he'd give more insight as to how he arranges the concepts in his mind.

If they haven't been doing it, they probably won't be doing it... At least, not on the EEVBLOG.  That's my guess.

Eck

[c4757p]

... or lack of qualifications.

Qualifications and cluefulness are orthogonal concepts.

oh there he goes again  qualifications = your automatically clever argument, how long have you lived in the real world ?

Well, I can't really parse that stunning specimen of language, but assuming you meant "you're", I'm going to guess you have no clue what "orthogonal" means. Your response seems rather, er, parallel to the claim he appears to be making...

[Macbeth]

... or lack of qualifications.

Qualifications and cluefulness are orthogonal concepts.

oh there he goes again  qualifications = your automatically clever argument, how long have you lived in the real world ?

Well, I can't really parse that stunning specimen of language, but assuming you meant "you're", I'm going to guess you have no clue what "orthogonal" means. Your response seems rather, er, parallel to the claim he appears to be making...

It makes no sense to substitute "you're" for "your". Simon is using the correct term here. "You are automatically clever argument" is not the Queens English, old chap. What an utter fail 

[c4757p]

I still can't make out what you seem to. I see missing quotation marks: '"qualifications = you're automatically clever" argument', as in 'the argument that if you have qualifications, you are clever'. How are you reading that...? I can almost make out "your automatically clever argument", as if he is claiming that tggzzz's argument is "automatically clever", but that doesn't really make sense and leaves the "qualifications =" bit out in front making absolutely no sense.

[Simon]

Yes i got in a linguistic twist, your, sorry you're lucky I reread and correct anything i type at least once before hitting post.

There seem to be a number of people holding on for dear life to the notion that to have gained a qualification automatically makes one competent and far more worthy of respect and the "job". As already said I have witnessed this not to be the case, there has been talk of having a qualified person in a post it much better than a non qualified one as the non qualified one must be rubbish and the qualified one must be great. This is naturally not so. Few employers carry out competence tests on job candidates that is supposedly the idea of having a qualification and it is far easier to be a paper wielder and get a place your not competent to fill than a non qualified person as a non qualified person in most jobs held usually by a qualified person will have gotten there through proving themselves over and over again.

But do hang on for dear life to your qualifications snobbery, I'm sure for some it's all they have to show for themselves and they need it to prove even to themselves that they are competent as well as qualified.

As I've always said I also value a qualification but one that actually imparts knowledge to one willing to learn. No matter what your smarts there is always something new to learn and the non qualified person with a hobbyists background can't afford the snobbery of they know it all and no one can teach them anything new, it is for this attitude that a certain subcontractor my employer used to use is out of a job!

[tggzzz]

Engineering is not a single indivisible concept. There are many aspects to engineering, and all are necessary.

The point I was trying to make is that some people are just clueless and useless at almost everything, regardless of their qualifications.

... or lack of qualifications.

Qualifications and cluefulness are orthogonal concepts.

oh there he goes again  qualifications = your automatically clever argument, how long have you lived in the real world ?

!?! My statement is the exact opposite of your interpretation!

From, for example, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/orthogonal the relevant meanings are:
orthogonal (not comparable)
    (statistics) Statistically independent, with reference to variates.
    (software engineering) Of two or more aspects of a problem, able to be treated separately.
        The content of the message should be orthogonal to the means of its delivery.
    Of two or more problems or subjects, independent of or irrelevant to each other.

[Simon]

Not wanting to be funny but how about we keep the language simple 

[tggzzz]

Not wanting to be funny but how about we keep the language simple 

But but but I enjoy discussing "high Q commutating capacitor filters", "low impedance Z0 probes", "aliasing", "metastability", "byzantine generals problem", "cascode amplifiers" etc.

[tggzzz]

So? Are electronics hobbyists useless? Other than observing the threadspace increase of this thread I haven't read it all. Has a concensus view been established?

What an elegant way of, um, "reinvigorating" the thread!

[Ecklar]

Electronics hobbyists definitely are useful in that they soak up so much surplus equipment that they provide the liquidity necessary to keep at least part of an economy moving. 

Maybe one in a million will break through and catch a wave ... Apple and now Oculus

[EEVblog]

So? Are electronics hobbyists useless? Other than observing the threadspace increase of this thread I haven't read it all. Has a concensus view been established?

The title was only designed to be provocative and get people to watch, it wasn't a genuine question.
The real question was whether or not I was asking too much of someone with hobbyist or student/hobby skills, and the resounding answer is no, I was not asking too much.
But of course the question was rhetorical because I already knew the answer anyway 

[mrbreeze01]

How about coming to Rhode Island and post your ad and I'll be knocking before the sun comes up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jeeeeze, my god what an opportunity!!!   

[mrflibble]

So? Are electronics hobbyists useless? Other than observing the threadspace increase of this thread I haven't read it all. Has a concensus view been established?

Didn't you get the memo? "Forum filled with engineering types" and "consensus view" are orthogonal concepts. And the dot product doesn't look all that promising for "reading comprehension" either.

[Simon]

So? Are electronics hobbyists useless? Other than observing the threadspace increase of this thread I haven't read it all. Has a concensus view been established?

Didn't you get the memo? "Forum filled with engineering types" and "consensus view" are orthogonal concepts. And the dot product doesn't look all that promising for "reading comprehension" either.

 

[SeanB]

But there is an almost perfect correlation to a score somewhere along the Autistic scale though.

[Simon]

But there is an almost perfect correlation to a score somewhere along the Autistic scale though.

oh dear I can see a new row over who makes the better engineer 

[SeanB]

Dicey, you need to be low enough to actually interact with people, but too low and you are normal. Too high and you might be a great engineer, but you will never do any work.

[miguelvp]

So? Are electronics hobbyists useless? Other than observing the threadspace increase of this thread I haven't read it all. Has a concensus view been established?

Didn't you get the memo? "Forum filled with engineering types" and "consensus view" are orthogonal concepts. And the dot product doesn't look all that promising for "reading comprehension" either.

Maybe you should try a cross product instead since you are looking for orthogonality

But it doesn't work with all engineers since some of them actually climb mountains.

[mrflibble]

Maybe you should try a cross product instead since you are looking for orthogonality

I considered that, but I didn't want to go all Grassmannian on you guys.

[Simon]

Dicey, you need to be low enough to actually interact with people, but too low and you are normal. Too high and you might be a great engineer, but you will never do any work.

Very well put indeed. I'm not sure on the terminology and I forget which continent has just decided to abolish the term Asperger's usually your lower level autistics will actually be diagnosed with Asperger's and they can indeed make good engineers. If you take a look at the so-called traditional nerd you will probably find that you are in fact looking at somebody with autism been derided for being a nerd. I think it is now fairly well-known that many of these so-called nerds have actually contributed quite a bit to the technology we use today.

The other thing to bear in mind that autism or Asperger's is not a single diagnosis and co-occurs with a number of other conditions particularly dyslexia but also dyspraxia dyscalculia and a few others I can't remember. Usually one never occurs on its own so it's difficult to just stick a label on somebody.

A few months in to me starting in engineering my new boss suggested I might have dyslexia when he noticed that I was not making just spelling mistakes but mistakes that I was probably not seeing due to a correlation between visual problems and dyslexia which mean that if for example I type 3 "m"'s it is actually hard for me to see how many I have typed this is usually known as visual stress. He was however quite supportive and obtained a little information to help me on my way. Not being one of the old-fashioned types he knew that dyslexia does not mean you're not intelligent and did not treat me any different not that I was diagnosed in any case although my father being dyslexic is pretty telling.

When it was suggested that I do some qualifications I thought oh dear I would love to and I agreed to but I know that my learning experience has not been the best in particular with maths although that was with an impatient teacher in a classroom environment who did not have the time, inclination to help me or see that I was struggling and just put it down to me being dumb. So I arranged and paid for a dyslexia screening to see if there was anything I should know and if they could tell me anything that would help me (remember I said earlier that my biggest strength is knowing my limits). As it happens the person doing the screening looked at me a bit funny and couldn't work out why I thought I might be dyslexic, but this was mainly because it was only the screening and not a full diagnostic assessment which I would also have to pay for myself and is much more expensive than I care to pay, I came out as having a low probability of dyslexia although it was borderline with being some probability and my test also showed not that I can figure out how they work it out that I have a very high IQ as the test is designed to test IQ but not in the sense that most people interpret and I was also not checked for spelling which I had to admit afterwards is worst than I thought. But we did speak for some hours and the person doing the assessment has asperges herself and she said it that in her opinion I probably have an element of asperges which was no surprise at all.

If you look around the net for dyslexia screening tests they will warn that people with a high IQ do not always show up with the correct score for dyslexia as they have developed so-called coping mechanisms not that I'm aware of having developed any myself.

So there you have it, I know that most people at work and some have told me can't work out how I got where I am to be honest I'm surprised myself sometimes not that it is that far but it's much further than some people thought I would (I beat my predecessor our of the QC department, took him 4 years to get from QC to engineering and it took me 3, he just can't help but feel a sense of competition). And it's not just getting as far but actually getting the job done and being useful in the workplace rather than just another bum on another seat making yet more cock ups. But as much as I have a good engineering intuition and grasp some concepts, I am well aware that I need the qualifications and given the time to study the maths on my own and with a good quality text (no ICS Learn shit!) I am slowly getting there I hope. It has been slightly easier than I thought.

I don't know what peoples opinions are of people with so-called learning disabilities, all I know is I am surrounded by people who are supposed to be qualified in totally different fields and even then sometimes I find they can't see the wood for the trees and I can't explain to them what it is they are not seeing. I struggle to understand how some of the simplest electrical concepts I present are seen as extremely complicated even though some of them having being doing basic electrics for years, perhaps I'm overly adapted to having to learn new things all the time and work things out for myself. The most frustrating response I get from fellow engineers is "well I wouldn't understand because I'm not qualified in that" even if you try to explain it to them in baby talk they don't actually want to listen or learn, so it's like i sit one side of the office with my "expertise" and they sit on the other with theirs and they never know when to involve me because they have not the first clue and usually I end up involved when it's a bit late and I hear them complaining about a problem they can't solve.

Only the other day I heard a pair going on about sensors "sourcing" or "sinking" and what on earth did it mean but did they ask ? no, I had to interject and explain and they were very happy for the explanation, but did they think to ask ? no they just said, electrical, can't be any of our business.......

The sad thing is that society and the schooling system does not support or encourage people with so called learning dissabilties, most people just gather up all of their ego, and call them nerds and put them down.

[SeanB]

Simon, well done on the studies, you will get the maths up to some good level eventually. You probably want to go get a university maths book, and do it yourself at your own rate, so that you are more confident at self learning. look for a used copy of Calculus with Analytical Geometry, any old edition will be cheap, and will work for you.

Funny thing is the maths rarely is used by itself, but the foundations of logical thought, reasoning and step by step problem solving will serve you in good stead afterwards. You are already using those, so a little refinement will go down as a very good addition as well.

[tggzzz]

Funny thing is the maths rarely is used by itself,

I used it repeatedly for the first 15-20 years of my commercial engineering career. That included s-plane analysis, z-plane analysis, autocorrelation coding, noise analysis, queueing theory, RF propagation and modulation, CSP, and probably some other things that have slipped my mind.

Fortunately it was rarely necessary for me to go back to first principles - often I could rely on the pictorial shortcuts derived from the fundamental maths.

I acknowledge that many people manage to use intuition that derives from the maths.

But I really don't see how you can do novel engineering without the maths background.

[SeanB]

As I said, the maths is rarely used by itself, but as part of another part of design. You always apply it, but almost never just use it on it's own. However, knowing how it works to some degree is very important though.

[tggzzz]

As I said, the maths is rarely used by itself, but as part of another part of design. You always apply it, but almost never just use it on it's own.

I'm sorry, I really don't understand what you mean. Unless you're thinking of the completely artificial and pointless distinction between pure maths and applied maths.
 

However, knowing how it works to some degree is very important though.

As someone once said, the best maths is the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles. But you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

Example -1=1, without misuse of zeros, and in an example which can foul up frequency domain analysis of electronic circuits:
1: sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1)
2: therefore sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
3: therefore sqrt(-1)/sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)
4: therefore sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1) = sqrt(1)*sqrt(1)
5: therefore -1 = 1
QED

Almost everybody can correctly determine that the error is going from 2 to 3, but they can't say what the error is. I've only come across one person who could give the reason.

[mrflibble]

exp(i*pi/n) != exp(-i*pi/n) where for the boring regular square root n=2.

As always, when in doubt just plonk it in Euler form.

[Aeon]

So? Are electronics hobbyists useless? Other than observing the threadspace increase of this thread I haven't read it all. Has a concensus view been established?

The title was only designed to be provocative and get people to watch, it wasn't a genuine question.
The real question was whether or not I was asking too much of someone with hobbyist or student/hobby skills, and the resounding answer is no, I was not asking too much.
But of course the question was rhetorical because I already knew the answer anyway 

You ask for all the skills I have. Unfortunately I dont live in Australia , therefore I dont apply for the job. If someone is doing electronics for a couple of years that are skills that come naturaly because you need them in electronics.  

[tggzzz]

exp(i*pi/n) != exp(-i*pi/n) where for the boring regular square root n=2.

As always, when in doubt just plonk it in Euler form.

But what exactly is the error between 2 and 3? Casting the problem in another form isn't an answer

The reason for phrasing the problem in the way I did is that I've seen it bite people when doing standard s-plane algebra for frequency domain analysis.

Yes, I fully acknowledge that re-casting the problem is often a very good way of making solid progress! But you have to notice the problem before you can begin to think of recasting it - and that's the relevance to this thread.

[mrflibble]

I will just await the puzzle solution du jour.

[free_electron]

As I said, the maths is rarely used by itself, but as part of another part of design. You always apply it, but almost never just use it on it's own.

I'm sorry, I really don't understand what you mean. Unless you're thinking of the completely artificial and pointless distinction between pure maths and applied maths.
 

However, knowing how it works to some degree is very important though.

As someone once said, the best maths is the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles. But you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

Example -1=1, without misuse of zeros, and in an example which can foul up frequency domain analysis of electronic circuits:
1: sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1)
2: therefore sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
3: therefore sqrt(-1)/sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)
4: therefore sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1) = sqrt(1)*sqrt(1)
5: therefore -1 = 1
QED

Almost everybody can correctly determine that the error is going from 2 to 3, but they can't say what the error is. I've only come across one person who could give the reason.

proof that math can prove anything. which is why i stay away from it ...  the circuit on the bench does not lie. no matter what the maths say.

[tggzzz]

proof that math can prove anything. which is why i stay away from it ...  the circuit on the bench does not lie. no matter what the maths say.

It proves nothing of the sort. The "math" is wrong, i.e. it is not mathematics.

Besides, yes, circuits on the bench do lie, frequently! For examples, you only have to look at other threads in this forum.

[miguelvp]

proof that math can prove anything. which is why i stay away from it ...  the circuit on the bench does not lie. no matter what the maths say.

It proves nothing of the sort. The "math" is wrong, i.e. it is not mathematics.

Besides, yes, circuits on the bench do lie, frequently! For examples, you only have to look at other threads in this forum.

It only proofs Mathematical fallacy

On top of that:
sqrt(a/b) is not always equal to sqrt(a)/sqrt(b)
sqrt(-1) is not a real number is an imaginary one.
finally sqrt have two answers.

[free_electron]

Besides, yes, circuits on the bench do lie

nope. they do exactly what the laws of physics dictate. that may not be what you intended , but the error is on your side, not on the circuits side !

[mrflibble]

sqrt(-1) is not a real number is an imaginary one.
finally sqrt have two answers.

That's why I usually decline to participate in little math puzzles like this. My original reply was going to be that the problem was the problem definition. But oh well, let's cut tggzzz some slack, and let us just assume (uh oh) that on an EE forum the socially acceptable solution space for sqrt(-1) is going to be the complex plane. And in that case there are indeed two solutions as you say. But if a problem neatly leaves such details as solution space undefined, well then you can use anything that is valid. And in that case there's a few more than 2 solutions. If you use quaternions that's 6 solutions already: +/- i, +/- j, +/- k. And if you use octonions there still more, which I'm not going to list here. If only because those octonion bastards are non-associative and it's too early in the afternoon for that. But as luck would have it no matter what space you pick, it all fails on an inequality similar to the one posted earlier.

Now how the hell did we get from the OP to this?

[SeanB]

Only took 17 pages though to get totally derailed and off somewhere down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Does a knitted penguin come close to being a white rabbit here?

[Simon]

Only took 17 pages though to get totally derailed and off somewhere down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Does a knitted penguin come close to being a white rabbit here?

Most topics either derail after three pages or keep saying the same things over and over. Take the F TDI discussion I think it ran for over 100 pages but if you take every three you will find that they fully discuss the issue and then it gets repeated another 33+ times.

[Simon]

And if you're wondering where I am at with my maths Teeside University who are providing the HNC course very wisely said that they would like me to have a level III in mathematics or a level III in another technical subject would mean I would also have a level III in mathematics and that if I did not I would have to complete the bridging module they provide.

So I am currently studying at home to ring binders of level III maths. It's not been as bad as I thought but I'm still not sure I would be able to complete a blind test, the more reassuring exercises are those where I can put my answer back into the original equation and verify which I suppose you can do with all of them although it's definitely an accepted method for the more complicated things like simultaneous equations.

[rs20]

proof that math can prove anything. which is why i stay away from it ...  the circuit on the bench does not lie. no matter what the maths say.

Correction: proof that fallacious proofs can prove anything. Which is why I stay away from fallacious proofs, by understanding and rigorously applying maths.

[jaxbird]

proof that math can prove anything. which is why i stay away from it ...  the circuit on the bench does not lie. no matter what the maths say.

That is a ridiculous statement from an otherwise intelligent person. Surely using literally measuring sticks is not what got us to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Math and our basic, but evolving, understanding of the laws of the universe are the primary tools to bring us forwards as a species. Not trial and error using crude lengths of strings, sticks and stones, we left those behind thousands of years ago.

[Simon]

Maths is the underlying system that keeps everything working and explains how it works. The problem is that often the way to go about solving an equation can be a little elusive as plenty of options look like the correct one but bring about totally the wrong result and hence it is easy to prove anything with maths if you go about it the wrong way. If you are using these mistaken methods to demonstrate a so-called truth to somebody who is not very well up on maths I could be one of those, you would easily demonstrate something which is completely untrue. A proper understanding of maths will see you through.

The problem we have with today's society is that people think that just because they can use a smart phone and that a smart phone exists they are as great as the guy who made it and they don't need to know anything else. Fact is that in this society where most people do not have to work out very much for themselves because of the technology we have people are becoming more ignorant again as they are given tools they do not understand the workings of but they can used to produce a result. Therefore they do not understand their own lack of skill or care because what most people care about is the result not their skills. This is why rigourous qualifications are important and not some of the mamby pamby shit that is handed out by privatised education companies like ICS learn.

[idpromnut]

I was always under the impression that engineering was an practical domain. You can create delightful constructs using mathematics that may be impossible to actually build (for the moment). I think that is the reason to appreciate math, use it as the tool it is, but not to rely on it solely. Like all models, the practical usefulness of an equation is only as good as our ability to validate it against the real world.

[Simon]

And until you get into stupidly complex maths most of it is very relevant and needed. I have found that I have hit the limit point where I can rely on rules of thumb and I am now having to study a lots of maths that I should have already learned many years ago in order to learn all of the theory of electronics that I would like to know. Understanding a circuit topology includes understanding the maths that explains how the components interact. For example a switch mode power supply, you can build one with rules of thumb you can get controller chips off the shelf and follow the form and has already worked out for you, or you can have a thorough understanding of how each component in the circuit works and be capable of designing your own from scratch but you won't do that without maths.

For most practical applications off-the-shelf switch mode power supply chips are just fine and so we can all get by by simply following the formula given on the datasheet which are a derivative of more complicated calculations that are simplified for the end user under certain circumstances. But as soon as you will need to design yourself something a bit peculiar and bespoke you will then find you are totally on your own and you will probably need a decent level of maths to work out your circuit.

[tggzzz]

As someone once said, the best maths is the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles. But you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

Example -1=1, without misuse of zeros, and in an example which can foul up frequency domain analysis of electronic circuits:
1: sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1)
2: therefore sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
3: therefore sqrt(-1)/sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)
4: therefore sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1) = sqrt(1)*sqrt(1)
5: therefore -1 = 1
QED

Almost everybody can correctly determine that the error is going from 2 to 3, but they can't say what the error is. I've only come across one person who could give the reason.

Back before Christsmas I had PMs requesting that I show the error. Given the difficulty of formatting maths on this forum, it will be difficult, but I'll do my best.

Firstly, as any fule knos, "i" represents current, so I'll use the traditional "j" to be sqrt(-1), and I'll use "w" instead of omega=2*pi*f. Secondly, this kind of manipulation can arise when doing frequency domain analysis of circuits, where term such as ¹/_(R+jwL) are common. Thirdly, I'll note that MrFlibble's comment about using the Euler form is equivalent to using the complex conjugate described below.

The key is recognising that a full representation of a complex number is a+jb, and that sqrt(-1) is a special case when a=0 and b=1.

If we want to "get rid of the complex denominator" / "move the j to the top line" in ¹/_(a+jb) we have to multiply top and bottom by the complex conjugate (a-jb).
(¹/_(a+jb))*(^(a-jb)/_(a-jb))

Multiplying out the numerator and denominator gives
^(a-jb)/_{(a²-jab+jab+b²)}
or
^(a-jb)/_(a²+b²)

Now for the special case where a=0 and b=1, we can see that ¹/_j = ^-j/₁ , and that's why
sqrt(1/-1) != sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)

And that's why despite "the best maths being the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles", you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

I hope that's all legible

[jpb]

As someone once said, the best maths is the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles. But you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

Example -1=1, without misuse of zeros, and in an example which can foul up frequency domain analysis of electronic circuits:
1: sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1)
2: therefore sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
3: therefore sqrt(-1)/sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)
4: therefore sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1) = sqrt(1)*sqrt(1)
5: therefore -1 = 1
QED

Almost everybody can correctly determine that the error is going from 2 to 3, but they can't say what the error is. I've only come across one person who could give the reason.

Back before Christsmas I had PMs requesting that I show the error. Given the difficulty of formatting maths on this forum, it will be difficult, but I'll do my best.

Firstly, as any fule knos, "i" represents current, so I'll use the traditional "j" to be sqrt(-1), and I'll use "w" instead of omega=2*pi*f. Secondly, this kind of manipulation can arise when doing frequency domain analysis of circuits, where term such as ¹/_(R+jwL) are common. Thirdly, I'll note that MrFlibble's comment about using the Euler form is equivalent to using the complex conjugate described below.

The key is recognising that a full representation of a complex number is a+jb, and that sqrt(-1) is a special case when a=0 and b=1.

If we want to "get rid of the complex denominator" / "move the j to the top line" in ¹/_(a+jb) we have to multiply top and bottom by the complex conjugate (a-jb).
(¹/_(a+jb))*(^(a-jb)/_(a-jb))

Multiplying out the numerator and denominator gives
^(a-jb)/_{(a²-jab+jab+b²)}
or
^(a-jb)/_(a²+b²)

Now for the special case where a=0 and b=1, we can see that ¹/_j = ^-j/₁ , and that's why
sqrt(1/-1) != sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)

And that's why despite "the best maths being the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles", you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

I hope that's all legible

You don't need to resort to anything so extensive. The simple fact is that the sqrt(1) is +/-1 so you could just put
sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)
therefore -1 = +1 as they are both the sqrt(1). Of course the convention is to take the positive root but the problem illustrates what goes wrong if you misapply this.
You're essentially finding the root(s) of the quadratic x^2-1=0 and there are two roots and similarly for x^2+1=0. Doing this twice and choosing different roots each time is bound to lead to inconsistencies.

[Simon]

The misuse of math or other very factual system has long been misused to "prove" various scams 

[tggzzz]

As someone once said, the best maths is the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles. But you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

Example -1=1, without misuse of zeros, and in an example which can foul up frequency domain analysis of electronic circuits:
1: sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1)
2: therefore sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
3: therefore sqrt(-1)/sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)
4: therefore sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1) = sqrt(1)*sqrt(1)
5: therefore -1 = 1
QED

Almost everybody can correctly determine that the error is going from 2 to 3, but they can't say what the error is. I've only come across one person who could give the reason.

Back before Christsmas I had PMs requesting that I show the error. Given the difficulty of formatting maths on this forum, it will be difficult, but I'll do my best.

Firstly, as any fule knos, "i" represents current, so I'll use the traditional "j" to be sqrt(-1), and I'll use "w" instead of omega=2*pi*f. Secondly, this kind of manipulation can arise when doing frequency domain analysis of circuits, where term such as ¹/_(R+jwL) are common. Thirdly, I'll note that MrFlibble's comment about using the Euler form is equivalent to using the complex conjugate described below.

The key is recognising that a full representation of a complex number is a+jb, and that sqrt(-1) is a special case when a=0 and b=1.

If we want to "get rid of the complex denominator" / "move the j to the top line" in ¹/_(a+jb) we have to multiply top and bottom by the complex conjugate (a-jb).
(¹/_(a+jb))*(^(a-jb)/_(a-jb))

Multiplying out the numerator and denominator gives
^(a-jb)/_{(a²-jab+jab+b²)}
or
^(a-jb)/_(a²+b²)

Now for the special case where a=0 and b=1, we can see that ¹/_j = ^-j/₁ , and that's why
sqrt(1/-1) != sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)

And that's why despite "the best maths being the maths you can use without reverting to deriving everything from first principles", you need to understand the first principles so you don't violate them.

I hope that's all legible

You don't need to resort to anything so extensive. The simple fact is that the sqrt(1) is +/-1 so you could just put
sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)
therefore -1 = +1 as they are both the sqrt(1).

No.

While true, that neither explains the problem/solution nor illuminates the way in which it bites in s-plane (frequency domain) analysis. I refer you to my hint concerning ¹/_(R+jwL) for an example of the latter.

[tggzzz]

The misuse of math or other very factual system has long been misused to "prove" various scams 

The issue of scams is a red herring.

The fallacious maths I have indicated occurs accidentally without malevolent intent, in real-life engineering situations. Root cause: carelessness and/or not understanding the fundamentals.

[Richard Crowley]

The misuse of math or other very factual system has long been misused to "prove" various scams 

You mean like the "30 second recharging Rechargeable Battery"?   

[jpb]

No.

While true, that neither explains the problem/solution nor illuminates the way in which it bites in s-plane (frequency domain) analysis. I refer you to my hint concerning ¹/_(R+jwL) for an example of the latter.

It still seems to me to be a case of carelessness when taking roots, particularly of complex numbers.
A similar case would be:
(-1)*(-1) = 1
sqrt((-1)*(-1)) = sqrt(1)
sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1) = sqrt(1)
j*j = 1
-1 = 1

Perhaps I've never come across it as a real problem because in most analysis you tend to only take square roots of real results such as the modulus squared of the complex result to get the magnitude. I'm not sure under what circumstances it is necessary to take complex roots in circuit analysis. Such a + b(jw) analysis is  generally used in linear analysis of circuits and having a root function would be nonlinear.

[tggzzz]

I'm not sure under what circumstances it is necessary to take complex roots in circuit analysis. Such a + b(jw) analysis is  generally used in linear analysis of circuits and having a root function would be nonlinear.

No, it isn't necessary.

In circuit analysis such errors can occur during simple rearrangement of terms in linear equations.

[bbogita]

In my own case.  I was an EE student but switched to CompSci my SENIOR year.   It was the mid 80's and I simply decided that I liked all the new exciting computer stuff more.  I don't regret that decision, the 80s, 90s, and first decade of the 2000's were exciting times in IT and provided a very interesting career.

So, while I am not an EE, I ended up an IT professional for the last 20 years, but it was my original interest, and it and ham radio have made it my hobby.  I don't remember everything from school, and lots of it is not all that up to day anyway probably, but it certainly provided a very good 'base' for my hobby electronics experimentation.  In my hobby level electronics I am pretty sure I would fit your skills myself and I have never worked a single day as an EE or with electronics professionally, its all been an IT career for me.

For many people computer stuff is a hobby, for me at the skill level I have now, its almost too easy to do nearly anything IT related and it has become just a "job" that I don't want to do at home as well as work.  So ham radio and electronics provide that same mental stimulation and challenge that computers used to provide me when I was young.

I do believe your best bet to find someone that would fit WOULD be either a hobbyist or maybe a retired EE who used to be technical but at some point got into mgmt, sales, consulting etc, but still has a love of electronics and would enjoy doing it again.

Frankly, I think you should have "Advanced Amateur Radio License" as a job requirement.

If you want a group of non-EE professionals who have serious electronics skills, hang around ham radio people.

Haha, I smiled when I read this I applied for the job and I have been slightly worried about my qualifications. (I think I have them, but then ofc everyone thinks they have everything) Now I feel much better knowing people value ham licensees. BTW, if you ever feel like talking some time (I assume you're a ham) I'm KM4GPL and the 2m band rocks

[Alexei.Polkhanov]

I think North American education dramatically misses out somewhere on teaching math to kids when they are young or something. I found that number of people (engineers, programmers, accountants) that are scared of math among North Americans are drastically higher than let's say among Indians, Chinese or those who get Soviet education or those who went to school in  Europe. I must say they usually catch up when they go to university but they go through so much pain and fear never goes away. It is like they had this drastic experience of drowning in backyard pool when they were kids and even though they can swim now fear is always with them.

Going back to reality vs mathematical abstraction - there is famous quote of Richard Freymann: 

"physics is to mathematics as sex is to masturbation"

[AlfBaz]

Now for the special case where a=0 and b=1, we can see that ¹/_j = ^-j/₁ , and that's why
sqrt(1/-1) != sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)

I don't get it, namely because I'm a hobbyist
Isn't

The same as

Which seems to be a standard convention as shown in this snippet here from Wikipedia on complex impedance and also in various text books

[Rory]

I think North American education dramatically misses out somewhere on teaching math to kids when they are young or something. I found that number of people (engineers, programmers, accountants) that are scared of math among North Americans are drastically higher than let's say among Indians, Chinese or those who get Soviet education or those who went to school in  Europe. I must say they usually catch up when they go to university but they go through so much pain and fear never goes away. It is like they had this drastic experience of drowning in backyard pool when they were kids and even though they can swim now fear is always with them.

Going back to reality vs mathematical abstraction - there is famous quote of Richard Freymann: 

"physics is to mathematics as sex is to masturbation"

There has been a shift in priorities over the past 40 years away from numeracy and literacy (the 3 R's) and toward teamwork, "problem solving" and interpersonal skills as desired by employers.

In other words, they don't care if Jack can't add or subtract, read or write (since that can be done with hardware these days...) but must play well with others, do as he is told and follow the leader.

Interesting article here:
http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2015/01/your-fathers-mathematics-teaching-no.html

[Simon]

I think North American education dramatically misses out somewhere on teaching math to kids when they are young or something. I found that number of people (engineers, programmers, accountants) that are scared of math among North Americans are drastically higher than let's say among Indians, Chinese or those who get Soviet education or those who went to school in  Europe. I must say they usually catch up when they go to university but they go through so much pain and fear never goes away. It is like they had this drastic experience of drowning in backyard pool when they were kids and even though they can swim now fear is always with them.

Going back to reality vs mathematical abstraction - there is famous quote of Richard Freymann: 

"physics is to mathematics as sex is to masturbation"

There has been a shift in priorities over the past 40 years away from numeracy and literacy (the 3 R's) and toward teamwork, "problem solving" and interpersonal skills as desired by employers.

In other words, they don't care if Jack can't add or subtract, read or write (since that can be done with hardware these days...) but must play well with others, do as he is told and follow the leader.

Interesting article here:
http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2015/01/your-fathers-mathematics-teaching-no.html

The bottom line is that the so-called developed world brings its children up to be lazy. Asian children are probably being taught harder subjects at a younger age because they live in a competitive society that knows that it has to compete with the rest of the world so they do just that whilst America and Europe sits on their laurels and think they are perfect.

Every time I see a schoolkid walking down the road I have to cringe. Why do we need to dress our schoolchildren in the UK up like future office workers. What is the matter with proper jobs? As soon as somebody gets a desk they think they are better than other people. In the UK we keep watering down our education standards to make it look like the children we are telling to take it easy can look better and better. Fact is any child brought up in Asia could probably knock the socks off of any UK child in adult life. Yes we have these buzzwords these days like teamwork, networking and interpersonal skills. These are all things which children would learn through play, oh yes of course they don't play any more they spend all day in front of a television or a videogame or bloddy Facebook! Because nobody likes to interact and now we have to teach children how to interact rather than maths apparently. The first step to being a good team player is knowing what you are damn well doing. You can have the greatest interpersonal skills on earth if you cannot do the job you are paid to do you are a pointless piece of shit. I sit opposite a guy at work who can talk for hours and get on great with anybody but when it comes to doing work or developing a new idea he's a hapless useless idiot.

Everybody these days wants to get into sales because it easy doesn't really require any work just to gift of the gab. It is time we stopped putting our children and in fact anybody on a pedestal. Life is tough get on with it or get out particularly if you want to take on fields like engineering. After all there are always jobs the people who don't want to learn the skills we need and those jobs are as important as those of engineers as well.

[SeanB]

Simon, you should see the SA education system. At best they are proud that they are going back to making the pass level 50%, as opposed to the one for the last few years of 30% being a pass, or you just get bumped up if you are not even at that level. Not helped by an education department that cannot even provide little things like schoolbooks, teachers, schools............. But they do have a nice fancy new central office suite for the top levels, and all are driving department supplied luxury 4x4 vehicles.

[Simon]

Simon, you should see the SA education system. At best they are proud that they are going back to making the pass level 50%, as opposed to the one for the last few years of 30% being a pass, or you just get bumped up if you are not even at that level. Not helped by an education department that cannot even provide little things like schoolbooks, teachers, schools............. But they do have a nice fancy new central office suite for the top levels, and all are driving department supplied luxury 4x4 vehicles.

The problem with teachers in the UK is that they never actually left school and have never seen the real world I had to work in it and have no idea, I actually make a point of not bothering to pursue teachers on dating websites if they have down that they are a teacher I just pass over the profile. It is because of failed education systems which are run by politicians who want to outdo each other on how many children pass without upsetting the children that is why I have no faith in a school system and value much more people who learn because they have a passion for the subject and do it as a hobby. When schools and universities function as independent companies that need to be profitable how the hell can we have a proper education system when schools and universities will be competing to get students in so that they can stay afloat financially so the most successful education institution is the one that passes the most students. This is not a recipe for good qualifications. Education is supposed to be an investment not a profit making business. That is why we all pay into the education system because if we were to have a country full of educated and clever people we would have a thriving economy and a better chance of not being misled by our politicians. For the political class it is convenient that people are lazy and easily pleased with a qualification they have not earned because it means they have not been taught to evaluate things properly and will be easily blinded by said politicians.

[DIPLover]

Somehow this situation reminded me of the BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell) episodes from way back when, and mostly of his "faithful" assistant, the PFY (Pimple Faced Youth).

I hope you can find a real, smelly, basement-dwelling, socially awkward, unsung genius and fashion him into the next electronics SuperHero.

That would be awesome.

[yym]

Dave, your expectation are way to high!

It is not that skilled hobbysts/engineers don't exist, they do, but they would never apply to your job offer.
You are basically offering a dead end job which doesn't pay much, and part of your job is to take out the rubbish.
(ok i get it that it is a joke, but still...)

In this field you can easily find a job, fresh students who barely have any skills are hired by the dozens (with good pay).
If you have half the skills you mentioned in your offer, you are hired on the spot.

Why would someone work for you when they can work in big companies, where they have a future, they offer internships, on the job trainings,
you can work with latest technologies, million dollar equipments etc, you can build your carrier there.

[yym]

A class diagram allows you to deconstruct the problem domain, see the connections, understand what is what. I've seen too much software that was written without the creator taking the time to understand all that.

IMNSHO experience, a class diagram is one of the least informative diagrams.

What is far more useful are:

• state diagrams, i.e. the Harel StateCharts. No, Mr NewGrad, FSMs aren't only usful for parsers
• interaction diagrams, i.e. the swimlanes. Especially useful in distributed systems, so that you can see overlapping processing
• and the name escapes me, but the diagram that shows which processing is done on which machine, and the communication mechanism
• proper use of parallelism design patterns, e.g. as embodied in Doug Lea's concurrency classes. No Mr NewGrad, you shouldn't be using wait(), notify(), synchronized, volatile

bitch please, HW guys discussing SW design topic, is like white people calling eachother niggas

[tggzzz]

A class diagram allows you to deconstruct the problem domain, see the connections, understand what is what. I've seen too much software that was written without the creator taking the time to understand all that.

IMNSHO experience, a class diagram is one of the least informative diagrams.

What is far more useful are:

• state diagrams, i.e. the Harel StateCharts. No, Mr NewGrad, FSMs aren't only usful for parsers
• interaction diagrams, i.e. the swimlanes. Especially useful in distributed systems, so that you can see overlapping processing
• and the name escapes me, but the diagram that shows which processing is done on which machine, and the communication mechanism
• proper use of parallelism design patterns, e.g. as embodied in Doug Lea's concurrency classes. No Mr NewGrad, you shouldn't be using wait(), notify(), synchronized, volatile

bitch please, HW guys discussing SW design topic, is like white people calling eachother niggas

Do you have a coherent point to make, or are you just trolling?

BTW, it might be wise to be a little more humble, just in case your unstated presumptions turn out to be completely inaccurate.

[Howardlong]

A class diagram allows you to deconstruct the problem domain, see the connections, understand what is what. I've seen too much software that was written without the creator taking the time to understand all that.

IMNSHO experience, a class diagram is one of the least informative diagrams.

What is far more useful are:

• state diagrams, i.e. the Harel StateCharts. No, Mr NewGrad, FSMs aren't only usful for parsers
• interaction diagrams, i.e. the swimlanes. Especially useful in distributed systems, so that you can see overlapping processing
• and the name escapes me, but the diagram that shows which processing is done on which machine, and the communication mechanism
• proper use of parallelism design patterns, e.g. as embodied in Doug Lea's concurrency classes. No Mr NewGrad, you shouldn't be using wait(), notify(), synchronized, volatile

bitch please, HW guys discussing SW design topic, is like white people calling eachother niggas

Do you have a coherent point to make, or are you just trolling?

BTW, it might be wise to be a little more humble, just in case your unstated presumptions turn out to be completely inaccurate.

Maybe his CV got rejected...

[Smokey]

I like it.  From now on I'm starting every post with....

Bitch please!

...Maybe his CV got rejected...

Ya he probably only had 20 years of industry experience and was under-qualified.... I kid.. I kid...

[AlfBaz]

Why would someone work for you when they can work in big companies, where they have a future, they offer internships, on the job trainings,
you can work with latest technologies, million dollar equipments etc, you can build your carrier there.

There are (or at the very least will be) an ever increasing number of eternal hobbyists in this country.

Diplomas or advanced diplomas are obtainable at tertiary education centres here called TAFE. The current plethora of state and federal conservative governments are slashing funding to these organisations so they have to increase their fees. The quality of teaching has dropped because their rates of pay have dropped, so most of the really good ones went back to industry and the subject matter has an ever increasing Occupational health and safety component.
As course costs increase, enrolments drop so the lack of numbers see a large number of elective subjects taken out of the curriculum, making courses less enticing

Add to this the situation where increasing concern of litigation in companies sees less uptake of experienced non-qualified people requiring someone in-charge assuming responsibility for their work, versus young inexperienced (and malleable) qualified students will see a lot of hobbyists never moving out of there own lab

[EEVblog]

Dave, your expectation are way to high!

Nope.

It is not that skilled hobbysts/engineers don't exist, they do, but they would never apply to your job offer.

The 70 or so applications I got says otherwise.

You are basically offering a dead end job which doesn't pay much

Actually it pays better than some equivalent jobs.

and part of your job is to take out the rubbish.

Yep, what's your point?

Why would someone work for you when they can work in big companies, where they have a future, they offer internships, on the job trainings,
you can work with latest technologies, million dollar equipments etc, you can build your carrier there.

Then go ahead and do that. Everyone is looking for something different, and I'm offering something different. Right for some, wrong for others. Judging by the number of very keen and often very well qualified and experienced people I got applying, it seems what I have to offer is appealing to many.

[Yago]

and part of your job is to take out the rubbish.

Yep, what's your point?

I missed that earlier.
That is part of what Simon and I briefly talked of earlier, the sense of entitlement in "youngsters" in UK.
Straight from education, and demand an office, private jet, PA, car etc.

It's good test to perform early, if you were "too good" to keep the workshop tidy (it is a safety thing too), you got fired.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

It's good test to perform early, if you were "too good" to keep the workshop tidy (it is a safety thing too), you got fired.

Then you might miss out on blokes like this.

[Yago]

Hey, not fare!
At that level rules don't apply, this is about new starts.

[mtdoc]

I'll bet neither Jim Williams nor Bob Pease would pass Dave's screening qualifications for an assistant. I doubt either of them ever laid hands on PCB cad software.

Yep, useless....

[Smokey]

Man, can Jim Williams write technical documents though.  Some of the best.

http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.com/

[jlmoon]

It's good test to perform early, if you were "too good" to keep the workshop tidy (it is a safety thing too), you got fired.

Then you might miss out on blokes like this.

That's just Einstein in another wrapper!   

[Dr. Frank]

AHA - there's action in the EEVBLOG lab, before 10 A.M., 2nd of March!

Therefore, we see support for Dave finally showing up..


Welcome!

Waiting for your personal presentation!

First thing todo: Cleaning up that mess!

Frank

[Seppy]

The clean up has commenced, started grouping items 

[TheNewLab]

Hey I know this is a late entry to this subject.
I say that electronics hobbyist does not have to be someone that will develop or invent something new. Some of us are simply curious. Some of us have absolutely no desire to be serious about electronics, or programming or anything related. We just do it as an escape from all the pressures from their actual job. I feel that I would rather explore something I really don't understand instead of watching the History Channel. What has always frustrated me with cars is  you always  get your hands dirty, and I really, really hate when I am underneath and a glob of old crusty oil drops into my eye.

Yes, I got the bug. I actually violated my personal pledge not to get any "serious" electronics tool or equipment. By my own personal rule, I REALLY screwed up by actually buying an actual legitimate desktop oscilloscope. Damn.

[vk3yedotcom]

The clean up has commenced, started grouping items 

Be careful. Clean-ups have a habit of stopping when you find an old magazine or book you just have to read, or a half-built project you get a sudden rush to finish.