| General > General Technical Chat |
| am i too "past it" to be an engineer? |
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| Berni:
Don't worry too much if you are not a mixed signal design graybeard. Quite often design engineers don't know what they are doing when they start working on a new project in a field they are not used to. But its not about knowing everything going into it, its about being able to figure out things that you need for the project. Sure you might not know how to make the 100V 2A sine pule that this doohickey needs to operate, but if you can sit down with a SPICE simulator for a day and cobble a working circuit together that's good enough. Its about knowing how to take a transistor or opamp and make it do the stuff you want, the rest is just a matter sticking stuff together in SPICE to figure out if it works well enough for the job. Its about being able to figure out the solution, not about knowing the solution from the start. You can learn what you need on the job as you need it. The difference to a fresh student being that a real engineer has the ability to find the info and learn the things they need on there own, but the fresh student might need a experienced engineer babysitting them and pointing them in the right direction. |
| coppice:
You need to be clear, both with yourself and with prospective employers, what you can offer and what you are prepared to accept. There are two big reasons why people who appear over qualified don't get interviewed. One is people expect the interview will be a waste of effort, as the candidate is unlikely to accept a junior job. The other is even if they do accept the job they won't stick around, and further recruitment will be necessary. So, what are you prepared to accept? Did you make that really clear in the interviews you had? --- Quote ---"Most of the positions I'm applying for are related to products, but I have no experience with the emissions testing etc, or mixed signal board design. " --- End quote --- Why would you even bring up your weaknesses, unless directly asked? Most engineers are utterly hopeless at good design for EMI, and doing EMI evaluation, but they still have jobs. Most people only do one type of design really well, and fudge everything else. Focus on what you can do. |
| Mr. Scram:
--- Quote from: vixo on March 16, 2020, 12:12:52 pm ---thanks everyone, there is some really good information here, and it's very encouraging to hear. I am being a little more candid with you all than I would in a job interview (I would for example not make any mention of my ill health for few years) and in general I don't seem to have a problem with CV writing, I can usually get interviews (for experienced positions, never for junior positions), but I feel uncomfortable faking it in person to people - for example, I have designed boards with both analogue and digital, but I would not be comfortable saying I had experience with mixed signal board design, because I realise that in almost every case the requirements on a commercial design are far more stringent than what I am designing. It's true that I could reveal less about the limits of my experience. In general, I like building kits, apart from being on my own all the time. I would be happy to stay doing this and to build bigger and better things, but I for some reason always assumed it wouldn't get me anywhere in the long run. It's interesting to hear people say otherwise --- End quote --- That's where you go wrong. You feel you're faking it while you actually have the experience. You just short sell it because of arbitrary standards you think the other sets but you actually set yourself. Meanwhile others are shining up their bits of pieces of experience and landing the jobs. You have everything you need except the confidence to sell it. I agree with tggzzz that you should work on also interviewing the company. They need to match you as well as the reverse. It's a two way street and learning what you don't like is an important part. Definitely also practice doing interviews as that's just another skill. Don't treat every one of them as the ultimate challenge but as an opportunity to learn and develop your skillset. It's only a job, not the rest of your life. |
| unknownparticle:
These days it's a case of fake it 'til you make it!! If you believe you can do a given job then just contrive your CV to suit what they want to hear. Put it this way, if Trump can be US president then anyone can do anything! Too old at 34, JHC, if thats the case then soon people will have a working life from 20-28 years old then they are on welfare!! Going back a few generations, it was the case that no one under 45-50 was considered to be experienced enough to do any important job, now we have early teen girls telling the world what it should be doing about the climate change scam!! Good grief!!! Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your career develpment. :-+ |
| rstofer:
A long time ago (circa '75?), Silicon Valley was in trouble as was the rest of the Bay Area including San Francisco. One of the first things that came up was the PhDs were unemployable - they were over-qualified. if you had a PhD, the best you could hope for was being a Taxi driver. Things were pretty grim for the best and brightest. You may laugh and joke about your PhD but it's a very high level qualification. In any event, the .gov changed the law so that PhDs could fail to disclose their higher education and it was all good as long as people didn't overstate it. Is there any possibility that your advanced degree is putting people off? |
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